Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition [Paperback]

Francis Marion Pottenger Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0916764060 | ISBN-13: 978-0916764067 | Edition: 2nd

A comparison of healthy cats on raw foods and those on heated diets. Behavioral characteristics, arthritis, sterility, skeletal deformities and allergies are some of the problems that are associated with the consumption of cooked foods.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book is a MUST read for anyone interested in nutrition especially for mothers, soon to be mothers, or even if you ever even plan on having a child. --Peggy Merritt

About the Author

Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, Jr. was an original thinker and keen observer whose imagination, integrity and common sense gave him the courage to question official dogma. Dedicated to the cause of preventing chronic illness, he made significant contributions to the understanding of the role of nutrition in maintaining good health.
In his classical experiments in cat feeding, more than 900 cats were studied over 10 years. Dr. Pottenger found that only diets containing raw milk and raw meat produced optimal health: good bone structure and density, wide palates with plenty of space for teeth, shiny fur, no parasites or disease, reproductive ease and gentleness.
Cooking the meat or substituting heat-processed milk for raw resulted in heterogeneous reproduction and physical degeneration, increasing with each generation. Vermin and parasites abounded. Skin diseases and allergies increased from 5% to over 90%. Bones became soft and pliable. Cats suffered from adverse personality changes, hypothyroidism and most of the degenerative diseases encountered in human medicine. They died out completely by the fourth generation.
The changes Pottenger observed in cats on the deficient diets paralleled the human degeneration that Dr. Price found in tribes that had abandoned traditional diets.

Product Details

• Paperback: 123 pages
• Publisher: Price Pottenger Nutrition; 2nd edition (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916764060
• ISBN-13: 978-0916764067
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

128 of 131 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stay healthy August 14, 2001

By EDWARD DARMOHRAY

Format:Paperback

Pottenger's Cats is a classic in the science of nutrition. Dr. Pottenger discovered quite by accident that cats degenerated unless they were fed raw food. In his 10-year study of 900 cats, he found the optimal diet for his cats was 2/3 raw meat and 1/3 raw milk plus a little cod liver oil. If either the meat or the milk was cooked, the cats degenerated. And if both were cooked, the degeneration was much worse, and the cats could no longer reproduce by the third generation.

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. Read more ›

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening April 23, 2010

By Dr. LC

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book! Highly recommended May 14, 2008

By Sandra

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Only for cats, not for humans January 25, 2010

By Tom B

Format:Paperback

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 [...] 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 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eat what you where meant to eat. May 17, 2011

By Marchant Training Method

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This study done on cats provides much insight, for how we as humans should eat. Yes cats are different than humans, as some have already pointed out to us all. What is important, are the lessons that we can take away: Eat what you as a bio-chemically unique creature need to, for optimal health. Cats, as all living things, were created to eat specific things while living wild in nature. Man, too, was created to eat specific things based upon his/her genetics, location on earth, and the season of the year.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars In support of raw diets for cats (and dogs) August 31, 2010

By EmmaGH

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars generations March 27, 2012

By lr Snare

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

what is interesting to me is that all the reviewers focused on specifics of the diet (raw vs. cooked). the real story is the generational impact of a deficient diet. arguing about taurine deficiency is really not the point and doesn't discredit the study.today the research focus is on genetics which i'm sure plays a role, but that some apparent genetic disorders could be accounted for by generational nutritional deprivation needs to be explored. it wouldn't be the first time a nutrional deficiency was mistaken for a hereditary one.whether or not people need to eat raw foods or taurine is not the take home message. what we eat, if it is nutritionally deficient, can affect our health and potentially the health of our children and grandchildren. that is huge!