I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before but yesterday I was asked by an owner if they should consider going with a raw natural diet for their pet with suspected food allergies. It is a question that seems to pop up quite frequently. These diets when they were first flooding the market were lovingly called the B.A.R.F. diets. Oddly appropriate because they are a bit gross, the acronym however stands for biologically appropriate raw food. A very strange yet effective marketing technique as the trend in these foods skyrocketed.

I can’t say I totally understand the scientific and nutritional logic but I suppose it follows the same lines as human Paleo diets are advertised. The proponents of these diets claim that processing foods removes important and beneficial nutrients/enzymes. They also contest that pet food companies producing kibbles and canned foods add fillers and all sorts of synthetic foods into their diets. It follows that to be the healthiest purest form we must feed our pet “as nature intended”.

As nature intended??!! Nature starves, nature also is full of other organisms competing eg parasites, nature has deficiencies, nature can be a cruel mistress. I can fully admit that science has its short comings, medicine and science are constantly evolving. Take for example the whole idea that margarine was better than butter according to the scientific knowledge at the time. Now with a clearer picture we can see this is not necessarily the case! This is not to say that medicine, science, and nutrition science is bad, progress is progress! Maybe we aren’t perfect but we strive for better.

My personal thoughts are: if we opt to fall back to our pets “natural” diets from when they roamed free, we throw out all of the great research that has been done on how to promote growth, minimize nutritional deficiencies, and to help keep our pets living longer . **Imagine small chihuahua roaming the desert in its chihuahua “wolf” pack** Animals in the wild don’t live the same lives as our pets, that is just plain fact. Our pets live inside, do not compete or defend territories and live much much longer lives than any wild canid. Furthermore feeding raw meat is gross, and poses health risks, salmonella. ecoli, campylobacter oh my! and even if these pathogens don’t end up affecting your dog (which they can) their poops and their mouths/tongues are now laced with these buggers. big big problem people! especially with young children and the elderly (those with weaker immune systems).

Yes the kibbles and canned pate aren’t very appetizing to us, good thing it is not for us! These diets (at least the veterinary diets) are formulated by veterinary nutritionists who have studied and specialized their studies to understand the intricacies of nutritional requirements for our pets. These diets then undergo quality control and in the best of them they undergo actual feeding trials where the health and growth of animals is monitored. These common benchmarks are through AAFCO and the diet either follows AAFCO feeding guidelines or underwent AAFCO feeding trials.

I hope I haven’t confused people more with this post. In the end I steer people away from raw diets, I don’t believe the risks outweigh any possible benefits. I think the diets formulated at dedicated pet food companies with nutritionists are far superior. If we are 100% committed to the idea of using whole foods there ARE options BUT let’s do it smartly, through trained nutritionists!