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Dr. Dutton's article on The Bond
The purpose of this article is to open your mind regarding nutrition/ yours and your pet’s nutrition. When I graduated from veterinary school, twenty-five years ago, we were brainwashed with the mantra to only recommend complete balanced commercially available diets and that cost was directly related to quality. To this day I smile when owners proudly claim that their pet gets “nothing from the table”. Over the years I have learned to appreciate the term “table food”. The typical meal, sitting on the typical table in this country could very well be totally inappropriate for a pet (not to mention for human consumption). I often recommend home-made diets for my patients, for a variety of reasons; weight loss, respiratory disease, digestive problems, allergies to name a few. Recently, problems with contamination of our commercially available diets has made “home-cooking” even more appealing. Fifty percent of the time my clients look at me like I have three heads and say “I don’t cook for myself, I’m not going to cook for him!”
We have a very unhealthy appreciate of food in this country. We skip meals, we diet, we binge, we consume far too many carbohydrates, we eat processed, chemically altered food, and we take drugs to counter act the effects. We even have a new obesity drug for dogs! FOOD IS MEDICINE; it is the nutrients your body needs to maintain balance and health. Are we willing to do what it takes to feed our pets a healthy diet? How about ourselves?
I highly recommend “The Schwarzbein Principle” by Diana Schwarzbein, MD and Nancy Deville (it should be required reading actually). Talk about eye opening! It really helps you understand the role of insulin in our bodies and gives you the basic biochemistry to understand and appreciate the carbohydrate problem in our diets and our pet’s diets. We are very similar to dogs when it comes to nutritional requirements. They can even be vegetarian (and by the way, she also has a great vegetarian cookbook). Cats, however, are very unique! They have very specific requirements for certain nutrients and are obligate carnivores, making home-made diets for them slightly more finicky than dogs and they must eat daily. Humans and dogs technically can fast for days as long as they have water. This is not true for cats. So, when it comes to our felines and their food we are “at their mercy”. I do recommend trying some meats and vegetables with cats, along with a natural, byproduct free, low carb, preferably organic commercial diet. Cats do need moisture in their diet so I recommend providing at least fifty percent of their daily intake as either canned or home-made food. There are many healthy foods we can share with our pets. Remember when cooking though, no onions and be careful with garlic.
My friend loves to remind me of the time I had just made a fresh pot of food and there were some men at my house doing some remodeling. “Would you guys care for some dog food?” I asked. They had smelled it cooking and were delighted to partake!
So please think about home-preparing food for your four legged buddies. There are many resources available for recipes. “Four Paws Five Directions” by Cheryl Schwartz, DVM, has an excellent food section. It is also a wonderful introduction and guide to Chinese medicine in dogs and cats.
Remember, FOOD IS MEDICINE.
Dr. Beth Dutton can be reached at Blue Cross Veterinary Clinic, 4111 N. 36th Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85018, 602-955-5980.
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