I need a bit of a ramp-up on this blog
entry. I should start off with saying I was once a mis-guided
uneducated dog owner once, even in my early vet tech days. I didn't
have enough experience to question what I had been hearing all along,
believing that what I heard from my vet's was absolute truth. In human
medicine we get second opinions if we're not sure about the initial
treatment plan/advice, we do our own research on treatments and
illnesses and consider alternative treatments (acupuncture,
chiropractic, herbs are all considered alternatives). So the concept of
extra research shouldn't be foreign when it comes to our pets. At a
certain point in my animal career, I started becoming interested in
alternative therapies for myself which led to an interest in all options
for my dog. When Pepe was a puppy I fed him a popular kibble promoted
by my animal hospital, I thought it was top notch and even recommended
to family and friends. Well I was wrong. The longer I worked with
animals, the more I saw how nutrition impacts their health and how
certain medical issues could be directly stemmed from the food they eat
every single day. So I began my quest of animal nutrition, attending
CE's (continuing education credits) on diet and reading food labels and
researching, researching researching...
My dog's
have been grain-free for years now. I do not allow wheat or corn to
touch their lips and my 'rules' for nutrition carries over in their
treat selections as well. The first proof that grains should not be a
part of a cat or dog's diet is to look at their teeth ... they have
teeth designed for ripping and tearing, not for grinding. Their bottom
jaw does not have the ability to swing as they chew.. our bottom jaws
swing in a similar fashion as ruminants (cows,
sheep, goats etc.) Humans and ruminants swing their bottom jaw for the
purpose of chewing down grains and plant materials - dog's and cat's do
not have this ability to even chew plant material properly. Although
whatever plant material in kibbles has been processed and doesn't
require the amount of chewing it would in it's natural state, the
inability to chew them is a strong indicator that it shouldn't be in
their diets in the first place.
One major
reason to remove grains from their diets is due to how grains are broken
down in the body. As we all know, carbohydrates are categorized into
simple carbs and complex carbs. Both break down into sugars, and excess
sugar is the enemy. Sugar specifically feeds yeast and cancer. If
your dog battles ear yeast infections, most likely diet is the cause.
If your pet battles with skin issues, there could also be an
overabundance of yeast on the skin. Cancer also feeds on sugars in the
body. When a pet is diagnosed with cancer, veternarian's put them on a high fat/high protein/low carb diet (Hill's N/D
diet is for cancer and due to the high fat content, only a canned
version is available). Cancer needs sugar to live, so vet's put pet's
on a strict diet to limit sugars as much as possible. So then why don't
we feed anti-cancer diets as a proactive solution??
Dr.
Gregory Ogilvie, DVM at Colorado State University has done extensive
research in the matter of canine cancer and the role that diet has on
cancer. Studies by Dr. Ogilvie have shown that dogs with lymphoma fed a
diet high in simple carbs had significantly worse outcomes than dogs
fed diets high in fat. Additionally, studies have shown that dog's and
cat's that were fed grain-free diets, had 50% less cancer occurrences
than those fed grain based diets. Wow!!! Those numbers alone are what
convinced me to make the switch.
Dog Food Advisor has done a great job at pointing out even more reasons
why grains should be eliminated from the diet. The food reviewers at
Dog Food Advisor really get into the detail on why certain food
ingredients are poor choices and they have an extensive forum community
where pet 'foodies' can post question and reply to each other. Here is
a forum on grains from earlier this year and you can see there are many
other knowledgeable pet owners who are very mindful of what they feed
their dogs. (They have yet to make a CatFoodAdvisor.com).
Take a turn and compare a grain-based diet compared to a grain-free diet. Read through the ingredients of each and specifically read about ingredients that they highlight in red. Now a dog or cat will survive on both of these foods, but they will only THRIVE on one of them.
I
hope this has been informative and not overwhelming (this is my short
version of why grains are a no-no!). All I want is for your furry ones
to live long happy healthy lives, and nutrition is the easiest way to do
this.
Some informative links:
Nutrition and Cancer: Frontiers for Cure, Dr. Gregory Ogilvie
Cancer Diet for Dogs - Modern Dog Magazine
Nutrition for the Canine Cancer Patient - CanineCancer.com
More Protein, Less Carbs - FightCanineCancer.com
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