But that's enough of that. What I really want to write about is feeding my cats. I have switched them over to a raw food diet. I've been wanting to do it for a while but it was tricky. When you buy raw pet food it comes frozen and needs to stay frozen so I had to remember to bring an insulted bag and come right home after buying it. Then I discovered that the pet place two blocks from me carries raw food. Much easier. And it's not that expensive, only 20 cents more a day than the good canned food I had been giving them. Why should I go to the trouble? I'll tell you.
The last cat that I had died of stomach cancer. When she got sick I began to do research into diet and alternative healing, not just for cats but for people too. (That turned out to be helpful for me later.) What you eat is very important and can help or hinder your body's ability to function. I don't know about you, but when I eat a lot of sugar and processed food I feel sluggish and unwell. The same must be true for our pets. I have seen the results. People often site litter boxes as a reason not to have cats. They're stinky and you have to get rid of the waste quickly and frequently. But if your cats eat raw meat their poop is drier and smaller and not stinky at all. And they drink less water so there is less pee. Their bodies utilize much more of what they've eaten so there is less waste. Then there's hairballs. My cats don't get them very often, once a month maybe. Now they don't have them at all. Nick gets this gunk in his right eye that has to be cleaned. But now the gunk is almost completely gone. This last thing is real confirmation that I made the right choice; his body isn't having to get rid of excess junk. Not that this surprised me. When I was doing my research I came across a study by Dr. Francis Pottenger. He conducted a raw meat versus cooked meat experiment. What he found was that cats that ate raw food had a much better immune system, stronger bones and teeth, and had much healthier litters. The cats that did best of all were the ones that were allowed to catch their own food. On the other hand, the cats that ate cooked meat had malformations in their skeletal systems, allergies, thyroid problems, respiratory problems, and smaller litters with a greater mortality rate.
The second half of the book deals with human nutrition. It details the benefits of breast feeding, raw milk (rather than pasteurized), and organic farming. There's a great experiment involving feeding milk to plants. The plants that got the raw milk were large and lush while the pasteurized milk group grew scrawny and the ones that got evaporated milk hardly grew at all. This chapter in the book is titled Reciprocal Relationship of the Health of Plants, Animals, and Human Beings. In other words, we're all interconnected and what we do to one affects the others. Other chapters include: Fad Diets and Optimum Nutrition and The Importance of Fats in Nutrition.
Pottenger conducted his experiments between 1932 and 1942. But apparently nobody was listening. We went on to create a whole world of processed food devoid of anything but convenience and an industrial farming complex that has depleted the soil of nutrients but filled it with chemicals. We are finally coming back around. Pottenger's study was republished in 1995, a sign of a renewed interest in the ability of good foods to heal the body. We can only hope that this trend will continue and that as more people begin to see that they are healthier and feel better we can restore our proper relationship to the Earth.
The last cat that I had died of stomach cancer. When she got sick I began to do research into diet and alternative healing, not just for cats but for people too. (That turned out to be helpful for me later.) What you eat is very important and can help or hinder your body's ability to function. I don't know about you, but when I eat a lot of sugar and processed food I feel sluggish and unwell. The same must be true for our pets. I have seen the results. People often site litter boxes as a reason not to have cats. They're stinky and you have to get rid of the waste quickly and frequently. But if your cats eat raw meat their poop is drier and smaller and not stinky at all. And they drink less water so there is less pee. Their bodies utilize much more of what they've eaten so there is less waste. Then there's hairballs. My cats don't get them very often, once a month maybe. Now they don't have them at all. Nick gets this gunk in his right eye that has to be cleaned. But now the gunk is almost completely gone. This last thing is real confirmation that I made the right choice; his body isn't having to get rid of excess junk. Not that this surprised me. When I was doing my research I came across a study by Dr. Francis Pottenger. He conducted a raw meat versus cooked meat experiment. What he found was that cats that ate raw food had a much better immune system, stronger bones and teeth, and had much healthier litters. The cats that did best of all were the ones that were allowed to catch their own food. On the other hand, the cats that ate cooked meat had malformations in their skeletal systems, allergies, thyroid problems, respiratory problems, and smaller litters with a greater mortality rate.
The second half of the book deals with human nutrition. It details the benefits of breast feeding, raw milk (rather than pasteurized), and organic farming. There's a great experiment involving feeding milk to plants. The plants that got the raw milk were large and lush while the pasteurized milk group grew scrawny and the ones that got evaporated milk hardly grew at all. This chapter in the book is titled Reciprocal Relationship of the Health of Plants, Animals, and Human Beings. In other words, we're all interconnected and what we do to one affects the others. Other chapters include: Fad Diets and Optimum Nutrition and The Importance of Fats in Nutrition.
Pottenger conducted his experiments between 1932 and 1942. But apparently nobody was listening. We went on to create a whole world of processed food devoid of anything but convenience and an industrial farming complex that has depleted the soil of nutrients but filled it with chemicals. We are finally coming back around. Pottenger's study was republished in 1995, a sign of a renewed interest in the ability of good foods to heal the body. We can only hope that this trend will continue and that as more people begin to see that they are healthier and feel better we can restore our proper relationship to the Earth.
