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factor that led to the development of ever more “convenient” pet foods. Since they were first introduced, the popularity of “burgers,” soft-moist chunks, and dry kibble has grown, while the popularity of canned foods has diminished. Unfortunately, this trend means the average pet is eating more “junk food,” because these new foods are full of sugar and preservatives to keep them fresh without canning or refrigeration.
    ANOTHER MISSING INGREDIENT: LIFE
    All processed pet foods—whether sold in cans, bags or frozen packages, in either giant supermarket chains or local health food stores—are missing something that seems to me to be the most important “nutrient” of all. This key ingredient is practically ignored by nutritional scientists, but we can sense when it’s there. It is a quality found only in freshly grown, uncooked whole foods: Life energy!
    To those accustomed to mechanistic explanations of the universe, this statement might sound a bit farfetched. Yet in recent years, some researchers have been confirming through laboratory tests a phenomenon that’s been described by many people around the world for centuries. It is a subtle force field that permeates and surrounds all living things. What exactly this field is, andhow it operates, is still largely a mystery. There are, however, a number of successful therapies, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, and various Eastern disciplines (see chapter 14), which address healing at this energetic level.
    Through a special medium of photography developed in Russia by a husband and wife team, the Kirlians, a number of investigators are now discovering a whole new world of colorful and complex emissions and “auras” of energies given off by living organisms. They seem to vary, especially according to the individual’s emotional state, health, and use of drugs.
    The Kirlians were the first to discover that the energy field around “a withered leaf (shows) almost no flares… . As the leaf gradually dies, its self-emissions also decrease correspondingly until there is no emission from the dead leaf.” What are the implications of this finding for animals (or people) who never or rarely eat anything still fresh or raw enough to retain this mysterious energy?
    P ROVING THE P OTENCY OF R AW F OODS
    Raw food contains more vitamins and minerals than cooked food, because cooking destroys many nutrients. When nutritional standards were originally set up for dogs and cats, it was presumed that raw foods, not cooked, would be used to feed these animals. Yet, most of the foods available commercially are very thoroughly cooked, more than would be done in a home kitchen, and none of these are nutritionally equivalent to what was established by these original standards.
    Let’s talk about using raw foods for animals. By this I mean feeding uncooked food as much as possible. Some things, like grains and some vegetables, will have to be cooked to be digestible, but meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, soft vegetables, and fruits can all be fed raw with great benefit.
    The living testimony exemplified in the many people and animals who thrive on diets that include plenty of fresh raw vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and other foods is enough to convince me that a diet of cooked foods alone will not maintain your pets in top-notch condition. Moreover, my clinical experience over the last 27 years confirms this. The difference in many animals given a home-prepared, raw food diet after eating processed foods most of their lives is nothing short of amazing.
    One illustration of this point concerns a remarkable experiment run by Sir Robert McCarrison, a doctor stationed in India some years ago. Impressed by the enviable degree of health enjoyed by the Hunza, Pathan, and Sikh peoples, he wondered if a diet similar to theirs could produce comparable physique and health in experimental rats.
    For a period of 27 months, Dr. McCarrison fed over 1,000 rats a variety of live foods,