What should I feed my pet?
Feeding your four-legged friend
Back in March 2007, the devastating pet food scare resulted in over 60 millions cans and pouches of pet food, along with several million pounds of dry kibble to be recalled. Due to melamine contamination, a chemical used in plastic, glue, fertilizer, and cleaning products, an unknown number of dogs and cats succumbed to kidney failure – some fatally. Turns out that the wheat gluten in the pet food (along with rice protein and possibly corn gluten from South Africa) was “contaminated” from China, and that some of our American pet food companies were getting their sources from unregulated international suppliers. That said, please know that 90% of the pet food industry wasn’t affect by this recall… it was a few bad apples that ruined the batch. Justifiably, many owners didn’t know where to turn next, and what food was safe to feed their pets. Immediately during this time, I had some owners switch to home cooked or raw food diets, some unsuccessfully. Despite their good intention, I had a few fatal complications as a result (like bones stuck in the esophagus to severe pancreatitis). Before you surf the ‘Net and discover all the wrong information out there, read on to find out what’s best to feed your four-legged friend.
When it comes down to it, stick with a reputable, large, research-based pet food company, and your pet’s health is in good hands. Top brands include Science Diet, Iams or Eukanuba, and Purina. Check out their website to make sure that the company supports veterinary-recommended, humane research to ensure progressive developments and updates. Rest assured that all pet foods are regulated and approved by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) organization, which is like the animal FDA, and monitors the nutritional content of animal food to ensure that diets are appropriately balanced for that species. That said, this doesn’t mean that AAFCO checks where the ingredients came from – hence the melamine scare – so you still have to be a wise consumer and do your research. Start by reviewing the ingredients listed on the bag, which are listed in order of content. If peanut hulls are the first ingredient, turn elsewhere! This crappy filler, while full of fiber, probably isn’t the #1 (or #2, #3, etc.) ingredient that you’d want to eat either. Remember, just because a vegetable or grain (like corn and rice) is one of the first ingredients on your dog’s bag of food doesn’t mean it’s bad – it just means most of the protein is a vegetable versus protein source (which is less expensive, but just as effective). If you don’t know what all the ingredients are, ask your vet. Some sound scary, but are just another name for a vitamin or amino acid. At the same time, understand the semantics – beef “flavored” should make you ask “Where’s the beef?” and move on to something better.
Organic and preservative free food
What exactly is in that all natural, organic, preservative-free, holistic bag of dog or cat food? When it comes to “all natural,” know that ingredients that are available for the pet food industry include human non-edible pet food-grade byproducts (such as parts of the animal that we don’t normally eat such as tendons, cartilage, and organs) – and that still counts as au natural - to human grade ingredients (your filet mignon). As for “organic,” while it’s ideally better (and some companies truly get organic vegetable and meat sources), remember that the FDA doesn’t even have good regulations for human organic foods… so they aren’t double checking on your pet’s organic food just yet. When it comes to pet food quality organic foods, there are no organizations verifying that it is truly organic. We’re trusting the pet food company here to believe what’s really in that bag.
Lastly, preservatives. Keep in mind that this helps keep the fat in the food from going rancid and the food from spoiling. It can actually be more dangerous to feed rancid, moldy food that is “preservative free.” Before buying any bag, check the expiration date on that bag of food, and more importantly, make sure there are no tears in the bag or any staining on the outside of the bag (such as grease on the outside, or any area where moisture may have wicked into the bag). If the bag isn’t lined with a plastic lining or isn’t 100% water proof, your pet’s food can indeed spoil. The other concern is that while the pet food manufacturer may not have put any preservatives in, there’s no accountability or way of knowing what the supplier put in it prior to purchase.
Homemade diets
Have the time and money to burn and want to cook up some grub for your dog? Go for it! Some owners love to cook for their dogs. Personally, I can barely cook for myself (not including an additional twelve paws), so I probably have some patients who eat better than I do. The good thing about homemade diets is that they can be made specifically for your dog’s special needs (particularly if your dog has inflammatory bowel disease, liver disease, kidney failure, or cancer). Keep in mind that you can’t just rely on Joy of Cooking or Internet surfing to concoct a canine diet. That’s because common nutritional problems can result from inappropriate dietary supplementation or inappropriate balancing including: not enough calories; deficiencies in microminerals, vitamins, and calcium; and supplementing too much protein. Also, when feeding a homemade diet, be aware that you must give your dog a daily PetTab and other veterinary-recommend supplements to balance the food appropriately. Notice how I said dog? You can’t cook for your cat, and here’s why.
Cats are completely carnivorous and require essential amino acids (such as taurine), ruling out a vegetarian, vegan, or home cooked diet. Homemade cat diets are often deficient in energy density, fat, and palatability (which is the result of substituting vegetable oil for fat) and are rarely balanced, meaning those extra veterinary daily cat vitamin-mineral supplements aren’t even helping. Yes, I know you can find veterinarians blogging about how to make a homemade cat diet out there on the Internet, but I’d really rely on the specialists of veterinary nutrition or internal medicine here before preparing a homemade diet for your pet!
Bones and Raw Food Diet (BARF)
Some breeders and owners advocate the BARF diet (bones and raw food), which uses raw, uncooked meat, liver, pasta, and eggs as part of their diet as a way of bringing their dog “back to the wild.” That said, you don’t let him eat your cat, chase down prey for food, roll in wolf scat, negate medical care, or sleep outside in the dirt to bring him back to the wild, do you? Because the BARF diet is not AAFCO approved or balanced, veterinarians have some big concerns about feeding it. The biggest problems are the trace mineral and vitamin deficiencies seen when this is fed as a primary diet. Zoo vets discovered this decades ago when they were feeding animals, as raw meat contains more phosphorous than calcium, which can result in bone abnormalities and secondary nutritional hyperparathyroidism. While this sounds like a mouthful, it’s a serious chronic, degenerative, painful nutritional disease that results in fractures and bone deformities from inappropriate diet. Secondly, the BARF diet can be dangerous because of the risk of uncooked meat harboring bacteria (like E. coli or Salmonella) – despite your hand washing. Because of the risk of food handling safety with raw meat, the implementation of the BARF diet is not advocated in households with children, elderly, or the immunosuppressed.1 Even if you have the most sterile kitchen that Mr. Clean would be proud of, the bigger concern is that you are colonizing your dog’s intestines with these deadly bacteria… in other words, your pet may not have a problem with it, but can shed Salmonella as part of his or her normal gastrointestinal bacteria flora when you scoop that poop! I have also seen some rare, severe complications and fatalities from starting the BARF diet in an unaccustomed intestinal tract, as it could potentially cause inflammation of the pancreas (called pancreatitis) and severe bloody diarrhea. On the other side of the coin, I’ve had some clients rave about it. Either way, before considering a BARF diet, do your homework and consult with a veterinary nutritionalist to make sure you’re feeding a balanced diet.
Cats
No doubt cats will be cats, and do things differently just because they can. When it comes to your finicky feline, don’t even think about making any sudden changes when it comes to your cat. Cats resent any sudden change in life, and you cannot starve a cat until he eats. Unlike your dog who can go on a hunger strike to protest the new cheap dry food, your cat doesn’t have that same luxury. If your cat goes more than three to five days without eating enough, he can develop hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver syndrome. This causes jaundice, generalized malaise, weight loss, and even liver failure or clotting problems in severe cases. Most cats require an expensive ultrasound and temporary feeding tube to solve the problem, which can run you $1500-2500. With that amount of money, you could have bought a pallet of his favorite feline Friskies!
Also, keep in mind that all seafood diets (like canned tuna from the grocery store) have higher levels of an enzyme that breaks down taurine. While you may think that you’re spoiling your cat feeding him canned tuna his whole life, you can cause severe amino acid deficiencies by doing this! You should never feed this unbalanced, all seafood diet alone as the primary diet.
Tips:
• Check out Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: the Healthful Alternative by Dr. David Stromberg,2 a retired veterinary gastroenterologist from UC Davis. He’ll tell you the correct way of feeding your pets!
• While there are Internet dog forums abounding on topics like diets, holistic medications, and pet food rants, don’t believe all the hype - some of these sites provide inaccurate information.
• Make sure to research the topic carefully, and when in doubt, consult a veterinary nutritionalist.
Most importantly, there are a lot of different opinions out there. I've had cat owners scream at me (seriously folks?!) for feeding my cats dry food. While they are right in that cats don't need the extra carbohydrates found in dry kibble, they don't volunteer to to pet sit and come over 2-3X/day to split a can for my two cats.
I've seen dogs on crappy, Walmart food live till 18 and dogs fed organic, preservative free gourmet meals die at 6 from horrible cancer or metabolic disease. Keep in mind that diet is important but it's not the ONLY contributing factor to pet health.
What do you think?
Signing off,
Dr. Justine Lee
References:
1. Freeman LM, Michel KE. Evaluation of raw food diets for dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc 2001;218(5):705-709.
2. D. R. Strombeck. Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative. (Ames: Iowa State Press, 1999).
Back in March 2007, the devastating pet food scare resulted in over 60 millions cans and pouches of pet food, along with several million pounds of dry kibble to be recalled. Due to melamine contamination, a chemical used in plastic, glue, fertilizer, and cleaning products, an unknown number of dogs and cats succumbed to kidney failure – some fatally. Turns out that the wheat gluten in the pet food (along with rice protein and possibly corn gluten from South Africa) was “contaminated” from China, and that some of our American pet food companies were getting their sources from unregulated international suppliers. That said, please know that 90% of the pet food industry wasn’t affect by this recall… it was a few bad apples that ruined the batch. Justifiably, many owners didn’t know where to turn next, and what food was safe to feed their pets. Immediately during this time, I had some owners switch to home cooked or raw food diets, some unsuccessfully. Despite their good intention, I had a few fatal complications as a result (like bones stuck in the esophagus to severe pancreatitis). Before you surf the ‘Net and discover all the wrong information out there, read on to find out what’s best to feed your four-legged friend.
When it comes down to it, stick with a reputable, large, research-based pet food company, and your pet’s health is in good hands. Top brands include Science Diet, Iams or Eukanuba, and Purina. Check out their website to make sure that the company supports veterinary-recommended, humane research to ensure progressive developments and updates. Rest assured that all pet foods are regulated and approved by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) organization, which is like the animal FDA, and monitors the nutritional content of animal food to ensure that diets are appropriately balanced for that species. That said, this doesn’t mean that AAFCO checks where the ingredients came from – hence the melamine scare – so you still have to be a wise consumer and do your research. Start by reviewing the ingredients listed on the bag, which are listed in order of content. If peanut hulls are the first ingredient, turn elsewhere! This crappy filler, while full of fiber, probably isn’t the #1 (or #2, #3, etc.) ingredient that you’d want to eat either. Remember, just because a vegetable or grain (like corn and rice) is one of the first ingredients on your dog’s bag of food doesn’t mean it’s bad – it just means most of the protein is a vegetable versus protein source (which is less expensive, but just as effective). If you don’t know what all the ingredients are, ask your vet. Some sound scary, but are just another name for a vitamin or amino acid. At the same time, understand the semantics – beef “flavored” should make you ask “Where’s the beef?” and move on to something better.
Organic and preservative free food
What exactly is in that all natural, organic, preservative-free, holistic bag of dog or cat food? When it comes to “all natural,” know that ingredients that are available for the pet food industry include human non-edible pet food-grade byproducts (such as parts of the animal that we don’t normally eat such as tendons, cartilage, and organs) – and that still counts as au natural - to human grade ingredients (your filet mignon). As for “organic,” while it’s ideally better (and some companies truly get organic vegetable and meat sources), remember that the FDA doesn’t even have good regulations for human organic foods… so they aren’t double checking on your pet’s organic food just yet. When it comes to pet food quality organic foods, there are no organizations verifying that it is truly organic. We’re trusting the pet food company here to believe what’s really in that bag.
Lastly, preservatives. Keep in mind that this helps keep the fat in the food from going rancid and the food from spoiling. It can actually be more dangerous to feed rancid, moldy food that is “preservative free.” Before buying any bag, check the expiration date on that bag of food, and more importantly, make sure there are no tears in the bag or any staining on the outside of the bag (such as grease on the outside, or any area where moisture may have wicked into the bag). If the bag isn’t lined with a plastic lining or isn’t 100% water proof, your pet’s food can indeed spoil. The other concern is that while the pet food manufacturer may not have put any preservatives in, there’s no accountability or way of knowing what the supplier put in it prior to purchase.
Homemade diets
Have the time and money to burn and want to cook up some grub for your dog? Go for it! Some owners love to cook for their dogs. Personally, I can barely cook for myself (not including an additional twelve paws), so I probably have some patients who eat better than I do. The good thing about homemade diets is that they can be made specifically for your dog’s special needs (particularly if your dog has inflammatory bowel disease, liver disease, kidney failure, or cancer). Keep in mind that you can’t just rely on Joy of Cooking or Internet surfing to concoct a canine diet. That’s because common nutritional problems can result from inappropriate dietary supplementation or inappropriate balancing including: not enough calories; deficiencies in microminerals, vitamins, and calcium; and supplementing too much protein. Also, when feeding a homemade diet, be aware that you must give your dog a daily PetTab and other veterinary-recommend supplements to balance the food appropriately. Notice how I said dog? You can’t cook for your cat, and here’s why.
Cats are completely carnivorous and require essential amino acids (such as taurine), ruling out a vegetarian, vegan, or home cooked diet. Homemade cat diets are often deficient in energy density, fat, and palatability (which is the result of substituting vegetable oil for fat) and are rarely balanced, meaning those extra veterinary daily cat vitamin-mineral supplements aren’t even helping. Yes, I know you can find veterinarians blogging about how to make a homemade cat diet out there on the Internet, but I’d really rely on the specialists of veterinary nutrition or internal medicine here before preparing a homemade diet for your pet!
Bones and Raw Food Diet (BARF)
Some breeders and owners advocate the BARF diet (bones and raw food), which uses raw, uncooked meat, liver, pasta, and eggs as part of their diet as a way of bringing their dog “back to the wild.” That said, you don’t let him eat your cat, chase down prey for food, roll in wolf scat, negate medical care, or sleep outside in the dirt to bring him back to the wild, do you? Because the BARF diet is not AAFCO approved or balanced, veterinarians have some big concerns about feeding it. The biggest problems are the trace mineral and vitamin deficiencies seen when this is fed as a primary diet. Zoo vets discovered this decades ago when they were feeding animals, as raw meat contains more phosphorous than calcium, which can result in bone abnormalities and secondary nutritional hyperparathyroidism. While this sounds like a mouthful, it’s a serious chronic, degenerative, painful nutritional disease that results in fractures and bone deformities from inappropriate diet. Secondly, the BARF diet can be dangerous because of the risk of uncooked meat harboring bacteria (like E. coli or Salmonella) – despite your hand washing. Because of the risk of food handling safety with raw meat, the implementation of the BARF diet is not advocated in households with children, elderly, or the immunosuppressed.1 Even if you have the most sterile kitchen that Mr. Clean would be proud of, the bigger concern is that you are colonizing your dog’s intestines with these deadly bacteria… in other words, your pet may not have a problem with it, but can shed Salmonella as part of his or her normal gastrointestinal bacteria flora when you scoop that poop! I have also seen some rare, severe complications and fatalities from starting the BARF diet in an unaccustomed intestinal tract, as it could potentially cause inflammation of the pancreas (called pancreatitis) and severe bloody diarrhea. On the other side of the coin, I’ve had some clients rave about it. Either way, before considering a BARF diet, do your homework and consult with a veterinary nutritionalist to make sure you’re feeding a balanced diet.
Cats
No doubt cats will be cats, and do things differently just because they can. When it comes to your finicky feline, don’t even think about making any sudden changes when it comes to your cat. Cats resent any sudden change in life, and you cannot starve a cat until he eats. Unlike your dog who can go on a hunger strike to protest the new cheap dry food, your cat doesn’t have that same luxury. If your cat goes more than three to five days without eating enough, he can develop hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver syndrome. This causes jaundice, generalized malaise, weight loss, and even liver failure or clotting problems in severe cases. Most cats require an expensive ultrasound and temporary feeding tube to solve the problem, which can run you $1500-2500. With that amount of money, you could have bought a pallet of his favorite feline Friskies!
Also, keep in mind that all seafood diets (like canned tuna from the grocery store) have higher levels of an enzyme that breaks down taurine. While you may think that you’re spoiling your cat feeding him canned tuna his whole life, you can cause severe amino acid deficiencies by doing this! You should never feed this unbalanced, all seafood diet alone as the primary diet.
Tips:
• Check out Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: the Healthful Alternative by Dr. David Stromberg,2 a retired veterinary gastroenterologist from UC Davis. He’ll tell you the correct way of feeding your pets!
• While there are Internet dog forums abounding on topics like diets, holistic medications, and pet food rants, don’t believe all the hype - some of these sites provide inaccurate information.
• Make sure to research the topic carefully, and when in doubt, consult a veterinary nutritionalist.
Most importantly, there are a lot of different opinions out there. I've had cat owners scream at me (seriously folks?!) for feeding my cats dry food. While they are right in that cats don't need the extra carbohydrates found in dry kibble, they don't volunteer to to pet sit and come over 2-3X/day to split a can for my two cats.
I've seen dogs on crappy, Walmart food live till 18 and dogs fed organic, preservative free gourmet meals die at 6 from horrible cancer or metabolic disease. Keep in mind that diet is important but it's not the ONLY contributing factor to pet health.
What do you think?
Signing off,
Dr. Justine Lee
References:
1. Freeman LM, Michel KE. Evaluation of raw food diets for dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc 2001;218(5):705-709.
2. D. R. Strombeck. Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative. (Ames: Iowa State Press, 1999).
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