Feeding your dog or cat a raw diet

Explore the benefits of raw diets for pets and debunk common myths. Learn how to transition your dog or cat to a healthier, balanced diet.

Raw diets offer many nutritional benefits to our dogs and cats. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of myths surrounding this type of feeding. Recognizing the misinformation and confronting it is often the first step. The next is learning how to safely and successfully switch your dog or cat to a raw diet. 

Top 6 myths about raw food for dogs and cats

1. “Raw meat diets are not balanced.”

False! A raw diet can provide balance over time by including the proportions of meat, bone, organs, and vegetation found in prey animals. It is not necessary that every single meal be scientifically manipulated; in fact, it can even be detrimental. 

Most commercial raw diet analyses meet currently accepted standards, while recipes for home preparation can be formulated using nutritional calculators, or with the guidance of a boarded nutritionist or holistic veterinarian. Balancing your dog or cat’s diet using fresh, whole foods is preferable to balancing it with synthetic ingredients.  

2. “Raw meat diets are unsafe due to bacteria like Salmonella or E. coli.” 

False! There are three reasons why raw meat diets are typically safer than commercial diets when it comes to bacterial contamination:

• The high-pressure pasteurization utilized by many raw diet manufacturers destroys pathogenic bacteria in the products while leaving nutrition intact. 
• The fermentation of raw food crowds out bad bacteria while highly desirable bacteria flourish. 
• Livestock raised in reduced stress environments shed less pathogenic bacteria. Small raw diet manufacturers are a conscientious group who try to provide happily-raised and fresh-slaughtered meat sources in their products. You will not see the term “meal” on raw food labels, because it refers to rendered rather than fresh-slaughtered meat. 

3. “Carnivores need grains to prevent heart disease.”

False! Cats in particular are strict carnivores. They thrive best on meat which, when uncooked, contains taurine, a vital amino acid needed to prevent heart disease. Cooking meat destroys taurine. Interestingly, the heart muscle of a mouse contains among the highest levels of taurine. 

In the same way, dogs will receive an abundance of taurine by eating uncooked meat, although they can also manufacture their own taurine by consuming methionine and cysteine. which is present in a variety of plants. 

4. “Sick animals must eat veterinary prescription diets to recover and maintain health.”

False! Holistic veterinarians counsel their clients to provide a fresh species-appropriate diet, with alterations, to assist with disease management. In my practice, I teach how to implement a “nitrogen trap” consisting of cooked, blended, dark leafy greens and probiotics. This “grabs” the nitrogenous waste in the gut and removes it via the stool so it does not build up in the blood stream and cause distress to the liver or kidneys. 

These same greens and probiotics are beneficial to the gut as antioxidants and immune system enhancement, and benefit patients compromised with autoimmune disease or cancer. Appropriate added vegetation also manipulates urinary pH and treats dogs and cats prone to crystalluria. 

5. “Veterinarians know best what to feed your dog or cat, and do not recommend raw food.”

False! Conventional academia continues to provide veterinarians with limited short-sighted nutrition education. Allopathic doctors are unfamiliar with the benefits of feeding fresh food and continue to promote processed foods that contribute to health problems such as inflammatory bowel disease and urinary tract disease. 

Holistic veterinarians seek nutritional education beyond what school offers. They travel the world to learn from experienced mentors and unconventional resources about why and how to implement raw feeding. These veterinarians do recommend fresh food diets, including frozen, freeze-dried, or balanced home-prepared diets. We can cite case after case of miraculous improvement in our patients when we changed a dog or cat’s diet from processed to raw. 

6. “Feeding raw food causes diarrhea.”

False! Whenever new nutrients enter the digestive system, one can experience a “cleanse.” Indeed, health-minded people cleanse or detox on purpose. A dog or cat cleansing on your carpet can be objectionable, however, which is why we change diets slowly. I warn clients that a cleanse could occur when transitioning a dog or cat to any new diet. 

Once you transition successfully, however, your companion will produce small, firm stools. That’s because there is little to no waste and often significant amounts of ground bone in raw diets. This is normal and desirable. If the stool is too firm and difficult to expel, you can add fiber such as pumpkin or green beans to each meal.

How to safely and effectively implement a raw diet 

• Select several brands of high quality frozen or freeze-dried raw foods, or learn how to home-prepare. If you’re going the latter route, make sure to seek the guidance of someone who is experienced with implementing balanced, home-prepared diet for dogs and cats. The most common home-prep error is creating a recipe that’s devoid of calcium and organs and repeating it over and over.
• Do not cook the food — cooking meat creates heterocyclic amines that behave as carcinogens. It also destroys nutrients and causes a loss of balance from the initial prey-concept diet. 
• Add a probiotic/enzyme supplement to your dog or cat’s current food to aid with the transition. My favorite is a sprouted seed supplement that provides an amazing array of whole food-sourced vitamins, minerals, enzymes, Omega fatty acids, and millions of probiotics. Read ingredient labels to avoid synthetic additions such as mineral proteinates. These are hidden sources of soy protein, which is typically GMO and contains glyphosate, a potential carcinogen and antibiotic.

• Clean bowls, work surfaces, and your hands after every meal. This is good common-sense practice.
• To start, repeat a particular protein to assess for sensitivity, then include plenty of variety in your dog or cat’s meals. Variety helps avoid the unintentional repetition of an excess or deficiency of any particular nutritent/s. Keep in mind that no food is perfect unless a carnivore has access to its natural prey and is foraging in the wild. Do your research and choose a couple of trusted companies. Then choose two to four different proteins from each company, test each on your dog or cat, and then rotate frequently!
• Add fiber as needed. An appropriate amount of pumpkin, green beans or other green blend can balance stool production and create a stool that is firm yet comfortable to pass, aids with proper anal gland expression, and is easy to pick up.
• If your dog or cat has an existing illness, as discussed earlier, add warmed, blended greens and probiotics to create a “nitrogen trap” to replace vet-recommended prescription diets, especially for animals with liver or kidney issues, or cancer. Use added veggies to manipulate urinary pH as needed for animals prone to urinary crystal formation. Work with a holistic veterinarian who has experience using balanced, fresh, species-appropriate diets to manage disease.

The final step is to watch your dog or cat enjoy his or her food! Be prepared for energy levels to rise, and coat quality to improve. Have fun experimenting with different whole foods as treats to see what your animal loves the most — offer veggies, fruits, or freeze-dried organs, and learn how to incorporate raw bones. Just remember to avoid grapes, raisins, onions, macadamia nuts and chocolate, which are all toxic to dogs and cats. Also avoid starchy biscuits – the sugar in these products contributes to inflammation, poor oral health, obesity, diabetes, and cancer cell replication. 

Once you’ve successfully transitioned your dog or cat to a raw diet, you can congratulate yourself for being an initiative-taking animal parent, and helping your best friend live a long, quality, natural life!

Making the switch to raw food

The time it takes to transition your dog or cat to a raw diet depends on their response to the new food.

• If your dog or cat loves the food and there is no vomiting or diarrhea, the transition may occur in three to seven days. 
• If your companion is “addicted” to the carbohydrates in the existing processed food, suspicious of dietary change, or sensitive to a particular new protein, the transition may be more difficult. Finicky animals, especially cats, can take 21 days to convert. Be patient and persistent.
• Monitor your dog or cat’s appetite and stool production.
• Assure that adequate calories are consumed daily, especially by cats, who are prone to fatty liver disease. 
• Use nutritional “tools” to help with the switch, such as foods you know your animal likes. These may include toppers, mix-ins, or “people food” such as canned sardines, bone broth (with no onions), etc. 
• Add something hot to cold thawed food — freshly-caught prey animals are warm, not cold. Repetitive feeding of cold food damages “stomach Yin” from an Asian food therapy perspective.
• Don’t make the food soupy as too much water can dilute stomach acids and impede proper digestion.
• Do not feed too much at a time and prevent your dog or cat from eating too fast.

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