> --Jean-Louis Tu <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> It's true that our infertility rate is increasing, but remember that the earth is populated (crowded) with 6 billion cooked food-eating humans; that women in some African countries have 8 children or more, despite a cooked and nutritionally deficient diet; that most humans have been eating cooked for at least 1000 generations; abortion and contraception are quite widespread.

In conclusion, I don't think we are eating ourselves to extinction, but
rather polluting, "nuking", etc. ourselves to extinction.


Christopher:

I was not clear in my original post.  Sally is not saying that humans
can't eat some or even a lot of cooked food and not reproduce.  She is
saying that cats have not had any real evolutionary experience with
cooked food, and that humans have not had any evolutionary experience
with -refined- foods.  So we are three generations out on a refined diet
and reaping the consequences.  People of the third world may have less
experience on refined foods than we in the "first world," incidentally.

Another point I should clarify is that even after a couple generations
on refined foods we may be able to have a bunch of kids, but that if we
don't eat special foods for pre-pregnancy and lactation, we get kids
with progressively narrower faces, more crowded teeth, dental problems
and poor health and physical development.  Price found this in every
culture he studied.  Fortunately this can be reversed by supplying the
rich foods we are genetically predisposed to.  Sally is saying, most
importantly, that just being able to reproduce is not the goal, but
realizing our genetic potential is.  And diet, while being one part of
the picture, is a very important one.

I do agree that we are polluting, nuking, and otherwise destroying
ourselves in a number of gnarly ways, but the refined foods are a big
piece of this.


> Secola  /\  Nieft [log in to unmask] wrote [regarding Pottenger's work]:

I have read it several times (the first time with the usual eureka
delight) and in each reading it seems more and more preposterous--so
that now I am simply cautiously ambivilent about the work. Until the
"study" is repeated with modern experimental rigor I am personally quite
wary of basing a worldview on it. And if it _is_ repeated I would put
much more stock in the research if it uses an degenerated omnivore like
a pig instead of a cat--at least if we are going to generalize to
humans, the ultimate degenerated omnivore. ;)


Christopher:

It is mind-blowing to me that this research has not been attempted again
in a hundred different experiments.  As Joseph Chilton Pearce has
written 'The physicist would never ignore the quasar....'  Yet
scientists ignore work with such incredible implications.  Why?  I'm
sure the gigantic food processing industry, the current dairy industry,
and any number of others would like to see the research buried, and
certainly not reproduced.

I lost the authors of these quotes somehow (sorry!):

<<  Also, as a small farmer, I must say that the story about the
degeneration
of the *beans* grown on soil fertilized with dung from the cooked-food
cats
struck me like a thunderbolt.  This observation, also incidental, should
be studied
by every ag student. >>

I did an experiment with 100% raw vs cooked compost last year and was
very
happy with the raw results.

Christopher:

There is so much to learn though our own experiments on these subjects.
Thanks for sharing - would love to hear about any findings of others....

To Rex:  Sure you can post to Rawtimes.  I don't have the time at the
moment.  Thanks!

Christopher