Back in 2005, after many years of living without any pets, a strong hankering began to arise in me for some companionship. Little did I know at the time that this journey would be such a profound catalyst for so much learning and discovery, particularly in the area of how to make the best homemade dog food and cat chow!
Right after I brought my two new kittens home I made a trip to the store to purchase some kitty litter, as well as a collection of various types of canned cat food, along with a bag of that ubiquitous and seemingly obligatory kibble. However, I soon began to embark upon what was to become a transformational journey into exploring and gaining as much knowledge as possible on how and why to feed my new furry friends a diet of raw food and care for them holistically.
Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I ditched the canned food and kibble, as I began to educate myself in earnest about why it was best not to feed my pets that stuff, and as I learned how and why to feed them a diet of real foods — the kind of deeply nourishing, wholesome, unprocessed raw foods their carnivorous bodies were inherently, naturally and originally designed to eat.
What I found as I progressed further and further along on this path of investigation was that the more information I uncovered, the more it was all starting to blow my mind!
Our Pets Are Victims of Denatured and Devitalized Foods Too!
I began to realize that for virtually my entire life I, along with the majority of people living in the western world, had been nothing less that powerfully duped, misled, deceived and misinformed – dare I say brainwashed – when it comes to how, why and what we should be feeding our cats and dogs, and how we should be caring for their health.
What became increasingly clear to me was a set of dynamics that uncannily parallels the way in which the “diet dictocrats” (as Sally Fallon Morell has so aptly dubbed the misleading and erroneous corporate, commercial, political, economic, and governmental influences that have dominated conventional dietary recommendations during the past decades) have conditioned virtually our entire society into wrongly believing that it’s all well and good for us to eat a diet loaded with nutrient sparse, poor quality junk food.
Similarly, over the course of time a number of mega-corporate pet food diet dictocrats have poured billions upon billions of dollars into creating and widely disseminating powerfully persuasive ad campaigns. These advertisements, with which most of us have grown up and are intimately familiar, are very cleverly designed to convince Joe Public that a steady diet of highly processed, low quality, industrially produced, commodity based, pet food “products” manufactured in factories are what we should be feeding our pets.
Chronic Degenerative Diseases Increasing in Pets
And the correlations between people and pets don’t end there. What is perhaps even more disturbingly evident is that many of the very same kinds of chronic degenerative diseases from which we modern humans are now suffering in ever increasing numbers, are also directly affecting our pets. Just as in people, there has been a growing, veritable pandemic among the domestic pet population of debilitating and even deadly afflictions such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, periodontal disease, digestive dysfunctions, arthritis, renal issues, allergies and skin rashes, as well as endocrinological and immunological malfunctions, among others.
Just as the average poor quality SAD (standard American diet) is clearly implicated in the dramatic decline our our collective human health, so too are the substandard junk pet food diets fed to our pet populations undoubtedly a significant factor in the drastic deterioration of their collective health.
The Pharmaceutical Paradigm Dominates Conventional Veterinary Medicine
To take the comparison even a step further, it’s revealing to note that just as there is a massive financial collusion between Big Pharma and the conventional allopathic medical industry, so is there a corresponding connection between Big Junk Pet Food (which by the way, is all tangled and connected up with some of the biggest, most influential manufacturers of industrialized, toxic junk food made for people) and the veterinary industry.
For instance, in the same way that drug companies contribute massive funding to medical schools, pet food companies too make large financial contributions to veterinary schools. In fact, pet food companies often heavily influence the curriculum content at vet schools, and their fallacious dogma is regularly promulgated through various courses on pet nutrition which they teach and/or otherwise oversee, direct or facilitate.
And just as large pharmaceutical firms woo medical students with perks and gifts, pet food companies also provide very similar incentives to vet students to encourage them to come into the fold. As a result of all this, just as most allopathic medical physicians become salespeople for the drug industry, so too do most all veterinarians end up being shills for the junk pet food industry.
Because we’ve been so powerfully and incessantly conditioned by the media not to think too much for ourselves, or to use the power of our minds and discernment to think critically, the vast majority of people simply accept the status quo as it stands. Most rarely ever wonder too terribly seriously about why things are the way they are, and fewer still are much interested at all in attempting to wake up to the larger, more sobering and revelatory truths of this world.
Well I for one have started to wonder mightily, and very much aspire to awaken! And I’ve found many kindred spirits among those who are knowledgeable about Weston A.Price’s teachings and who are active in the Foundation. Therefore like many of you, I feel called to help pull back the curtain, so to speak, so as to shed some light and allow us all to see with clearer eyes what’s really going on. Ironically, my explorations into learning about the health and diets of our beloved animal companions have been instrumental in compelling me on my ever-deepening and ongoing investigations into our own human diets and health.
Our furry friends are so innocent, trusting and so utterly reliant upon us to properly care for and feed them. They give of themselves to us so selflessly and generously, and surely they deserve all the best we can provide for them in return!
Sources and More Information
Choose Another Pet Food if Yours Has These Ingredients
THANK YOU for this article. My 3 dogs eat the Raw Meaty Bones (RMB) diet, since 2008. When we switched to this diet, I also stopped poisoning my dogs every month with spot flea and tick treatments. My 14 year old lab/heeler is like a puppy again and my pit bull has no more skin rashes and eruptions; in the mix is a cairn terrier who also thrives on this diet. I’ve found it to be cheaper than feeding “quality” kibble. I have a co-worker with 5 kibble-fed dogs. My co-worker recently had back surgery and I’ve been helping her care for her dogs, including helping her take her dogs to the vet. I can’t believe how often she has a dog at the vet’s office! (Which, for the record, is chock-full of Hill’s Science Diet products.) My dogs haven’t been sick or needed to visit the vet since we started RMB. They also get a daily serving of food grade diatomaceous earth.
I saw first-hand the link between the pet food industry and education. I work at a university, and before our vet tech program was phased out, Hill’s was ever-present and crawling over that part of the campus, starting the vet/pet food education early.
Thank you for sharing this, Gwen!
It’s so great to have validation about all the points you bring up from someone like you who’s speaking from personal experience!
Hi Sarah,
We have bullmastiffs and we raise them on a raw diet, lots of vegetables go into the vegetable mash and then they get a roughly ground chicken, rabbit and lamb. The meat includes cartilage, bones, tendons, etc. We also include various chinese herbs and traditional herbs when they need them and also include some keifir to help their digestion. Once you get into the rhythm of using this type of diet, it is easy and you will end up with a very healthy pet. One side note for us, because we feed our animals this way, they are not on the hunt for other food in the house like counter surfing or getting in the trash. They are calm and balanced. We have a bully that is turning 11 this year and still going strong.
I’m just lucky to have a pet that doesn’t have any allergy when it comes to food. But I refrain giving them sea foods such as crab and shrimps.
Thanks for sharing this informative post.
Hi Sarah,
How many egg yolks can a baby have a day? My baby adores egg yolk but does not like anything else to date. She saw egg yolk and ended up with applesauce (I ended up ripping the egg yolk 2x and waited until later to do it). The look of disgust and gagging herself have been making me laugh all day on a day when I needed it! I wasn’t trying to though!
I’ve tried feeding my dogs raw high quality Roo meat (I’m from Australia). Whilst my Staffy thrives on it, my GSP loses too much weight and passes very hard stools. I tried with him a few years ago, feeding him BARF (Bones and Raw Food) Rolls that I purchased from a vet. They contained meat, bones, veggies and a few other select ingredients. I had the same problem back then. It seems that it doesn’t matter how much I feed him, it has the same result. I’ve tried adding Beef Fat to his meat and this made no difference. I feed them two meals a day – oats in the morning, meat at night. It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, for some reason his body does not seem to digest the raw meat properly. When I feed him on a high quality organic grain-free kibble, he thrives. Does anybody know why this would be? Has anybody else ever experienced this?
I read something one time about a dog that couldn’t eat raw, he didn’t react well to it. I forget exactly how. But it was explained as there was just too much energy in the raw diet for his constitution being that he was older. But he did well on cooked foods. Food for thought.
Hi Jade,
Please check out the links in a response to a comment I posted above with resources on raw feeding for dogs.
My first suggestion would be to feed WHOLE raw foods to your GSP – not the kind of ground up, mushy raw food that comes in those BARF rolls you mentioned. Those kinds of products are unnatural for dogs to eat because they’re highly processed and are not whole raw foods. Another problem with these sorts of pre-fab raw products is that they often contain cheap filler ingredients that are inappropriate for carnivores to eat. Some of them also contain far too much ground bone or bone meal, (again, because these are cheap) which is very binding and constipating for most dogs.
Check out the photos at http://rawfeddogs.net for a better idea of what I’m talking about when I say it’s best to feed dogs whole (not ground) raw foods.
Another things is that besides raw muscle meat, dogs also need to consume raw meaty bones as well as some organ meats such as heart, kidney, and especially liver. Increasing the proportions of squidgy organ meats to RMBs and muscle meats usually helps to soften hard and/or difficult to pass stools.
Thanks so much Linda! I forgot to mention that I do feed them raw meaty bones after their meat each night. But I haven’t been giving them any organs so I might keep my eye out for some at my local butcher. Also, I didn’t realize that minced meat was not as good for them but now that you mention it, it really does make sense. I will try to transition them to whole animal meats now. Ideally I’d love to feed them organic but I can’t afford that so I’ll just look for specials on whole meat items at my supermarket and butcher. Now that I have the information it really does make so much sense to replicate what they would eat in the wild!
Sounds to me like he’s just getting too much bone. You are right on track getting started on whole meats from the market or butcher! Great job! I would also suggest not feeding the oatmeal. It is my belief that dogs don’t need any kind of grains or veggies. Good luck!
I agree with Trish – too much bone in a dog’s diet makes for hard, difficult to pass stools.
I also agree about ditching the oatmeal.
Dogs are carnivores! One look at their teeth will tell you that.
They’re basically grey wolves on the inside, and you won’t find many wolf packs spending their hard earned energy hunting down oats for dinner!
In part because of the information on Linda’s website, I switched all my dogs and cats to raw food about 6 years ago. My raw food journey with my pets is what lead me to Weston A. Price. I’ll forever be grateful to Linda for giving me some of the important first insights that have opened the door to a path to wellness for myself, my family, and my furry companions.
I’m happy to report that my pest are in such undeniably excellent health that my vet has converted to the cause! He now recommends raw food to all his patients, and even has an informational flyer (that I helped design) to help guide new raw feeders.
Thanks to both Sarah & Linda!
I know a bunch of people who found Weston A. Price by researching to get their pets off commercial pet food.
Wow! Thanks so much for this, Joey!
I’m so glad to hear your pets are doing so well, and am thrilled to hear that your vet is helping to spread the god word about raw feeding with his clients!
That is all absolutely fantastic news. 🙂
Oh, my goodness. Us, too!
I took my dog to a holistic vet once and he said one of the best things we could do is give our dogs scraps from the table. We eat very well, grass fed meat, milk, eggs, etc. and when we clear the table the dog gets the leftovers. We also buy some grain free dog food as backup incase the scraps are not enough. I know that this is not as good as raw, but I feel it is much better than dog food. It also costs us very little. There are a few foods that dogs should not eat and you can look online if you would like to try this.
Wondering what your thoughts on Xylitol are… something to blog on, perhaps. 🙂
Good idea. I should write about that!
A friend of mine forwards this blog to me so that I can come to my senses and eat right. I really was enjoying all the information and ideas to get one track, until today.
Are you all freakin kidding me!? These are animals. Lady, if you can’t have children, adopt children. The money you are spending on animals could go to human beings who are waiting on a home and those human children could enjoy the animals.
For you all to attack a person for defending people is beyond insane. Yes, I love animals and I enjoy animals. I will come to an animals rescue and I would never allow anyone to abuse an animal. I also would never stand for people like Lanet who seem to think that it is better to take time away from my family to volunteer at an animal shelter if I cannot buy them and feed them people food. Insane! Insane! I would like to interview the animals and ask them if they would rather live on the street or in a grundgy shelter than in a home with people who love and care for them the normal way. I am almost sure you would get a majority vote for human love, period. You people have too much money on your hands and not enough social justice in your heart. Your priorities are wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off.
Lucy, Our opinions may not be the same but I managed to maintain a respectful voice in all I shared today. It is a shame you didn’t do the same when you addressed me specifically with your comment regarding me adopting children. That isn’t your place. You don’t know me and it does bother me that you would lash out at me like that. Be mad if you’d like but I think, as one who mentions social justice, that you wouldn’t speak to someone like that who didn’t share one harsh word in these comments. The whole point of this blog post and a lot of the content on this site is eating right. All of us. People and animals. I choose to allocate my budget to feed species appropriate food to my pets. I’m not rich. I just budgeted for it in the lifestyle I chose to lead. We all do the best we can with what we have. Some people say they can’t afford organic or grass fed beef, for example. So they do the best they can. This is just a learning resource and I’m sorry some of you took it as over-spending on our pets at the risk of mankind. So many people just don’t know that Bene-ful, for example, is loaded with horrible ingredients. So it is wonderful that others speak out to share that knowledge. It is just the same when someone may not know that Oreo Cookies are loaded with bad ingredients until someone shares that. That is how this information gets out there and we all become more informed on what we eat. You may not want to take that step with your pets now or ever, but many do. Not because we have money to burn but because we want to keep them healthy…and that DOES save money in the long run because there aren’t all those vet bills. I don’t spend much more on my pets feeding raw than I did feeding commercial pet food that eventually made everyone sick. But, even if I did, I don’t need to justify that to you or anyone else. Just like I don’t need to justify my slightly higher grocery bill because I buy some organic produce or higher quality meats. I wouldn’t want the pets brought into my life to go to another home as I know I’m already giving them great care. I’m grateful for everyone who takes the time to educate through online resources like this because it has helped me on my path to healthier life, for my family and my pets.
LucyJ,
I get what you’re saying, and I personally have a lot of social justice in my heart. However, everyone has different interests, and causes that they are passionate about. I personally have supported both animal causes and human causes at the same time, and at different points with my charitable giving budget. The two are NOT mutually exclusive.
I think it’s a huge assumption, and pretty judgemental to say “you people have too much money on your hands and not enough social justice in your heart”. I am a stay at home mom, and we live on my husband’s income. My family defininitely does not have too much money on our hands. However, we prioritize quality foods and nutrition for our family above things like entertainment, electronics, vacations, etc. Just as we prioritized me staying home when our first child was born. I’m willing to sacrifice a little more to feed my cats a species appropriate diet as well.
I completely understand that not everyone has the funds, education about, or access to quality nutrition for their families or their pets. I know that we are extremely fortunate to be able to do so, and we are thankful. That’s why we give back to causes we believe in when we’re able. In my opinion, industrial agriculture and unethical government agencies are completely to blame for the sad state of nutrition available to American citizens. It’s criminal!
I don’t think anyone here was attacking anyone else. Some are, however, expressing their different beliefs. Discussion and shared ideas are good things. They lead to education and progress.
Amen!
Charry, you have definitely retained your integrity. You go girl!
Thanks Jade.
As someone who has no children I find this comment particularly offensive.
and I can’t seem to write any more then that with out being particularly offensive myself, and I kind of really ashamed of myself for that.