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SkeptVet vs Dodds - Diet - Nutriscan etc

8K views 45 replies 9 participants last post by  lily cd re 
#1 ·
#31 ·
I am impressed with Dr. Brennen McKenzie. At least he is keeping up with complimentary and alternative veterinary medicine and researching it. I suspect my vet has never heard of Dr.'s Dobbs and Becker. I sent him a question about prophylactic gastropexies and got a thoughtful email with footnotes. I encouraged him to post his response on his blog. If you look on his blog you can see our PF comments are followed:)
 
#32 ·
What do you all think about buying commercial raw food and cooking it? Many raw supporters, like Karen Becker, indicate that it's totally fine to do so, while certain raw food companies say no, with language like this:

Cooking would render the food biologically inappropriate in a fundamental way. Cooked food loses much nutritional value, including enzymes and biologically active essential fatty acids. The latter, being damaged by heat and oxygen, become slow poisons, doing irreparable damage. Cooking causes complexes to form between proteins and starches, between vitamins and trace minerals, and between minerals. Cooking produces carcinogens and anti-immunogens. Many minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins also become indigestible.

Again, we don't have science to prove or disprove this, so we're left with anecdotal observations and intuition. Thoughts?

Kevin
 
#33 ·
We-e-e-e-lll - humans have been cooking food for thousands of years. Dogs have evolved along with us. Cooking may reduce some nutrients, but also increases the availability of others, and can reduce the impact of some bacteria etc. In general our dogs are fed far higher amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrate, etc than they actually need, so any small reduction through gentle cooking is unlikely to lead to malnutrition. Is there any evidence for essential nutrients in raw food? And that they are needed in every meal? Seems to me we are in the territory of raw feeding for humans...
 
#34 ·
I think that we need to be very careful when utilizing information supplied by those who are set to profit from that information. That includes vets, food manufacturers (including both dry & raw), etc.

I suspect that there are millions of dog owners world-wide, that have raised healthy, thriving, disease & cancer free dogs to ripe old ages, on ALL of these various types and cooking methods. Regardless of what the so called experts will say. What we have learned thus far is that not all dogs can assimilate all foods equally - and that is where a keen eye of observation, anecdotal observations, and intuition come into play.

IMO, and IME, some dogs are far more forgiving than others in this area. So the right answer is - there is no right answer for all dogs.
 
#35 ·
And there is no one right answer for people either, although there are general requirements that need to be satisfied for all living things. One must consume adequate calories, minimum or above complete protein (all essential amino acids covered), essential vitamins at minimum or better levels (but not wild excesses for fat soluble vitamins) and the like and it is far better to eat all of those things daily rather than erratically. This certainly doesn't mean that the protein has to be chicken vs. beef or even raw vs. cooked however and that is where experience and observation of the individual becomes important.

fjm your observation that domestic dogs are the products of very close associations with humans and have coevolved side by side with us is important to keep in mind in the cooked vs. raw conversation though I think. To me the likely fireside scenario of humans offering food inducements to early proto-dogs is of a person giving a bone from something that was cooked to that animal rather than throwing a valuable hunk of raw meat that the people would have consumed after cooking it themselves. I still maintain that thinking we should feed dogs like wolves is not particularly based on very clear or data driven thinking. That being said for those whose dogs do well on it and who don't have concerns about microbiological hazards in their households I am not going to try to convince you not to feed raw.
 
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#36 ·
I can easily imagine an early human throwing unwanted bits of raw prey beast to a proto dog - the skinny boney bits that are not much wanted by humans. Or the bones and gristle after cooking, or inedible (by humans) bits of fruit and vegetables. And then (horrors) there are human faeces, and as one who has to persuade their dogs away from unpleasant examples of these I am only too aware of how horribly attractive they can be. Seems to me dogs can survive and thrive on a wide range of foods...
 
#38 · (Edited)
I don't own a commercial dog food company, or have ANY stock in one or more of them, yet I find myself agreeing with much of the reasoning behind what Skeptvet says. Not because I feel that feeding raw is wrong, or that feeding kibble is better, but because a large portion of the info being supplied by the raw fanatics as facts, are anything but. That, and just like Skeptvet I find the means of their delivery of baseless facts via fear mongering to be offensive. Dr. Becker would have everyone believing that anyone feeding their dog kibble is ensuring their pets will suffer from GI tract inflammation, a myriad of assorted degenerative diseases, and/or cancer. Grains are bad, your dog will suffer, blah-blah-blah. Yet via the same anecdotal evidence millions of healthy long lived dogs world-wide proves just the opposite.

Not all dogs that die from cancer, or suffer from degenerative disease, are linked to poor nutrition. My guess, with no science to prove otherwise, is most are probably linked to genetics. We see the same in humans. Long distance runner with less than 10% body fat who eats like a monk, dies at age 40 from heart disease. Person down the street who smokes, drinks, and seldom watches what he eats for more than 30 seconds, lives to be 85. There isn't always a reason, for the rhyme. Life isn't that definitive.

Our last poodle lived to be 17, had all his original teeth, and never suffered a day of poor health until his final year. Even then it came fairly swift near the end, when eventually his 17 year old heart gave out. An old dog who ran and played like a pup until he was well past 15 yrs of age. When strangers met him they were always shocked at how old he was. He ate kibble his entire life.

Again, there is no right or wrong here, we are all doing what we personally feel is best for each of our pets. But if we are going to offer up facts, and use science to support them, then we better have more than just a gut feeling or anecdotal evidence when we are promoting that evidence as science, or facts. IMO those that have a DVM behind their name should also be held to a much higher standard when sharing their views with the world. Shame on those that do not, no matter what their personal beliefs are.
 
#39 ·
Yup, we are all still waiting for scientific proof either way.

It is interesting that the fear mongering can go both ways.
I was at a pet supply show, looking at grooming tools. There were various kibble company sales people there, who definitely tried to put the fear of XXXX into me when I explained why my Spoo is raw fed. One of them literally followed me around trying to tell me I was killing my dog. I had to leave just to get away from him. I never did get my grooming tools.
 
#40 · (Edited)
Yup I definitely feel like the fear mongering goes both ways. Before I started researching into raw food, I got the sense from anti-raw people that feeding raw would be downright dangerous, not only to pets but also to humans around them. Only after much more extensive research did I realize that even anti-raw people admit that this danger is more in theory than in evidence - just like only after much more extensive research did I realize that even pro-raw people admit there is no definitive scientific evidence supporting the pro-raw claims. But, once you strip away the mudslinging, I feel like certain reasonable deductions can yield.

For example, let's look at the fundamental thing that Skeptvet and Karen Becker agree on - that all else being equal, fresh food is at least "probably better than" processed food. This is a guess that both sides are willing to accept. So, if we accept this, then there are two ways that freshly prepared raw food can still be worse than kibbles/processed food:

1) If raw food's bacterial risk turns out to be real and high.
2) If the raw food you're feeding is nutritionally imbalanced.

To me, if you're concerned about #1, you can simply cook the raw food, and #1 goes away (Karen Becker herself does not object to cooking raw food). Then you're left with #2 - nutritional imbalance. For this, if you're talking about commercial raw food and commercial processed food companies, the difference is not raw/fresh vs. processed, but whether individual companies are knowledgeable about creating a balanced nutritional diet, whether it's raw/fresh or processed. Any kibble company can be ignorant and create an imbalanced diet, just as any raw/fresh food company can do the same. So, unless one wants to make the argument that raw/fresh food companies, in generally, know less about nutritional balance than processed/kibble food companies, then the concern over nutritional imbalance cannot be categorically held against raw/fresh food companies. One possible argument would be that big companies, like Hill's, simply have researched pet nutrition longer and more extensively and therefore they "know best" what to feed our pets. If this is the case, then one would have to argue that Eukanuba, Hill's and Purina are better than not only all the raw food companies, but better than all the premium kibbles companies as well - because all the raw food and premium kibbles companies are smaller than Hill's/etc., and therefore they must know less, so the argument goes. In other words, using this argument, I would have to pick Hill's not only over Darwin/Primal (prominent raw food companies), but also over Orijen/Taste of the Wild/ZiwiPeak.

So the question then becomes: are these big companies really the only ones that know what constitutes a nutritionally balanced meal for a dog or cat? I find that really hard to believe, especially considering what's typically considered the bible for nutritional balance, AAFCO standards, isn't exactly a secret recipe. Or, let's push the logic one step further - for the sake of argument, let's say that we agree Hill's has created the absolute best nutritional balance. Even if that were true, wouldn't it be a "better" food to simply copy Hill's nutritional contents (written directly on the Hill's pet food bag itself) and create a fresh version of these contents - basically, Hill's but with fresh ingredients? I'm not sure how one could argue that Hill's fresh food would be worse than Hill's processed food, if the contents of the two are exactly the same and the difference is simply that one is processed and one is fresh? To defeat this argument or at least render it irrelevant, one would have to:

1). Reject the original premise that fresh food is probably better than processed food.
2). Accept that fresh food is probably better, but say the difference is so marginal that it will not have any real impact on the health of the animals; therefore, you'd be paying more money and creating more work for no reason.

Does that pretty much sum up where we are? :)

Kevin
 
#41 ·
I agree, fear mongering does go both ways, which is why I said .......Shame on those that do not, no matter what their personal beliefs are.

And maybe it's just me, but IMO the raw camp has typically come across more on the fanatical side. When I listen or read the views held by someone like Becker, much of what she states comes across to me as très bizarre.

Then you're left with #2 - nutritional imbalance. For this, if you're talking about commercial raw food and commercial processed food companies, the difference is not raw/fresh vs. processed,
Typically I believe this is a case of commercially processed food, vs home made raw food. When the raw movement started, everyone feeding raw was creating their own food, in their own kitchen. Many still are. Many with zero experience on animal nutrition, other than whatever research they have performed online. For many years there were no commercially available - raw diets, and that is when these arguments about nutritional imbalance began.

This isn't a case of who's the biggest, it's a case of people with absolutely no background in animal nutrition creating diets for animals.

Today there is a lot more information that can be gleaned online, than back in the 90's when the BARF movement was going strong. I think for a DVM that is much like it would be for an MD, with folks going online and reading up on various ailments, and then self prescribing and self medicating themselves. It can be a slippery slope, especially if the animal being fed has specific medical needs, or problems.
 
#42 ·
Kevin I was thinking about this thread after yesterday's "fresh" postings and what I might want to say in regard to them. We must have been in each others' heads since you very clearly made my arguments for me. I think the only thing I would add is that we have to be able to believe that all of the people involved in the enterprise of pet food production have one motivator: producing the best product possible based on available nutritional research (no profit concerns, no interest in what competitors are doing or at least the ability to put those things far enough into the background to make them minor issues).
 
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#43 ·
No profit concerns? Who can say that, about anything? I love my job, my boss is one of the best, but that doesn't mean that I don't care how much I get paid. :)

I think that it's fair to say that about commercial products, no matter what it is, dog food to you name it. One can place the utmost care, love, etc into the product, strive to be the absolute best, and still be concerned about profit. Part of that profit and overall success is shared with the employees.
 
#44 ·
Obviously I know that you can't run a business without wanting to make a profit! It can't be the concern that overrides decisions about safety, quality and integrity. Sadly there are enterprises that lose sight of what the priorities should be and cut corners in the name of the $$$ bottom line. Dogs died when companies cheated on their protein analysis and used melamine to make their foods look like they met AAFCO standards when they not only didn't meet the nutritional standard, but instead had been rendered outright dangerous.
 
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#45 ·
Yes, unfortunately in all walks of life there will be those that view their bottom line, as the only line. There is no getting away from that, and as consumers we can vote with our wallets - which is exactly why pet food companies (all of them, not just dog/cat) have had to continuously step up their game over the years.


Dogs died when companies cheated on their protein analysis and used melamine to make their foods look like they met AAFCO standards when they not only didn't meet the nutritional standard, but instead had been rendered outright dangerous.

This is part of the reason why one needs to better scrutinize vendors of the various raw ingredients used in pet foods, whether the end product is raw, or kibble. And when dealing with foreign suppliers, and countries with different standards and regulations than ours, tighter vetting needs to take place. Melamine slipped in from suppliers in China because at that time no one in North America was testing for melamine - they simply tested for crude protein content. In Canada, now not only are suppliers/manufacturers testing for these substances, government inspectors require safety checks of the plants that are based in these foreign countries. If they don't pass the sniff test, they aren't allowed into the country. Even manufacturers of pet fish food have found this out the hard way. Allow our inspectors in, or you won't be certified or allowed into the country.

Hard lessons to learn, but a move in the right direction. And another reason why when feeding kibble, I choose to feed locally manufactured food, that is made from locally sourced raw ingredients, that are fit for human consumption. In some cases our dogs are eating the same foods that we eat. A colossal improvement over what our pets were receiving 50 years ago when I was a youngster.
 
#46 ·
RD., yes certainly raw food commercial production companies can be as guilty as kibble and canned manufacturers in poor motivation and corner cutting for the sake of profit. This situation for pet food is as complex and fraught with potential danger as is human food production (loaded with its own recalls and less than honorable moments). I suppose one should not expect excellence in all aspects of pet food production when there are so many problems in human food production (can you tell I have a cynical streak?).

Honest open discussions like these with the opportunity to generate action plans (as suggested voting with one's wallet) are very important in trying to move the needle on concerns like this.
 
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