Francis M. Pottenger, Jr.

Francis Marion Pottenger Jr. (May 29, 1901 – January 4, 1967) was an American physician and raw food diet advocate. He was best known for his cat study that sparked interest in a diet high in raw animal products including uncooked meats and unpasteurized dairy. Pottenger was a disciple of Canadian dentist and diet food advocate Weston A. Price. The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation is named after Price and Pottenger.

Biography

Pottenger was born Francis Marion Pottenger Jr. in Monrovia, California, on May 29, 1901. He was the son of Francis M. Pottenger Sr., the physician who founded the Pottenger Sanatorium and Clinic for Diseases of the Chest for treatment of tuberculosis in Monrovia, California. Pottenger was educated at Otterbein University. When the number of donated cats exceeded the supply of food available, Pottenger began ordering raw meat scraps from a local meat packing plant, including organs, meat, and bone; and fed a separate group of cats from this supply. Within months this separate group appeared in better health than the cooked meat group.

One group of cats was fed a diet of two-thirds raw meat, one-third raw milk, and cod-liver oil while the second group was fed a diet of two-thirds cooked meat, one-third raw milk, and cod-liver oil. In 1946, Pottenger reported his results that the cats fed the raw diet were healthy while the cats fed the cooked meat diet developed various health problems. Pottenger reported that the cats which were fed cooked meat and pasteurized milk suffered from impaired growth, increased birth defects and lowered fertility. He stated that their deterioration included "germ plasm injury" causing them to pass acquired anatomical defects to their offspring.

In 1985, Pottenger's results were criticized for "lacking scientific validity". Today many cats thrive on a cooked meat diet where taurine has been added after cooking. The deficient diets lacked sufficient taurine to allow the cats to properly form protein structures and resulted in the health effects observed. Pottenger himself concluded that there was likely an "as yet unidentified, heat‐labile protein factor".

Selected publications

The effect of heat-processed foods and metabolized vitamin D milk on the dentofacial structures of experimental animals, 1946 Fundamentals of Chemistry in the Laboratory, 1976 Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition, 1983