Dr. Becker Discusses Raw Food Diet (Part 3)

I'm dr. Karen Becker and this is part three of my video series on the myths and truths surrounding raw food diets in this video we will discuss why raw pet foods get a bad rap there are actually many substantiated reasons raw pet foods come under scrutiny by traditional veterinarians and people who have had bad luck trying living foods all of them avoidable first many homemade and prey model diets and a few commercially available raw food diets are unbalanced this means animals have presented to veterinarians including myself with nutritional imbalances that could have been avoided these animals go without antioxidants the correct amount of trace minerals vitamins and the correct fatty acid balance for appropriate and balanced skeletal growth organ and immune health usually these well intentioned people don't correlate their animals medical issues to nutritional deficiencies but their vets do and they develop very strong opinions against all homemade and raw diets because of these cases there are many well-intentioned people who feed unbalanced diets out of ignorance and in some cases stubbornness I've had several clients tell me that they don't care that the analysis of the report of their current diet let's say chicken wing and burger diet demonstrates that the diet is deficient in certain critical nutrients this is the diet they fed for X number of years and their dogs appear fine so they're not changing it these types of statements tell me that my clients or these clients in general are waiting for disease to occur before they will change what they're doing and in these situations the pet always loses these attitudes cause many veterinarians to loathe any attempts at homemade diets and lump all raw diets into that same category another reason raw diets get a bad rap are GI problems there are two main reasons that pets get GI problems from dietary transitions speed and dysbiosis animals that change diets too quickly can get diarrhea I've had dozens and dozens and dozens of clients that learn about what's really in their pets foods kibble or they realize that the brain that they've been feeding is actually quite terrible they just go home and throw it out then they drive to the local upscale pet boutique and purchase a human grade raw food and their pets love it and then pets become very sick after a few days they go to the veterinarian and most of its erroneously blame all cases of diarrhea on the bacteria in the raw food versus the sudden diet change causing the veterinarian and the owner to panic unnecessarily likewise pets process raw foods and kibble very differently raw food is processed as a protein held in the stomach for an acid bath unlike kibble which pets metabolic leave you as a starch if raw foods are added to dry foods for a meal there can be digestive confusion and pets can become gassy in belchy when introducing any new food to a healthy gutted animal I recommend using the new food as a treat for a day and then watch the stool and then increase the number of new food treats over the next several days and continue to watch the stool if the stool is fine replace one whole meal of new food for a meal of old food wait several more days and if stools are great than just discontinue the old food and can feeding the new food if the pet has never had anything but one type of kibble her whole life this process may actually need to be extended for several weeks or months which is totally fine however if the pet has a sensitive stomach or IBS or intestinal disturbances or gut inflammation which plagues most of the pet population the weaning process is very different for these animals and sometimes requires GI support through the process I have a friend who tells me she's allergic to all healthy foods and whenever she eats fresh fruits or veggies she has serious GI problems and she does like running to the bathroom GI problems if she consumes any type of fresh food when she eats ice cream and donuts she's good but when she eats fresh fresh veggies or fresh fresh food she ends up running to the bathroom when I've tried to explain to her that living foods are not toxic to her system but that her gastrointestinal health is so poor that she can't tolerate the foods her body was designed to eat she kind of laughs and says well you know whatever but actually her body's poor reaction to any healthy foods is a her excuse to not eat well and I see this exact same issue in veterinary medicine sometimes I see vets say things like I guess your pet wasn't meant to eat human grade food or I've heard veterinarians say some animals just can't tolerate a diet change or healthy food and while it's true these cases take a whole lot more time the effort is and the medical protocol that goes along with it is certainly well worth it often times there has to be an accompanying medical protocol to help there dysbiosis and inflamed GI tracts but all of this effort is well worth it working with a veterinarian that understands functional medicine and leaky gut syndrome will be critical for successful dietary transitions for most of these pets and it's important to do this without a negative reaction from your pet and just like my friend who could put the time and energy into making a lifestyle change that over time would heal her body and allow her to be able to consume nourishing foods without side effects most people simply choose to continue to live the lifestyle that caused the problem and this is certainly true of pet owners as well it appears to be too much work or too much trouble to put forth the effort needed to be able to make a lifestyle change which can actually take up to a year for many of these animals my view of course is that health is on a spectrum and pets are always moving one way or another so a year from now will your pet be healthier or just older from where she is right now pets with an overactive immune systems or IBD inflammatory bowel disease will probably need professional assistance with a detoxification protocol and a leaky gut protocol - - to be able to transition to a better diet and lots of patients will also be required the road to recovery is not linearly positive which means your pets miserable and here's overwhelming health it's not this beautiful line until your pet achieves wellness you'll see bumps in the road and you will see ups and downs but certainly creating gastrointestinal health is critical for a thriving pet so the end result is well worth your effort these pets are gastrointestinal e debilitated and will need their food gently cooked and totally ground up for many months initially oftentimes I begin with only two ingredients in a home prepared diet and slowly add in nutrients one at a time as a patient's health improves some people argue that it feeding this way are starting so slow or having it take so many months is not what nature intended and I totally agree we must meet our patients where their body where their bodies are at and many animals must be on special protocols initially to assist in healing these animals are fragile and if a seasoned holistic veterinarians aren't participating in the dietary transition actually it can go really poorly for some of these animals even resulting in hospitalization so these unsuccessful attempts at a dietary transition are why traditional vets will say some pets just can't tolerate raw foods or fresh foods and you just need to leave good enough alone and continue feeding kibble but it is important to recognize it with good effort these animals have a chance with some professional guidance one of the more common myths perpetuated about raw food is that dogs and cats can't get food poisoning pets can and do get food poisoning from eating granted meat undoubtedly this also occurs in the wild too but it actually acts as a means of population control when predators die from consuming toxic food there's a website right now that currently advocates feeding spoiled meat to your pets and this is absolutely terrible advice it will only be a matter of time before this advice kills pets so there's a huge difference between normal opportunistic bacterial loads and fresh healthy meats and spoiled meats filled with endotoxins that will kill any mammal if ingested so don't feed your pets any type of spoiled food commercially available raw food diets do not contain any fillers or extra fiber certainly no hair which would be found on any wild animal dogs and cats would consume and this particular lack of hair can also be a lack of roughage or fiber this means some animals aren't supplied the additional fiber that they need and sometimes pets can get constipated oddly instead of simply addressing the fiber issue some veterinarians tell owners to stop living foods altogether raw food diets usually produce small hard balls of poop that are easily passed and usually turn white and crumble and blow away in a day if you forget to pick them up this is totally normal I've had some people go back to feeding kibble because no one explained that their pets poop would radically change on a raw food diet and that multiple huge piles of stinky poo from dry food diets would be a thing of the past so feces will change and for the better but a raw-food poos entirely different than a kibble fed poo often times after 1 to 3 months on a fresh food diet pets go through a detoxification process this is totally normal and is actually something that you should celebrate detox for your pet will happen through the bowels and skin during a detox pets will actually act totally normal they'll be happy and bright and alert but you could find that they begin shedding a tremendous amount of hair they shut out their old dead dull hair and they begin growing in shiny soft fur sometimes you can see lots of ear wax or debris being produced in the ear that needs to be cleaned out and some pets will pass blobs of mucus in their stools these symptoms of detoxification will pass on their own there nothing that you need to worry about and something that you need to anticipate or it can kind of freak you out pets on fresh food diets also consume far less water than pets eating an entirely dehydrated diet so you need to anticipate that your pets water intake will diminish I've also seen websites suggesting you introduce raw food by throwing a whole chicken to your kibble fed dog because they'll just know what to do their dogs and know exactly what to do just throw a chicken whole chickens or any bony meats can be a choking hazard and while some dogs do totally fine with whole chickens some dogs don't do fine at my house we buy chicken wings and 40 pound boxes from the butcher and might know my dogs well I know that when I hand them a wing they chew the wing thoroughly they do not attempt to swallow the wings whole so I feel totally fine handing them a chicken wing it's totally great for their teeth it helps remove plaque and tartar their breath is great one day at my house my husband brought home a box of 40 pounds of chicken wings that was in the back of his truck he got distracted with a phone call and didn't realize that ADA had jumped into the bed of the truck and started helping herself ada ate about 15 pounds of chicken wings in about 5 minutes by the time I has been turned around she was a bloated tick needless to say she did not eat dinner that night she was totally fine we fasted her obviously for some people this episode would have taken them to the emergency room just to make sure everything was okay if I would have x-rayed ADA ADA's x-rays would have shown tremendous amount of bone her GI tract and for a traditional veterinarian not used to looking at bone fragments on x-ray this this could have been very concerning in fact the potential recommendation to go to surgery could have been recommended I have had several cases of my practice of animals going to surgery and necessarily only to reveal that the surgeon found tiny bone fragments in a totally healthy GI tract from the pets raw food diet so it's an important point to make I've had a few cases of dogs choking on giant pieces of raw food or getting pieces stuck in their throats in an attempt to swallow the bony food hole so you have to use your head and common sense when you begin a raw food diet if you don't know if your dog is going to gulp versus chew then you need to grind up the food or you need to feed a commercially available raw food diet where it's already pre ground that can't be gulped recreational chewing bones like knuckle bones can also fracture teeth lots of dogs end up with terrible teeth fractures from the advice that all dogs do while chewing raw bones and you'll see that on the internet you'll see that on my Facebook page I'll just throw your dog and knuckle bone everything will be fine lots of dogs can chew raw bones with no problems but a lot of dogs that chew raw bones have substantial oral damage my veterinary dentist says that he has financed an entire wing of his hospital from removing painful broken teeth after people have followed the basic advice of just throwing a soup bowl and he'll love it most dogs do best with recreation of bones that actually match the size of their head so small bones like rib bones or very small femur bones tend to cause more tooth fractures from an aggressive chew or because the dog is able to get the bone in and bite down vertically which will snap off their teeth likewise some dogs chew bones down to teeny-tiny pieces which then they try and swallow and can get stuck in their GI tracks taking some precautions like always supervising raw bone chewing events removing the bone when the pieces are broken off or gets small and discontinuing raw bones if pets have weak or fractured teeth are all kind of common-sense suggestions that sometimes aren't necessarily followed raw bones also contain maro maro is primarily fat and when I myself I'll tell you a personal story when I first heard of offering raw bones to dogs I was in college and I was one of those people that kind of ignorant Lee did it I just through Gemini rah femur bone in the morning before I went to class I got home from class about eight hours later and she had not moved she was still by the front door she was chewing the bone her whole mouth was cut up raw inflamed and bleeding because she was so fired up that she had never had one before that is an example of what not to do she was wildly ecstatic about the bone but it caused undue trauma to her mouth so there are numerous health benefits and psychological benefits from offering raw bones to dogs however it must be done wisely I recommend initially offering raw bones for a few minutes daily until the dogs GI tract has adapted to the high fat content or remove the marrow prior to offering bones to animals with pancreatitis or poor digestion or you will have bla diarrhea I don't recommend offering bones cumulate to a dog pack because each dog needs their own bone and their own space to to chew in I recommend picking bones up after each session or you can have some resource guarding occur raw bones initially when you first give them they become a goopy sloppy mess and after about 15 minutes of invigorating chewing they be can become really soupy so I recommend you not offer raw bones on your brand new white carpeting because you will be distraught so as with all new things there are some helpful suggestions that hopefully you can take into account to avoid pitfalls that others have experienced and learned from I hope that these videos have clarified any misconceptions you've had about raw foods and I hope that you're able to use this information to easily and successfully transition your pet onto a more natural diet as I always say there's no such thing as one best protein or brand of food or one type of food that all pets do well on the best food you can feed your pet is the freshest most natural food you can afford to support your pets overall health well-being and vitality you

Channel: MercolaHealthyPets

Views: 240,965

Rating: 4.9507298 out of 5

Keywords: pets, veterinarian, dr becker, raw food, raw food diet, food sources, optimal nutrition, cats and dogs, natural food sources, pet health, homemade diet, raw diet

Id: Pn1F7AsmEkw

Length: 15min 29sec (929 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2013