As veterinary medicine advances and human diets evolve through phases like Akins, Keto there has been a movement in the boutique pet food industry to create diets that pet owners may perceive as being more healthy than regular dog food brands.
Some owners also feel that their pets come from wild animals who eat small prey and raw diets may be closer to what they’d be eating in the wild.
Some of the things that are overlooked when considering these diets are: cats and dogs are over 10,000 years evolved from their wild cat and wild dog ancestry. It stands with good reason that their gastrointestinal tracts have changed as they have domesticated. Also, in nature, wild animals don’t and didn’t live nearly as long as today’s domestic cats and dogs that have life spans ranging from 13 to 19 years!
The other aspect to keep in mind, is when wild animals ate their prey, they consumed bones (calcium) the skin / muscles and the prey’s organs which provided vitamins and minerals, which raw food often doesn’t contain.
While raw food is often appealing to your cat and dog’s taste buds and easily digestible, they often don’t provide the full spectrum of nutrients your pet needs. And with all raw meat depending how it has been stored, shipped and then re-stored before you purchase the product, bacterial organism can grow on it.
Commonly found bacteria on raw diets include the bacterial Klebsiella, Listeria, E. Coli, Salmonella, Clostridium and more. This can result in diarrhea, vomiting and in the case of Salmonella can be transmitted to others in your household through infected fecal material.
Following the raw diet and carbohydrate free fad in people, there are other foods that mimic human packaged meals and contain uncooked meats and vegetables. Similar issues can occur with these diets. Everything from raw to the newer packaged refrigerated versions also lack certification from AAFCO – the veterinary body that sets and certifies a food meets a companion animal’s minimum nutritional requirements.
Some pet owners feel that meat and vegetables are all a cat and dog needs. This follows the human carbohydrate-free fad that seems to help people lose weight. Dogs and cats are not humans and there is nothing to show that grains are problematic in companion animals. In fact, some newer grain-free foods have been associated with cardiac issues as an essential amino acid called taurine is not being appropriately absorbed by the pet from grain-free diets.
With the number of new pet food brands hitting the pet market each year, many heavy with TV, radio and print advertisements, it can be very confusing to figure out what food are best for your pet. Ultimately, that’s all most of us are trying to do – give our companion animal the very best.
One thing that can help is to check how much money the companies put into nutritional research each year. If you can’t find the answer, then there is likely minimal data to support the nutritional worthiness of the food. The other things to look for is AAFCO or WSAVA nutritional certifications. Think of AAFCO as the pet equivalent to the USDA for providing nutritional standards. WSAVA goes even further.
If you can’t find information of nutritional studies and the food isn’t certified by AAFCO or WSAVA there’s a reason. These are foods to stay away from. If you have a specific goal you are trying to achieve with food or you are someone that wants to use something novel for your pet, talk to your veterinarian for recommendations.
In some cases, home-cooked or off-brand foods can be made more complete by your veterinarian working with a veterinary nutritionist to create a customized plan for your pet that they enjoy and keeps them living their best, healthy lives!