Pottenger's Cats

Francis Pottenger studied cats over several generations. He fed one group a primitive diet of raw foods; a second, the same foods only cooked; a third group he fed the cooked-food diet plus condensed milk, which contains sugar. The first group lived the longest and gave birth to healthy cats over several generations. The second group did not live as long as the first and gave birth to two generations of cats, each of which was less healthy than the former generation. Thus, cooking apparently altered the available nutrients in their food.

Adding sugar to this diet made the nutrients even less available, as shown by the deterioration over three generations of the third group of cats. Their second and third generations had many abnormalities, including hair that was not as shiny and thick as the first generation. When kept on the cooked, sweetened diet, the third generation was not able to reproduce. Interestingly, when these third-generation cats wew switched to an all raw-food diet, they became healthy enough to reproduce and give birth to kittens who were healthier than those of the third generation.

This demonstrates that the potential expression in the genetic blueprint is inhibited by lifestyle. Like these cats, each of us inherits an endocrine pattern from our parents and we pass this pattern on to our children.

- Lick the Sugar Habit, page 106