Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition
by Francis M. Pottenger (www.amazon.com)
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.
> Although nutritionists encourage consumption of raw fruits and vegetables,
> there is no scientific justification for consumption of raw food diets.
> These are characterized by cooking as little food as possible. Remember
that
> cooking serves several useful purposes. It sterilizes food by killing
> harmful bacteria that are naturally found on many foods.
Might try and find the video by Dr. Day, "Germs don't cause disease,"
or the book, The Curse of Louis Pasteur, by Nancy Appelton.
> It denatures
> proteins; that is, the three- dimensional structure is broken down to
> improve digestion and makes some proteins (common is beans, seeds, and
> sprouts) nontoxic. It makes foods softer to chew and digest.
I highly recommend reading Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell. I made
some notes from it when I did, and here are some of the more interesting
paragraphs from the book. This is by no means all the good
stuff, either. Overall, the book is worth the money and is available from
Amazon.com for a very reasonable price -- Jay
* Enzyme Nutrition points out that each one of us is given a limited supply
of bodily enzyme energy at birth. This supply, like the energy supply in
your new battery, has to last a lifetime. The faster you use up your enzyme
supply, the shorter your life. A great deal of enzyme energy is wasted
haphazardly throughout life. The habit of cooking our food and eating it
processed with chemicals; and the use of alcohol, drugs, and junk food all
draw out tremendous quantities of enzymes from our limited supply. -- Enzyme
Nutrition, Introduction by Stephen Blauer (author, lecturer, researcher, and
former Director of the Hippocrates Health Institute)
* The heat used in cooking destroys all food enzymes and forces the organism
to produce more enzymes, thus enlarging digestive organs, especially the
pancreas. When an excessive amount of digestive enzymes is made, the enzyme
potential may be unable to produce an adequate quantity of metabolic enzymes
to repair body organs and fight disease. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward
Howell. p. 4
* The old saying that nature will cure really refers to metabolic enzyme
activity, because there is no other mechanism in the body to cure
anything. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell. p. 5
* When dogs and cats eat their natural raw, carnivorous diet, there are no
enzymes in the saliva. But when dogs are fed on a high carbohydrate,
heat-treated diet, enzymes show up in the saliva within about a week,
obeying the Law of Adaptive Secretion of Digestive Enzymes. -- Enzyme
Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell. p. 7
* ... We are only half sick. What poses as good health today has been aptly
termed by one doctor as "pregnant ill-health," or the absence of symptoms.
Good health as we know it is in reality a prolonged incubation period for a
variety of killer and intractable diseases. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr.
Edward Howell. p. 16
* All uncooked foods contain an abundance of food enzymes which correspond
to the nutritional highlights of the food. For example, dairy foods, oils,
seeds, and nuts, which are relatively high in fat content, also contain
relatively higher concentrations of the enzyme lipase which aids in the
digestion of their fats. Carbohydrates, such as grains, contain higher
concentrations of amylase and lesser amounts of lipase and protease. Lean
meats, on the other hand, contain sizable amounts of protease in the form of
cathepsin and little amylase. Low-calorie fruits and vegetables contain
lesser amounts of protein and starch digestants and sizable quantities of
the enzyme cellulase, which is needed to break down plant fibers. We could
continue the list indefinitely, but the point is that nature has enclosed
all raw foods with the correct and balanced amounts of food enzymes either
for human consumption or eventual decomposition outside the human body. --
Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell. p. 35
* re: The Eskimo and a Raw Diet: Their [scientists] observations [of
Eskimos] illustrate the appropriateness of the world "Eskimo," which is
derived from an American Indian language, and means "he eats it raw." --
Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell. p. 44
* To say that cooking improves utilization and absorption missed the point.
Is anyone so naive as to insist that we can improve on a process that has
kept a vast population of organisms living out their lives for millions of
years without the aid of the cookstove? If utilization of raw foodstuffs
proceeded at the normal rate for these millions of years and we step in and
do something to food, such as cooking it, which increases its utilization
and absorption beyond the normal, this amounts to a perversion. And it does
not require deep insight to perceive that the evil consequences of such an
assault on the endocrine balance may later hand us a legacy of many
apparently unrelated pathological entities. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr.
Edward Howell. pp. 72-73
* Raw calories vs. cooked calories: The calorie lists in use make no
distinction between raw calories and cooked calories. This is, in my
opinion, a very serous oversight. ... Raw calories are relatively
non-stimulating to glands and tend to stabilize weight. Cooked calories
excite glands and tend to be fattening. ... Let us learn something from
animals. Technical men in the business of extracting the maximum profit from
farm animals found it was not economical to feed hogs raw potatoes. The hogs
would not get fat enough. Cooking the potatoes, however, produced the fat
hogs that brought the farmer the kind of money required to make a profit.
This in spite of the extra expense of labor and energy involved in cooking!
... As a general rule we may say a raw potato is not as fattening as the
same potato cooked. A raw banana is not as fattening as a baked banana. A
raw apple is not as fattening as a baked apple... Avocados are blessed with
a lot of nice calories. Ever hear of anyone getting fat of them? Or on
bananas, which also have plenty of raw calories? It would be an exceptional
person who could eat enough bananas to get fat. All of these high-calorie
raw foods might fill out a then individual to a slight degree, but they know
just where to put the ounces, and when to stop. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr.
Edward Howell. pp.107-109
* But there is a hint that some extremely overweight people may be short of
certain enzymes. In 1966, Dr. David Galton of the Tufts University School of
Medicine, made some test on the abdominal fat of 11 extra heavyweights
(ranging from 280 to 430 pounds, with an average of 340 pounds) and found an
enzyme deficiency in their fat deposits. Lipase is the enzyme found to be
deficient in obese humans. It can be said that lipase is involved in some
way with fat metabolism. It may be that obesity and abnormal cholesterol
deposits both have their genesis in our failure to permit fat predigestion
in the upper stomach (food-enzyme stomach) by destroying the natural lipase
content of fatty foods. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell. p. 114
* I have stated earlier that a diet containing 75 percent of raw calories
and 25 percent of cooked calories is a vast improvement over the virtually
enzymeless diet used by most people. -- Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward
Howell. p.115
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Unlocking The Secrets Of Eating Right
For Health, Vitality And Longevity
ENZYME NUTRITION
The Food Enzyme Concept
Dr. Edward Howell
Foreword by Linda Clark
ISBN 0-89529-300-5
ISBN 0-89529-221-1 (pbk.)
Copyright © 1985 by Edward Howell
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