Kevin Great. I wanted to talk to you about tooth care because a lot of people who get into the raw food diet have specific teeth issues that may arise. What are some of the challenges that people face? What are some of the things that you’ve done to kind of help reverse some of that?
Dr. Graham: Tooth care, it’s an interesting thing. Long ago people asked me to write about diseases. I said, “You know, I don’t really write about diseases because diseases are all pretty much the same. If you stop participating in the cause, the body won’t generate the symptoms.” Every individual disease, there’s thousands and thousands of human health conditions. I think it comes up the same with teeth. Oral hygiene and oral health is once again just one tiny aspect. It would be a shame if we were out there in the world telling people, “Look, we’ve got this diet. It’s the best diet in the world for everybody but it’s really terrible for your teeth.” Well that wouldn’t work. It turns out that the diet that we espouse is really wonderful for our teeth.
And obviously, but it still has to be said, because anybody that’s ever been to a dentist’s office has noticed that the dentist offices around the world are filled with people eating cooked food. So we can’t just look at raw food and say, “Raw food is really bad for your teeth because look what happens,” because we’re seeing the same thing happen on cooked food. At the same time we’re also seeing two other issues going on with our teeth that have to be at least allowed for. One is the fact, as disclosed in Pottinger’s Cat’s, that with every generation of cats eating a diet that was not species specific there was degeneration, both physical and physiological. In other words in the form and function and the design of the cat we saw decay. » Read more: Diet and Dental Health, Tips From Dr Doug Graham