Ward writes,

>Have very many other scientists ever tried to replicate the
>Pottenger's experiment?

I don't know of any.  It's hard to get funding for this sort of thing.
Doug?

>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.

We've already covered this in the M2M.  Housecats are not a controlled
population.  Whenever they get the chance, they supplement on mice,
birds, even grass.  Their diet is not 100% cooked usually, and that's
probably what's saving the species from extinction.

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

I don't know.

>Alcoholic beverages in the form of wine from treading on grapes were
>invented only around approx. 2,500 B.C. in the Middle East. [p.100
>Scarre, Chris (ed.) 1993 "Smithsonian Times of the Ancient World." New
>York:Dorling Kindersley]

I would be surprised if the discovery of fermentation and its psychogenic
properties did not precede this.  Science may not know the whole story
here.

Still, thanks for the well-documented data.

>other items like nuts, flowers, bark, and anything else that composes
> [snip]
>Why not throw these out too since they don't contribute
>that much volume-wise to the diet?

These do not have the physiological difficulties of digestion that meat
has, the metabolic waste products that flesh foods contain, the state of
decomposition in which they are typically eaten, the strong acid-forming
qualities, and so on.

Bob Avery ([log in to unmask])