Raw Pet Food and Organic Pet Food

Yvonne came across a couple of items she wanted my opinion on. She was watching Oprah the other day and caught the tail end of a discussion Oprah was having with her vet. He was advocating a raw meat diet on the theory that this is how wild animals eat and it is, therefore, a more healthy diet.

The other issue was a comment we received from a reader about the benefits of organic food for pets.  She went on to mention that dogs and cats were carnivores and that most commercial pet foods were comprised largely of grains and carbohydrates and were therefore not healthy diets.

There are elements of truth in both cases, but there are also significant issues associated with both of these statements. Let me explain... 

Wild dogs and cats developed their dietary habits over millions of years. Through trial and error and natural selection, over time they learned to balance their diets. When wild dogs and cats make a kill they eat virtually the entire prey animal. This includes bone, connective tissue and most importantly the intestines and their contents.

Included in the intestinal contents are many important vitamins, minerals and plant matter that includes complex carbohydrates and antioxidants.

The bone and connective tissue give wild animals critical minerals for normal bone metabolism.

Skeletal muscle tissue (meat) is by definition, an incomplete, poorly balanced diet - for dogs in particular. That is because meat is relatively low in calcium and relatively high in phosphorus. Meat has what we call an inverse calcium/phosphorus ratio.

The body maintains the calcium/ phosphorus ratio with the parathyroid gland. If the parathyroid gland detects an imbalance of these key minerals in the blood stream, as it would in a dog eating a strictly meat diet, it kicks into gear and produces parathyroid hormone. Parathyroid hormone has the effect of mobilizing calcium out of the bones to restore the normal balance of calcium and phosphorus in the bloodstream.

You can imagine the result. Weak, brittle, rubbery bones will be the result of an all meat diet. The ultimate consequence is death. The common name for this syndrome is rubber jaw because the mandible, or jaw , is an excellent source of calcium.

Now, to Oprah's vet's credit, he does not simply recommend an all meat diet. He suggests mixing in veggies and other stuff. My only issue with this is that I would not know how to make a balanced diet for a dog or a cat by myself by buying the raw materials at the grocery store. And I'm a vet with twenty years of experience in animal nutrition!

As to the issue of organic pet food, let's cover that tomorrow. I definitely have something to say about it - which may surprise you.

Comments

[Organic Pet Food]

Interesting article. I prefer to feed organics to my pets..
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Viva-Magazine-Your-Premium-Womens-Natural-Health-Magazine/262734921452?ref=ts

[Dr Larry]

Having been trained in Wildlife Biology I'd say wild dogs will eat just about anything they can catch. And if it's been dead for a while it's that much easier to catch. It might not be processed in a dog food plant but a few days out in the sun and it gets pretty tender. Thank goodness they eat the intestine and contents too becuase if they only ate the muscle meat they'd soon be dead of secondary nutritional hyperparathyroidism.

[Peterson-raw dog food]

Dogs need raw food to maintain their natural health. Out in the wild, dogs kill other animals and eat their raw meat. There is no cooking or factory manufacturing as is seen in dog food today. And there is certainly no left over dinners - something many owners are guilty of indulging their dogs in!

[JOhanna]

I feed a raw diet, however it consists of raw meaty bones, meat, and offal.

The calcium you state meat is lacking is found naturally, in the bones (no weight bearing bones however, those are teeth breakers)

I feed my dog human grade meats however, I feed her things that are disgusting to me - whole chicken carcasses, chicken feet, etc. She recieves a variety of nutrients by eating parts I find disgusting. SHe also easts the ocassional table scrap including cooked veggies and fruit.

She has no foul dog odor, clean teeth, and a energetic dispostion.

[Adam]

This is an interesting article. Thank you for posting it.

We have been getting many questions from concerned pet owners on what diet they should be feeding in light of the pet food debacle. While we do not advocate any particular method of feeding to the pet owners that visit our site, we do provide articles in our resource library that allow them to become informed so they can decide for themselves. We'd welcome any articles you would like to have published in our resource library.

Regards,
Adam Ferguson
www.vetlocator.com

[Billy]

Hi Yvonne

I'm so glad I found this posting; it backed up what Id known for years. But even I bought this "natural" marketing clap-trap when I got my first pup. I found out the truth the hard way, via vets bills and worrying that my dog was going to die.....I don’t want this to happen to others.

It’s so difficult, because we want to believe our dogs and cats are almost human, so the natural progression is for a natural human diet....wrong! Don’t be fooled!

STICK TO THE MAJOR BRANDS FOLKS, unless advised differently by your vet. Guys like Purina, Masterfoods, Proctor & Gamble etc etc have research budgets running into millions and millions for a reason - for the wellbeing of your pet.

As for your question about my site it came about and was inspired totally by my love for dogs! We were fed up running up to Petsmart at the last cupful of food in the bag and wasting our day. We saw a gap in the market for a certain type of service that we ourselves needed, things like next day delivery and free delivery when you run low on food (we were forever doing this!) but without using couriers. Couriers can’t give advice or be passionate. We went for it to see if other dog owners would agree - and they did. Then it just expanded from there. Now we supply products for all types of animals. We are a fairly new company - 2 years young!

Actually I was a semi-conductor physicist before I set up pawsdirect.co.uk! Bit of a change!

I could bore you with more stuff about the business, but what really got me going was finally seeing a posting that talked sense about dog’s dietary needs, especially after almost loosing my own dog by giving it a "natural" diet.

I was just glad to find some sense being spoken on this subject at last! I thought the world was going crazy. I love my dogs dearly, they were the inspiration for my setting up my site, but I was getting so frustrated by customers being misled by the media and certain pet food companies.

My site supplies the major brands as well as these "specialist" foods, so my ranting here is nothing to do with lost sales or a hidden agenda on my part. I win whether people purchase natural organic products, or the main players, it makes no difference to me financially. We offer a balanced range. If your dog needs a special diet we can supply it, no problem.

I’m just really really worried by this “natural” trend and don’t want others to go through what I had to go through. Genuine, from the heart, downright worry that people are being mislead.

I concede that these foods have their place - maybe if your dog has a skin ailment or stomach problem. But the advice should be given by a vet, not the companies who sell the food.

I really want to name and shame the companies in question, but I know for legal reasons I can’t. It’s a pity because I know for a fact that their reps are going up to dog owners and rubbishing other brands.

One in particular is pretty ruthless. On the face of it they seem to be giving all sorts of good advice. They will come to your home, weigh your dog, give you access to vets and behaviourists compare ingredients (you can see where this is going). But if you dog is a pound overweight or a touch hyper, guess what the problem is? That’s right, the major brand pet food that you are feeding it! And guess the solution? That’s right, their food!

It’s disgusting and prays on the simple fact that we all love our pets and want the best for them.

Their advertising is all about how they only use prime cuts, no offal etc etc. It all sounds great but is all so wrong!

I can’t tell you how passionate I feel about this, but I feel like a lone voice....until I found this posting!

I don’t want to repeat what I said last night, but I really hope that dog and cat owners see sense.......but my gut feeling is that people will buy the nice fluffy story (I did!), over the nasty entrails and connective tissue story.....help!!

By all means treat your dog like a member of the family, buy it clothes and sunglasses like Paris Hilton if that’s your bag, let it sleep in the bed when your partners away, they will never find out (I know, I'm bad)! But don’t take the human thing too far by feeding it an almost human diet.

Help!!! Is there anybody out there who can educate people properly? Surely some of the major companies must be recognising this trend? Are they doing anything about it? Can they?!

I actually saw an ad recently, I won’t mention the company, but it’s big, and the headline was something like:

"When did you last see a tiger hunting vegetables?"

That kind of sums up what I'm saying, probably in the nicest most palatable way possible. I hope more companies take note and try to stem this trend, be it by advertising or some other medium.

I think they (the big companies), and the vetinary fraternity, have a responsibility to do so. Otherwise we are going to see a lot of sick animals over the coming years........

[Yvonne DiVita]

Hi Billy, you sure make some excellent points. I agree that this is a disturbing trend. As a former vet-tech, I'm well aware of the fact that dogs and cats are not people. They're mammals, like us, but they have entirely different dietary systems. That's why I respect pet food companies - and why I still feed my pets food made especially for their needs.

Thanks for chiming in. Tell me more about your site...

[Billy]

I am fascinated to hear more comments on this subject. Here in the UK, and I'm sure also in the US, there has been a huge growth in information on human dietary needs; "you are what you eat". Organic is good, entrails bad, prime cuts good, eyeballs bad; that kind of thing. Its all over TV and magazines.

I know entrails and bones are not particularly good for ME, although I enjoy the odd hot dog (no pun intended) now and again! Even hamburgers, God forgive me.

Now this education regarding our dietary needs is great, but there are certain pet food companies (I wont name them here) taking advantage of this awareness of what is good for us humans to eat, and using it to sell us food for our pets to eat…..to the disadvantage of our pets health. It’s nothing more than scare-selling. I’ll tell you why.

Basically they are rubbishing most of the major brand companies by implying that the "grizzly, nasty" bits of the ingredients are bad for dogs and cats, just like they are for us humans! What a crock of entrails!

I think, as is stated on the posting above, evolution proves this to be wrong. In fact for a dog or cat its "you are what you eat" for humans, in reverse! They need the bits we don’t. This may be a shock to some pet food companies, but humans and animals evolved with differing dietary needs. And, like us, if our pets don’t get the nutrition that they need, their health will suffer and their life expectancy will shorten.

I'm all for pet owners knowing what goes into pet food, the more informed people are the better. But as long as people can stomach the truth about what Rover really needs, and not the namby-pamby rubbish that dog/cat food should be human grade. It should contain what is good for the animal, no matter how nasty it may seem to us.

We are in the privileged position of being able to select the food that we give our pets for their wellbeing, even if we choose not to do so for ourselves.

However, these companies telling pet owners that entrails and connective tissue are bad for your pet sure makes a great selling point!
"Feed your dog food that is fit for human consumption!" It’s a marketers dream! Think about it. People treat their dogs and cats as part of the family, so it’s almost a given that we should want them to eat like us. We want to believe this; it gives people a nice fuzzy feeling inside to think that not only is Rover part of the family, he can feed just like the family! So to be told that its true is great…….if it wasn’t a whopping great lie! Well if it’s bad for us its bad for the dog, right? Wrong!

It would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.

This trend towards "natural" pet food, which is actually totally unnatural, is particularly concerning to me, because I have seen first hand the damage that can be done. We almost lost our first dog by feeding him this type of diet. We thought we were doing the right thing. We almost killed our dog with kindness.

It’s a disturbing trend, and one that I fear a lot of pet owners will buy into – to the cost of their animal’s wellbeing. Its downright scare selling, and in my opinion immoral, dangerous and prays on peoples emotions to do what is best for their pet.

Time something is done to stop this misinformation being conveyed to innocent pet owners. Tell people the truth. It might not be nice, it defiantly aunt warm and fuzzy, but it’s for the wellbeing and long-life of your pet. And that’s what really matters.

I hope responsible pet owners pass this information onto their pet owning friends, and we can nip this thing in the bud before more animals suffer.