>>In the Pottenger study, all the cooked food cats became sterile by
>>the third(?) generation.  No adaptation took place.

>Have very many other scientists ever tried to replicate the
>Pottenger's experiment? Seriously, if it's really valid, I have always
>wondered how there must be thousands if not millions of house cats
>survive on store-bought cat chow for generation after generation.
>Would there not be some sort of "cooking" involved in making that
>stuff? If not, you could still hardly call it raw, as it is
>significantly processed.

Indoor cats are usually spaded & neutered, and if not they usually do
not have much of a social life that would lead to any reproductive
activities anyway, so that leaves us with outdoor cats who supplement
their diet with some RAF; in fact to such a degree that the bird
population in the American suburbs is dwindling rapidly, which is why
all outdoor cats should wear little bells.
As for cats that are bred, maybe the quality of the foods they are
given is so high that it rules out degenerative diseases.
Bruno Comby in his January talk earlier this year made a point about
how many pet foods were not heated.  When I get a copy of the tapes
from the workshop I will find the passage and report my findings.
Unless Zephyr or Deborah in the meantime remember what I am talking
about?

>One study does not "science" make. Has the Pottenger study ever been
>peer-reviewed or replicated widely?

No, it has not and this should be beared in mind.

>"Unless we ate a lot of it, we don't
>really need it" doesn't seem like very firm logic to me.

Exactly, and what sticks out like a sore thumb is this drive to throw
even the most rudimentary logic overboard and move into a world of
make-believe & fantasy regarding our nutritional needs, past or
present. We have all been victims of this kind of intellectual
bankruptcy, and how painful it may be, with the new millennium
approaching, I think it is time we leave these dark Middle Ages of
nutrition behind us.


>Peter said (about the teeth microwear studies):
>>In your references are they specific about what fruits are the
>mainstay of the chimp diet?

Sorry, I was not clear. I meant what specific fruits do the chimps eat
in the jungles today and in what proportions? If you do not know maybe
you have an idea of where I could find this kind of info?

>Since you were referring to the microwear studies, I am assuming you
>meant to ask if specific fruits could be identified that were the
>mainstay of ancient hominids 2-3-4 million years ago like
>australopithecus and homo habilis.  Unfortunately, no. Microwear
>reveals basic *types* of food in terms of the "wear"
>characteristics--such as wear from broad classes such
>as fruits, flesh, fibrous plant matter, grass, bone, etc.,, but as far
>as I know, microwear cannot indicate specific species of fruits and so
>forth.

I believe that microwear studies would give a rough indication of how
big a part soft (=sweet) fruits like durians & cherimoyas played in the
diet of our early ancestors. Do you happen to know how big this part
was?

Best, Peter
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