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The
Raw Truth
What is the
best type of diet for our pets?
Dr. Kim Bloomer VND
It’s interesting
how we’ve come to accept that to feed our dogs, we only need to drop by
our local pet store or supermarket and pick up a
bag of the latest
trendy, packaged food. Really, though, what we’ve bought
into is the
pet food industry sales pitch that states in order for our
dogs to be healthy and eat a balanced diet they MUST eat this food. What
we aren’t typically told is that it is
this very food that
is one of the major culprits behind the declining health of our dogs.
What I am about to share with you is the
raw truth
behind these bags of kibble.
This isn’t meant
to be an expose` but more of an unveiling so that you can make
a proper informed
choice about what to
feed
your dogs
in order for them to thrive. Packaged dry foods have only been in
existence
for roughly 50 years and yet for some reason
we’ve bought the
untruth behind these packaged pet foods. These same words
such as “balanced” diet and “scientific testing” are
used quite avidly by our medical industry as well. It therefore should not
surprise you to learn that
the very same folks
who manufacture these foods are the same ones who teach our veterinarians
the little nutrition they learn in school. The
veterinarians are also
offered excellent
incentives to encourage their clients to purchase and use
this food for their dogs’ “good” health –which our dogs
won’t have if we
continue to feed them this way.
Before I explain what
is in the packaged foods, let me say first and foremost why dogs can’t
thrive
on these grain-based diets –they are scavenger carnivores who need meat
and bones.
Before
“scientifically” tested pet foods came along what did our dogs eat? Well
older folks will tell you their dogs were fed scraps, leftovers, bones,
and the parts of meat we humans don’t often like to eat: necks and backs
of turkeys and chickens, organ meats like the liver, heart, kidneys and so
on. What is even more interesting is how
dogs rarely had
allergies or skin problems or the myriad of diseases so prevalent in our
canines today that quite eerily mirror the increasingly
diseased human population. All illness goes back to a compromised immune
system in the form of inflammation with food being the primary culprit
behind it all - and vaccines but that is a subject for another article.
Food is our health and it is also very much our illness. We and our pets
ARE
what we eat.
Because our dogs are
scavenger
carnivores (they will eat a rotting carcass and be quite
content with that meal), it doesn’t take rocket science to know that means
they need to
eat raw meat and bones to thrive.
Many might argue that
their pet food has some processed meats in the form of “meal”, and some
really “good” ingredients like flaxseed, bran and oats. That may be true
but while those grains are good for humans they are not good for dogs. The
plain raw truth is
our dogs are
carnivores, PERIOD. They have
SHORT
intestines which were not ever meant or designed for digesting grains -
which need more time to digest in longer intestines such as humans have.
Most of the packaged dry pet foods you buy are loaded with not only
grains, but the junk not allowed to be sold for human consumption, and
also byproducts which is an industry word for things not worthy of calling
food.
Dogs have
a
single-chambered stomach and smooth short intestines very
unlike us. This enables them to digest the
raw meat and bones
quickly moving any waste through the intestines and out of the body fast.
If any want to disagree about the validity of
dogs still being
carnivores and say they have evolved into omnivores,
I would simply say to have a
DNA test done on a dog
–any breed of dog –and compare it to a DNA test done on a wolf. Unless you
are a highly qualified expert on wolves DNA you would not be able to
discern the difference between the two. Wolves and wild dogs do still eat
prey which translated is meat and bones.
Getting back to the
crux of the problem with the grains is that dogs, simply said, cannot
digest the huge amount of grains we are feeding them in the form of these
packaged dry and even canned foods - they don’t have the proper enzymes to
do so at the very least. Their teeth should clue us in to what to feed in
the first place!.
So what happens
is, your dog not only has
huge amounts of
stool –talk about making mountains out of molehills - but
also probably doesn’t smell so good even after bathing, has
doggie breath with tartar buildup
(which can lead to serious diseases down the road), is itchy, sheds far
too much and maybe even has lots of
allergies, including
skin allergies and/or hotspots.
You can attribute all of these problems to what you’re feeding and also to
overvaccinating. The
undigested grains
are wrecking havoc in your dogs’ bodies.
Byproducts in these
foods are things that really should not be used for any consumption at
all. They include all the parts of the meats and grains that humans
wouldn’t dream of eating such as beaks, feathers, roadkill, rendered
diseased animals, -well you get the picture.
Here is an example
of just one brand of dog food ingredients:
Ground yellow corn,
chicken-by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, beef tallow
preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of Vitamin E), rice flour, beef,
soy flour, Minerals (tricalcium phosphate, salt, potassium chloride,
dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate,
manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite),
sugar, sorbitol, water, animal digest, phosphoric acid, sorbic acid (a
preservative), L-Lysine monohydrochloride.
I’d like to
quote a friend of mine,
Dr. John Symes,
“The single most devastating thing to happen to veterinarian medicine
is wheat being the primary ingredient for pet food. It was already bad
with corn as the primary ingredient but wheat has been infinitely worse.”
He said that because
wheat is a grain
AND
because of the gluten in wheat. Gluten is also in corn. Gluten is what
glue is made from. It does to the intestines exactly what is done with
glue –binds
things together and in the intestines keeps food from being absorbed
properly. Grains in packaged food
are killing our dogs
with horrible diseases that of course includes cancer. The same thing is
happening in our own bodies so imagine how hard this must be on a
carnivore!
The
raw truth here is to get back to feeding our dogs what they were created
to eat: raw meat and bones. You’ll see a lot of good things happen by
doing so:
• Less poop that won’t
smell nearly as bad as kibble poop (pun intended) and it will be MUCH
smaller.
• Clean, white teeth even on your older dogs
• Bodies that don’t smell; what we’ve come to wrongly assume is doggy body
odor. They are predators and to smell bad does not bode well for a
predator
• Shiny, healthy coats, with far less shedding
• Energetic, happy dogs that will be infinitely healthier with far more
quality of life which can equal much lower veterinarian costs for you.
Remember your dogs
know the raw
truth and they are just sitting there hoping with all
their carnivore hearts that humans will wake up and smell the meat and
bones!
To learn more about
proper nutrition for our pets check these audio program sets from
Animal Talk Naturally:
Nutrition for Our
Carnivore Pets, Vol 1
Nutrition for Our
Carnivore Pets, Vol 2
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