Some of the problems Pottenger found in the cats fed cooked food were: heart problems; nearsightedness and farsightedness; underactivity and inflammation of the thyroid; infections of the kidney, liver, testes, ovaries and bladder; arthritis and inflammation of the joints; inflammation of the nervous system with paralysis and meningitis. And in the third generation, some of the cats' bones became as soft as rubber. Lung problems, and bronchitis and pneumonia were also frequent. Moreover, the females became irritable and even dangerous, and the males became passive and lacked sex interest.

Do many of these conditions sound familiar? Pottenger, of course, realized that his cat studies didn't apply entirely to humans. He believed nonetheless that his findings for cats did have relevance for humans, and in his sanitarium he fed his patients much raw food, with considerable success. Weston A. Price reported in his book, "Nourishing Traditions" that all of the people's he studied worldwide included much raw food in their traditional diets and were almost entirely free of the degenerative diseases that are rampant in our junk food society, such as tooth decay, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, digestive disturbances,etc.

If you want to stay healthy, you owe it to yourself to read both Pottenger and Price. Their eye opening photographs alone will make clear to you that you need optimum nutrition if you want to be optimally healthy.

15 of 16 found the following review helpful:

Excellent book! Highly recommended  May 14, 2008
By S. Lee
Pottenger's nutrition studies of cats clearly indicate the importance of quality nutrition. They also help understand why people in our society have such problems with poor health, given the poor quality food that they consume. The book is relatively easily understandable, as long as you don't put extensive effort into trying to understand the content of the tables of data.

10 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Eye opening  Apr 23, 2010
By Dr. LC
While the study on cats is depressing (as a cat lover) I found it eye opening. It is more heart breaking because this is exactly what we have done to ourselves. We are literally starving our bodies and are falling apart. As our bodies fall apart, the medical community continues to label new diseases...so much so that a new set of diagnosis codes has to be created just to handle them and the ones they know will come in the future. As a doctor, I have seen people improve just by improving what they put in their mouths. Changing our diets to more whole foods...REAL food...makes a BIG difference! If you want to see what we are doing to ourselves and our children, this is the perfect place to start reading. Then...do something about it!

21 of 26 found the following review helpful:

Only for cats, not for humans  Jan 26, 2010
By Tom B
Careful, the nutritional information in this book tells us only about a cat's diet, not a human's diet. Pottenger conducted these studies in the 1930s. It was not known at that time that the amino acid taurine was an essential nutrient in the diet of a cat. Search for the word taurine in his book and you will not find it. By cooking the meat scraps, Pottenger destroyed the taurine. His cats therefore suffered from, and exhibited all the marks of taurine deficiency. Taurine is not one of the essential amino acids for humans, because our body can manufacture it. There is hardly any taurine in milk or cod liver oil. For more information please refer to http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-1h.shtml. It is possible for modern cat food makers to offer canned (cooked) food and add taurine to it. As to whether or not raw meat is better for cats, I don't know, but it is a subject I am very much interested in, as it certainly seems plausible.

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

In support of raw diets for cats (and dogs)  Aug 31, 2010
By EmmaGH
This book describes the most extensive study of nutrition for cats ever undertaken. Unlike AAFCO testing (noted on pet food packages) which lasts only a few weeks on a small number of animals, Pottenger compared raw diets to cooked diets fed to hundreds of cats for many years. The raw-fed animals thrived. This could (should) be an eye-opener for anyone heading to the grocery store for a bag of kibble.

Easy to understand and most informative.

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