Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation
Encyclopedia
The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (PPNF) is a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
established "to provide the public and the healing professions with historical and anthropological findings, and up-to-date, accurate scientific information on nutrition and health." Founded in 1952, it was first known as the Weston A. Price Memorial Foundation after the 20th century researcher Weston Price
who emphasized the importance of nutrition for health and dentistry. The other half of the foundation's current namesake is Francis M. Pottenger, Jr.
whose study of nutrition in cats sparked interest in a diet high in raw animal products including uncooked meats and unpasteurized dairy. In 1969, after Price's death, the organization became the Price Pottenger Foundation, and then the Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, which it bears today.
PPNF primarily advocates: 1) that consumption of animal fats is not dangerous to human health, and 2) that mainstream agricultural methods which emphasize the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well as factory farming and significant processing of whole foods, reduces overall nutritional quality of food and human health. The first set of claims go against the mainstream scientific consensus among researchers, doctors, and nutritionists, that a diet high in saturated fat presents serious risks to cardiovascular health and longevity. The second set of claims is aligned with the increasingly popular organic food
movement, although major food growers and producers consistently affirm the taste and nutritional quality of their food as identical or better than organics.
PPNF now houses over 10,000 books and publications, including the works of Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Melvin Page, Dr. Emanuel Cheraskin, Dr. William Albrecht, and others. The foundation today owns and protects the original copyrighted material of Weston A. Price, DDS, and Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD. They continue to republish Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and Pottenger's Pottenger’s Cats – A Study in Nutrition.
from Cleveland, Ohio
, whose 1939 book, Nutritional and Physical Degeneration, describes the fieldwork he did in the 1920s and 1930s among various world cultures, with the original goal of recording and studying the dental health
and development of pre-industrial populations including tribal Africans and Pacific islanders, Inuit, North and South American natives, and Australian aborigines. The book contains numerous photographs of the people he studied, and includes comparison photographs of the teeth and facial structure of people who lived on their traditional diet and people who had adopted or grown up on industrialized food. In certain instances it was possible for Price to examine and photograph traditional and industrialized eaters from the same family.
s he was making. The adrenal glands of these cats were removed for the experiments and Pottenger noted that most of the cats died during or followng the operation. He was feeding the cats a supposedly nutritive diet consisting of raw milk, cod liver oil and cooked meat scraps of liver, tripe, sweetbread, brains, heart and muscle. 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. Pottenger conducted subsequent studies involving approximately 900 cats over a period of ten years, with three generations of cats studied. His experiments showed that cats were healthiest after being fed raw meat and raw dairy.
Her husband, Joseph Connolly practiced dentistry in San Diego for 40 years and helped found PPNF. He died in 1966.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
established "to provide the public and the healing professions with historical and anthropological findings, and up-to-date, accurate scientific information on nutrition and health." Founded in 1952, it was first known as the Weston A. Price Memorial Foundation after the 20th century researcher Weston Price
Weston Price
Weston Andrew Valleau Price was a prominent dentist known primarily for his theories on the relationship between nutrition, dental health, and physical health...
who emphasized the importance of nutrition for health and dentistry. The other half of the foundation's current namesake is Francis M. Pottenger, Jr.
Francis M. Pottenger, Jr.
Francis M. Pottenger, Jr. was the son of Francis M. Pottenger, Sr., the physician who co-founded the Pottenger Sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis in Monrovia, California....
whose study of nutrition in cats sparked interest in a diet high in raw animal products including uncooked meats and unpasteurized dairy. In 1969, after Price's death, the organization became the Price Pottenger Foundation, and then the Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, which it bears today.
PPNF primarily advocates: 1) that consumption of animal fats is not dangerous to human health, and 2) that mainstream agricultural methods which emphasize the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well as factory farming and significant processing of whole foods, reduces overall nutritional quality of food and human health. The first set of claims go against the mainstream scientific consensus among researchers, doctors, and nutritionists, that a diet high in saturated fat presents serious risks to cardiovascular health and longevity. The second set of claims is aligned with the increasingly popular organic food
Organic food
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...
movement, although major food growers and producers consistently affirm the taste and nutritional quality of their food as identical or better than organics.
PPNF now houses over 10,000 books and publications, including the works of Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Melvin Page, Dr. Emanuel Cheraskin, Dr. William Albrecht, and others. The foundation today owns and protects the original copyrighted material of Weston A. Price, DDS, and Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD. They continue to republish Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and Pottenger's Pottenger’s Cats – A Study in Nutrition.
Weston Price
Price was a dentistDentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
from Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, whose 1939 book, Nutritional and Physical Degeneration, describes the fieldwork he did in the 1920s and 1930s among various world cultures, with the original goal of recording and studying the dental health
Oral hygiene
Teeth cleaning is part of oral hygiene and involves the removal of dental plaque from teeth with the intention of preventing cavities , gingivitis, and periodontal disease. People routinely clean their own teeth by brushing and interdental cleaning, and dental hygienists can remove hardened...
and development of pre-industrial populations including tribal Africans and Pacific islanders, Inuit, North and South American natives, and Australian aborigines. The book contains numerous photographs of the people he studied, and includes comparison photographs of the teeth and facial structure of people who lived on their traditional diet and people who had adopted or grown up on industrialized food. In certain instances it was possible for Price to examine and photograph traditional and industrialized eaters from the same family.
Francis M. Pottenger, Jr.
Pottenger was a doctor whose 1932-1942 Pottenger Cat Study addressed the nutritive value of heat-labile elements — nutrients destroyed by heat and available only in raw foods. Pottenger used donated laboratory cats to test the potency of the adrenal extract hormoneHormone
A hormone is a chemical released by a cell or a gland in one part of the body that sends out messages that affect cells in other parts of the organism. Only a small amount of hormone is required to alter cell metabolism. In essence, it is a chemical messenger that transports a signal from one...
s he was making. The adrenal glands of these cats were removed for the experiments and Pottenger noted that most of the cats died during or followng the operation. He was feeding the cats a supposedly nutritive diet consisting of raw milk, cod liver oil and cooked meat scraps of liver, tripe, sweetbread, brains, heart and muscle. 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. Pottenger conducted subsequent studies involving approximately 900 cats over a period of ten years, with three generations of cats studied. His experiments showed that cats were healthiest after being fed raw meat and raw dairy.
Joseph and Pat Connolly
Marion Patricia Connolly, Pat, as she was called, was the curator for PPNF overseeing the archiving and promotion of the organization's materials. Pat studied health and nutrition for over 66 years and lectured on a variety of nutritional subjects and according to the PPNF was the foremost authority on the work of Price and Pottenger. In 1962 Pat took a course on nutrition by Alfreda Rooke then Curator of PPNF, who had studied under Price. In 1972, she became the PPNF Nutrition Instructor and began teaching Rooke’s course. Pat's work teaching classes, educating people on the research of Price and its applications continued. Pat authored several books including Dietotherapy (The Kelley Research Foundation), Mini Guide To Living Foods, The Guide to Living Foods (PPNF), Food Alive (Livingston-Wheeler Medical Clinic), A Modern Approach to the Primitive Diet (Nero), The Candida-Albicans Yeast-Free Cookbook (McGraw Hill), and was listed as a co-author of the first edition of Nourishing Traditions. She died in November, 2010.Her husband, Joseph Connolly practiced dentistry in San Diego for 40 years and helped found PPNF. He died in 1966.
George Meinig
In 1994 George E. Meinig published Root Canal Cover-up Exposed which resurrected Price's old studies. Regarding the book, Hasselgren in New York Academy of Dentistry's Annals of dentistry stated "[t]he focal infection theory, supported by many including Dr. Price, has been attacked, debated, accepted, criticized, agreed upon, etc. but it has not been covered up." Hasselgren noted that Meinig would sometime confuse the meanings of "infection" and "inflammation" and based all his work on Price's 1923 Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic book. Hasselgren observed: "Many clinicians appear today to have lost sight of the fact that endodontical treatment shall be based on biology and not on the use of various gadgets to sweep canals. Also, one-visit treatment of necrotic, infected teeth is being advocated and practiced even if no long-term study has been performed to investigate this kind of treatment. The work of Dr. Weston Price is therefore still to a great extent valid and important and the role of infection can not be underestimated." Meinig died in May 2008 at the age of 93.Mission and advocacy
"PPNF is dedicated to encouraging a return to traditional, biological farming methods. Our hope is to someday have a demonstration center that will further this work with a living laboratory to demonstrate the principles of soil enrichment with compost through the use of earthworms and animal manure; of humane animal husbandry, particularly to increase levels of the Price "X Factor" in dairy fats; of proper choice of whole natural foods derived from fertile soil; and of preparation techniques that enhance rather than diminish nutrient content in our food."