note:I think we're sticking to cooked food for our kitties.
Lauren Merryfield,
http://www.catliness.com
--submitted by Michelle:
Hello all -- this was posted on the Scottish Fold Fanciers list --
In light of recent discussion, this is an article that I thought would
interest people on this list. I do not take a stand on this issue and
neither does
the article published by Salon magazine. It is just interesting to see two
sides of the issue discussed in the same article and it has some links for
more
information. Everyone has to make their own decision.
The beef over pet food
Bowser gets raw meat because wolves eat it in the wild. Tabby gets raw
chicken because lions don't eat kibble. But vets say the recent trend of raw
feeding
is dangerous to pets and people.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Jan. 19, 2006 | On a recent winter afternoon in San Francisco's well-heeled
Marina district, there's blood on the sidewalk.
Spilling out of the garage of a neat yellow house, dozens of cardboard boxes
overflow with a smorgasbord of frozen raw meat and bones sealed in plastic
bags. There's pork and beef from Niman Ranch, and whole quail from Cavendish
Game
Birds of Vermont. It looks like an upscale butcher has been pillaged by a
modern-day Robin Hood, who left the spoils for the taking: lamb, chicken,
goat,
turkey, rabbit, buffalo -- a veritable Noah's Ark of high-quality protein
plunder.
Straining at his leash, a golden retriever is overcome by lust, sniffing
frantically at the inside of a box, drinking in the lingering scent of flesh
and
blood. Not to worry; this dog surely will get more than a nose-full later
because the thousands of pounds of meaty carnage piled up here is all for
dogs and
cats.
It's monthly delivery day for San Francisco Raw Feeders, a buyers group with
some 350 human members who strive to feed their animals a diet rich with raw
meat -- and not just any meat, but sustainable, antibiotic- and steroid-free
meat and bones from cows, pigs and poultry raised and slaughtered on small
farms.
Joyce Chin is here to get chow for her eight greyhounds. She looks at the
haul and stifles a laugh. "If my mother only knew the stuff that I feed my
dogs,
she would be horrified because a lot of this would go to feed people in
China," she says. "People in America don't even eat a lot of these cuts."
That's true of the pork neck bones and feet, as well as the green tripe with
trachea and gullet. Here's 5 pounds of beef hearts for $13.20, 12 pounds of
beef livers for $25.80, and a 10-pound case of lamb breast bones for $20.
Tina Maria van der Horst, a tall blonde wearing a blue fleece jacket and
jeans, is loading up her trunk with Niman Ranch pork neck bones and beef
ribs.
She's driven three hours in traffic from Grass Valley, Calif., to make the
monthly pickup for her three Rhodesian Ridgebacks. She's been feeding them a
raw
diet for almost four years.
"I was a kibble person before that, and never again," says van der Horst.
"All the little problems they had were instantly solved with the raw diet --
tooth problems, inflammatory bowel disease, ears that accumulated wax. They
even
smell better. It's like a car that's running well." Van der Horst spends
$180 a
month to feed her dogs (a 50-pound bag of kibble costs $21). But she thinks
the price comes out in the wash. "You're sure to save in the end because
you're
not going to be running to the vet all the time with allergies, ear
infections and teeth cleaning," she says.
Yes, the organic, sustainable, locally grown food craze has migrated off the
dinner plate and into the dog dish and cat bowl. In recent years, dozens of
raw feeding groups and co-ops have sprung up around the country. Pet owners
from
Texas to Kansas to Pennsylvania and Washington are trading treasured recipes
as well as tips on the best source for whole rabbit.
Pet food companies aren't standing by and watching the customers most
willing
to spend money on their pets negotiate directly with farmers and ranchers.
People annually spend $13 billion on dog and cat food, and pet companies are
chomping at the bit to cater to organic customers. So far the Purinas
haven't
entered the fray but start-ups like Primal Pet Foods offer pre-mixed grinds
of
raw pet diets for sale at Whole Foods Market and boutique pet stores. Primal
sells 65,000 pounds of frozen meals per month in 15 states including
Illinois,
South Carolina and Wisconsin. Jeffrey's Natural Pet Foods, with two
locations in
San Francisco, pulls in $300 a day in raw food sales at one of its
neighborhood stores.
Although many San Francisco raw feeders say they are vegetarians, they see
no
contradiction in buying gore by the case for their animals. They view their
dogs and cats as domesticated carnivores that should be powered by raw
protein,
not by packaged, processed, preservative-laden kibble made out of who knows
what.
Just over a week ago, their suspicions about commercial pet food got some
grisly confirmation when 100 dogs in the United States died from
contaminated pet
food sold under the Diamond, Country Value and Professional brands, now
under
recall. The food was contaminated with a toxin that wastes the liver,
causing
vomiting, orange-colored urine and jaundice. The toxin occurs naturally in
corn crops that experience wet conditions following a drought. Diamond
states
that last summer it was rejecting one or two shipments per week of corn
because
of high levels of the toxin, but some slipped by. Meanwhile, the Pet Food
Institute, which represents pet food manufacturers, issued a statement to
reassure
the public that most pet food is safe.
Raw feeders are not reassured. They insist their pet diets are safer than
supermarket brands of pet food, and that dogs and cats get more vitamins and
nutrients out of a raw piece of flesh than processed kibble or canned food,
largely because "raw" is more natural.
The veterinary establishment is not sold. Neither the American Veterinary
Association nor the British Veterinary Association endorses the health
benefits
of raw food. Both organizations caution that animals fed raw meat run the
risk
of contracting food-borne illnesses. The British veterinary group declares
that "there is no scientific evidence base to support the feeding of raw
meat and
bones," and warns humans they risk exposing themselves to bacteria like
salmonella.
The raw feeders find the dire warnings laughable.
Joanie Levin-Yarlick, a dog trainer, arrives at San Francisco Raw Feeders
with her 12-year-old border collie, Levi. "He eats better than I do," she
says.
The dog sticks out his tongue, happily panting. "You eat better than I do,"
she
coos.
Levin-Yarlick, who wears a white baseball cap and white sweat shirt with the
words "Catholic Dogs Gone Bad" emblazoned over a cartoon of three
fornicating
pooches, says that Levi's diet includes chicken backs, necks and feet,
turkey
necks and beef bones. She's here not just for the meat, but also to sell
T-shirts and sweat shirts, like the one she's wearing, to benefit a local
animal
nonprofit. One T-shirt displays two doggies kissing and says: "Don't Ask.
Don't
Tell."
The freezer back home at Levin-Yarlick's place is stuffed with raw food for
Levi. "It's his freezer," she says. "I have nothing in it but ice cubes."
But
Levi's choice repast is not limited to flesh. It also includes a veggie mash
that his doting owner makes out of broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, red
chard,
parsley, garlic, ginger, kelp, alfalfa, zucchini or squash, but never
bananas
or avocado.
Levin-Yarlick attests that switching her border collie from kibble to this
homemade meat- and vegetable-rich diet has given him a lustrous coat and
cleared
up his bad skin. Since she started making her dog's meals, he's had more
energy, better teeth, and even, she says, "his poop is nicer -- it's harder
and
smaller." But as passionate as Levin-Yarlick is about Levi's transformation
on
his homemade fare, she doesn't talk about Levi's diet with her vet. "She
doesn't agree with the raw diet, so we don't discuss it."
Levin-Yarlick contends that raw food is a natural way to feed dogs. "When
they evolved in the wild, nobody cooked their food for them," she says.
"They
killed their prey and they ate it."
Her view is supported by one of the gurus of raw feeding, Dr. Richard
Pitcairn, a University of California at Davis-trained vet who is the author
of "Dr.
Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats," which has
sold
more than 400,000 copies since it was first published more than 20 years
ago.
"A lot of this is common sense," Pitcairn says. "How have animals eaten for
hundreds of thousands of years? Why should we think that the processed foods
that we're feeding them are any better?"
At the heart of raw feeding is the conviction that the rise of the pet food
industry over the last 60 years has weaned dogs and cats from the foods most
natural to them. Instead, it's hooked them on a bunch of low-quality
processed
junk food that has a long shelf life, making it cheap and convenient for
humans
but not good for animals.
Raw feeders see the big pet food companies as offshoots of the human food
industry, providing a market for all the waste not deemed fit for people.
Say a
chicken in the slaughterhouse has a cancerous growth on its wing. That goes
into pet food, while the rest of the chicken is slated for human
consumption,
Pitcairn attests. The pet food trade association dismisses the allegation.
Other
goodies in pet food? Animals that died on the way to the slaughterhouse and
even road kill, Pitcairn claims.
Turning that mishmash into kibble, he says, produces food that is overloaded
with too many carbohydrates that dogs and cats, especially cats, don't need.
In fact, some vets have experimented with treating feline diabetes by
putting
diabetic cats on a high-protein, low-carb diet, known, of course, as the
"Catkins" diet.
Advocates of raw feeding say most vets receive minimal training in nutrition
and simply go along with the nutritional guidelines of pet food companies,
even peddling their diets in their offices. Many of the chronic health
problems
common in today's dogs and cats -- the kind of problems that constitute
vets'
bread-and-butter -- clear up with a more natural diet, according to Dr.
Pitcairn.
"Sixty years ago, there was no such thing as commercial kibble," says Kasie
Maxwell, founder of the San Francisco Raw Feeders, who spends about $300 a
month feeding her two 7-year-old Great Danes and recently rescued
15-year-old
Labrador retriever. Before she started this meat market for pets, Maxwell, a
vegan, used to shop for her dogs at Whole Foods. She'd pick up chicken,
turkey,
beef and lamb -- "whatever they had that looked good, organic, hormone-free
and
antibiotic-free" -- to the tune of $500 a month.
Most of the raw feeders are casually dressed in jeans, and some, in suits,
obviously cut work early to make the pickup. Maxwell, 34, is thin and pale,
with
red streaks in her dark hair. She wears a black knit cap, black pants and a
red plaid jacket. She used to be a veterinarian tech, horse trainer, and
information technology manager, but now works at home making her own line of
doggie
herbal treatments and remedies.
Maxwell read Dr. Pitcairn's book in the early '90s and tried the recipes in
them with a 9-year-old kitty named Gem that was suffering from multiple
health
problems. Maxwell attests that the diet didn't just make Gem feel better, it
changed her personality: "Upon switching her to raw, she became like a
completely different cat," Maxwell says. "I caught her as a feral cat, and
she was a
little bit feisty and skittish. But she became really outgoing, really
pleasant
to be around, really sweet." The cat also lost weight, her arthritis went
away, her teeth and overall health improved. Gem lived to be 22.
While Maxwell advocates raw food for dogs, she is especially enthused about
it for cats. "In some animals it will fix everything," she says. "I'm
talking
not only about physical ailments but misbehaviors." Cats, she explains, are
very particular. "They won't eat decomposing meat or carrion or fecal
matter.
They hunt, kill, consume and move on. They're not meant to have kibble
sitting
out in a bowl all day. I can tell that a kibble-fed cat is a kibble-fed cat
just
by looking at it. Their systems are designed to eat fresh raw meat at a
sitting, and then have no food. They're not meant to be eating grain."
While raw feeders maintain that dogs and cats should eat a diet closer to
what their wild cousins eat, and wild ancestors once ate, just what that
might
be, and how best to approach it, is a subject of hot debate within the raw
community. Books like "Raw Meaty Bones" and "Give Your Dog a Bone" represent
various permutations. Should you feed a dog grains? No grains? Dairy? No
dairy?
Vegetables and meat, or just meat? Grind up the bones, or let the dog chew
them?
What about nutritional supplements?
The debates take arcane turns. If you are a raw feeder who believes wolves
do
not consume the roughage in their ruminant prey's stomach, then you might
feed your dogs meat and bones and no veggies. Depending on which breed of
raw
feeding is your fancy, Fido's menu can look very different. You might
prepare a
measured concoction of raw beef, pulped seasonal vegetables and nutritional
supplements. Or you might go for the "whole prey" model and just throw a
whole
rabbit carcass in the backyard for the hungry mutt to tear apart. One
approach
is known as BARF, which can either stand for "Biologically Appropriate Raw
Foods" or "Bones and Raw Food."
But it can take a bloody lot of effort -- meat grinder, anyone? -- to
prepare
many of these diets. Some companies now market commercial products to make
raw feeding convenient. They sell packaged raw dinners, just thaw and serve
for
Rex and Tabby. There's Grandad's Pet Foods, the Honest Kitchen, Bravo! the
Diet Designed by Nature, and Steve's Real Food for Pets. Nature's Variety
markets
its products with a photo of a lion and the caption: "He hunts his
breakfast,
and he's not looking for cereal."
At Jeffrey's Natural Pet Foods in San Francisco, the store's motto is "Feed
'em Raw." Among the wares sold here: Dr. Pitcairn's DVD titled "Eat, Drink,
and
Wag Your Tail," a bit of raw-diet marketing evangelism circa 2004, in which
"Master Dog Chef" Micki Voisard, a cancer survivor who says changes in her
diet
arrested the disease, tells of turning to homemade meals to treat her three
cancer-stricken dogs. "So, you wanna be a dog chef?" she asks, before
pushing a
grocery cart through a supermarket, instructing acolytes how to shop for
spinach, celery, parsley, zucchini, garlic, carrots, unsalted butter, eggs
and
plain yogurt for hungry hounds.
Lynnet Spiegel, the proprietor of Jeffrey's, is a third-generation San
Franciscan, who is so confident in the quality of her products that during
my visit
she popped a cat treat, a piece of freeze-dried chicken, into her mouth and
ate it, while inviting me to do the same. I declined.
One customer who swears by the raw meals sold at Jeffrey's Natural Pet Foods
is Keegan Walden, 30, an interface designer for Wells Fargo Bank. The raw
meals he gives his two Rhodesian Ridgebacks consist of free-range chicken,
beef
parts and a bit of vegetables. "It sounds really disgusting, I know," says
Walden. He adds to it Sojos, a mix of oats and walnuts, for roughage.
Walden says that there is no comparison between these ingredients and what's
in off-the-shelf kibble: "It's not like you're getting filet mignon in beef
kibble. It's skin, it's hoof, it's nail, it's intestine, it's garbage. Dogs
can
live on it, but it's garbage to begin with, and then it's rendered into dog
food, so it's double garbage." He decries the preservatives that are used to
make kibble last on the shelf for months and recites the horror stories
about
dead strays being found in pet food. "There's a lot of evidence to suggest
that
in the big industrial kibbles, there are other dead dogs," Walden says.
"They've analyzed the ingredients, and they've found traces of
phenobarbital, which
is what they used to put animals to sleep."
Stephen Payne, vice president of communications for the Pet Food Institute,
an industry group, says that there are no ground-up dogs and cats in pet
food;
he maintains it's an urban legend, which no amount of protestation from the
industry has been able to quash. But Dr. Rodney Noel, state chemist for
Indiana,
the state agency that regulates pet food, and a member of the Association of
American Feed Control Officials, says that in the past dead strays have been
rendered into pet food, but that this hasn't happened for years. One reason:
Pet food companies fear the bad publicity.
Commercial pet food is regulated federally by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, as well as on a state-by-state basis, typically under the
Department
of Agriculture, with guidance from the Association of American Feed Control
Officials.
Yet it's the raw diets, not the kibble and canned ones, that vets have
special concerns about. Dogs choke on the bones, they report, and suffer
obstructions in their digestive tracts that require surgery. The FDA has
taken note of
the health risks posed for people who feed their pets raw meat, fearing they
could contact salmonella and e-coli. With the practice growing in
popularity, the
agency has issued guidelines for companies marketing raw meat to pets: "FDA
does not believe raw meat foods for animals are consistent with the goal of
protecting the public from significant risks, particularly when such
products are
brought into the home and/or used to feed domestic pets."
Julie Churchill is an assistant clinical professor in companion animal
nutrition at the University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine.
She is
not a fan of the raw diets. In general, people handle raw meat or chicken
for
only a few minutes before tossing it on the grill. But raw feeding exposes
us to
potential pathogens longer and in different ways. "Even if the animal is not
sick, people could get sick from handling the food bowls, handling the food
or
petting their animals," Churchill says. Just letting your dog lick your face
could make you ill, even if your dog is healthy. Such animals are known as
"silent shedders," as pathogens escape from their feces, coats or mouths.
Pitcairn believes that risk is overblown. "I've never had an instance to my
knowledge over the last 25 years or so where a family has become ill from
that," he says. "I don't think that it's very common."
If you must feed your dog fresh beef or chicken, please cook it, recommends
Jeffrey T. LeJeune, a veterinarian and assistant professor in the Food
Animal
Health Research Program at Ohio State University. LeJeune wrote a 2001 paper
in
the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, "Public Health Concerns
Associated With Feeding Raw Meat to Dogs," which cautioned vets to "not
recommend the feeding of raw meat to dogs."
Dr. Rachel Strohmeyer, a vet in Kingston, Wash., who also holds a master's
degree in clinical sciences and epidemiology, agrees. After conducting
research
into an outbreak of salmonella at a greyhound breeding farm in Colorado, and
investigating pathogens in commercially available raw pet food diets, she
says:
"I don't have a problem with people who want to make their animal's own
food,
but I don't understand why you can't cook it. If you cook it, you're going
to
kill a lot of the potential hazards. Just cook the food."
But supporters of raw feeding believe it's not just the freshness and
quality
of the ingredients that helps their animals. They believe the heat robs the
protein of some of its nutritional value. Molly Rice, a holistic vet who
practices at San Francisco Veterinary Specialists in San Francisco, says
that about
a third of her clients feed raw meat to their pets. Serving it raw, she
says,
preserves enzymes, vitamins and amino acids. She does, however, advise
clients
to freeze the food for 72 hours to cut down on bacteria and parasites, and
to
clean feeding bowls at every feeding.
The Association of American Feed Control Officials, which produces
guidelines
that states use to determine what's in pet food and how it's sold in the
U.S., doesn't have special rules for raw food.
"There are no regulatory measures on raw," says Matt Koss, a chef trained in
French and Mediterranean cooking, who now makes food for dogs and cats at
Primal Pet Foods. "The guidelines are only geared to regulate kibble, canned
and
treats. As raw grows, there will be a need for some type of regulation
because
we can't have people making it out of their garage and potentially
jeopardizing the welfare of animals, which will in turn jeopardize the
industry."
However, he says, the nascent raw food pet industry recently formed the
North
American Raw Pet Food Association, which will pool resources, create
industry
standards and conduct scientific research on the nutritional value of raw
food.
But even Koss says that the health benefits of feeding raw meat to pets are
purely anecdotal, based on the experiences of individual practitioners and
holistic and alternative vets. "Most vets think it's dangerous because of
bacteria, and they're really unsure what the benefits are nutritionally," he
says.
Churchill, the veterinary nutritionist at the University of Minnesota, says
it's much harder to create a balanced diet for your pet than you might
think.
When clients bring her pet recipes plucked from the Internet or books, "it
always has some nutritional problems with it," she says. She asks owners to
be as
skeptical of the people selling raw pet food or recipes as they are of the
veterinary establishment. "Are they funding scientific research? Do they
have
data to show that their product is scientifically based? What are the
credentials
of whoever is giving you the advice?"
She takes a dim view of the suspicion that vets have been snookered by the
pet food industry. "I have not been bought off by a pet food company," she
says.
"Most vets get a free mug at their national meeting; they're not getting
huge
financial kickbacks."
Even the holistic or alternative vets who recommend a raw diet say it's not
for every dog or cat. "The raw food diet, even though it's a great diet,
it's
not really great for everybody," says Sara Skiwski, a vet at the Western
Dragon
in San Jose. "I get irritated not only with vets, but also with some of my
clients who feed raw food and are fanatical about it. I really believe that
the
worst diet in the whole world is a homemade raw food diet that's not
properly
nutritionally balanced." Just as you wouldn't eat chicken and broccoli every
day for the rest of your life, she says, you shouldn't feed your dog or cat
the
same diet of raw meat every day.
Finally, some animal experts are flabbergasted by the raw feeding debate.
Katie Merwick, who rehabilitates wolves at Second Chance Ranch animal rescue
sanctuary in Washington state, believes that many of the cures cited by raw
feeders -- skin infections, allergies, ear infections -- can be gained by
feeding
pets a higher quality of kibble. Oh, and that glossy coat raw feeders brag
about? That's from all the fat in the meat, she says, which can cause other
health
problems like pancreatitis. As someone who has seen malnutrition and disease
in wolves firsthand, she cautions pet owners against making a fetish out of
what animals eat in the wild. "Our dogs are privileged to have formulated
food,"
she says. After all, "we don't eat like cavemen anymore."
-- By Katharine Mieszkowski
Maggie Adairia & Selkie the Shy
Queens of All They Survey & their Loyal Serf, Cheryl
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