In my daily life I get asked all the time why I feed my cats a home-made raw food diet. The answer is very simple. I want to feed them a species appropriate diet they are designed to eat. I want that to be as simple and healthy as possible. I don’t want to feed them ingredients they do not only need but their bodies are not designed to consume.
Cats and dogs are resilient animals and can survive on an inappropriate diet but they will not thrive. When they are fed inappropriate ingredients like corn, soy and wheat let alone chemicals and preservatives, their bodies begin to break down and symptoms such as obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, organ failure, food allergies and IBD appear.
I once went to a vet and I knew I could not tell her about my cat’s raw diet because she told me that cats need kibble and I should buy a bag of kibble with a picture of a Persian on it because that is designed for Persian cats. cringe This was a medical professional telling me to choose my cat’s diet based solely off of the picture on the bag.
So why are professional veterinarians recommending such dangerous diets?
They are simply recommending foods because that is what they are taught in veterinarian school, schools which are funded and influenced by the pet industry. The priority in veterinarian medicine is treating symptoms not on prevention or nutrition.
Pet Fooled is a new documentary film that is being released January 10th 2017.
About the Film:
Pet Fooled is an in dept look at the commercial pet food industry. Its lack of regulation, and how it has evolved over the years, as it is now owned mostly by 4 conglomerates. We also look into what the actual diet requirements are for Dogs and cats, VS what pet food companies claims, and actually sell. It is something that few of us have taken the time to think about, and it is eye-opening when you realize how long they have operated with out ever being challenged.
Pet Fooled can be bought or rented from Amazon, Vimeo or iTunes. I will be watching on January 10th on iTunes. Will you?
I am grateful that this film has been produced and we as the consumer have the power to influence the pet industry. Already in the last 5 years that has been huge growth in pet food companies producing commercial raw pet foods. My hope is that this industry continues to grow and is able to produce species appropriate foods that is financially and logistically available to more people.
After learning the realities of most commercial cat food two years ago I began to research and learn a process to make raw cat food at home that fits my lifestyle.
If you would like to learn more about how I make raw cat food at home click on the photo below.
Even if the movie seems to be mostly US-focused, that sounds like a very interesting movie. Thank you for sharing ! Purrs
One of the best examples I use is fish. Most commercial cat foods have fish or fish products in their foods (I didn’t even know how pervasive it was until I read a couple bloggers whose cats are allergic to any fish product talk about how hard it is to find foods their cats could eat). But when you sit back and think about it … how is fish even a natural food for cats? They love it, obviously, but it’s definitely not natural prey for cats. Animal care in the US is horrendous – from declawing still being legal, to widespread extermination policies for ferals, to the pet food industry, we have much to be ashamed of. And in many cases, vets and their professional organizations completely ignore the ugly truths.
Cringe indeed! At least I have a vet who respects my own wish of wanting to feed raw only. She doesn’t appear 100% supportive of it, but doesn’t push me into buying anything else instead or try to talk me out of it. When I once asked her “you don’t really learn anything about raw diets in veterinary school, do you?”, she said that they actually do nowadays (this is Spain), but up until about 10 years ago they did not hear anything about it.
The film is probably from mostly a U.S. point of view, which is interesting to me nevertheless, and I am looking forward to watching it if I can find a download somewhere. One huge difference between pet food in the U.S. and pet food in Europe is that in the U.S. it is ok for them to put roadkill and diseased animal flesh into their food, whereas in Europe pet food is pretty much the same as human grade. I think it is absolutely disgusting that the U.S. pet food industry is allowed to feed so much crap to our beloved pets! :(
Did you hear about the 3 pugs, one of whom died, who 15 minutes after eating some canned pet food flopped to the floor and ended up in intensive care? Now, the pet food company, a family run business, came to the rescue paying the total amount of the vets costs which was almost $6,000, and they were totally devastated about what happened and will now investigate why and how this happened. But this won’t bring Talula, the dog who died back. At least they are helping out the bereaved owner and are doing everything they can to make things right. :(
Here’s a link to the story:
https://petrescuereport.com/2017/one-pug-died-3-pugs-sickened-eating-canned-dog-food/
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I didn’t hear of that story, thanks for sharing. It is just heartbreaking to know how common illnesses from pet foods are. But most of the time it isn’t as severe and quick as that story. It takes years for the damage to start showing and by that time most people do not connect it to the food they are feeding.