Well, I avoid lying – but I often evade the truth.
People often ask how veterinarians respond when I tell them I feed my cats a homemade raw diet. Honestly, I don’t generally tell veterinarians that I feed a homemade raw diet. The vets at the general practice clinic where I take my cats know. I don’t really now how they all feel about it. I’m fortunate there was a holistic vet that practiced acupuncture that used to work in this clinic, and I know she fed raw. I generally ask for two particular vets at the clinic. They know, and they seem fine with it. They know I credit my cats’ health (and “recovery” from IBD and diabetes) to the diet. One of these two prefers that I’m feeding homemade than a commercial raw diet, he thinks it’s safer. There’s a third I’ve seen a few times and she’s voiced the typical concerns about bacteria like salmonella, warning me to wash their bowls each meal. I wonder if she warns caregivers feeding commercial dry food about salmonella? We know with certainty that dry food often contains pathogens like salmonella, do vets express the same concerns to their clients about the bags lining their own shelves? I tell caregivers, regardless of what they feed their pets, to handle food and bowls with care and wash their hands well after handling food, bowls, and scooping litter boxes.
With the exception of my general practice vets, though, I rarely tell veterinarians that I feed my cats a homemade raw diet. I fail to see what bearing that has on how they treat my cats. I had a miserable experience with one oncologist, who once she heard I fed my cats raw would talk of nothing else but the “dangers” of feeding a homemade raw diet. She expressed concerns over thiamine deficiency (which is generally only a concern if feeding raw fish, which I do not, and I supplement with B-complex). She noted the risk of bacteria, like salmonella, and recommended feeding beef rather than poultry (though beef is more commonly an allergen). She seemed unwilling or unable to see anything about my cat beyond the fact that he ate raw meat, and I feel his treatment suffered greatly for it. She did everything but tell me the reason he’d had cancer (a melanoma that had been surgically removed previously) was because of his diet. (I wonder if she’s made the same connection many others of us have – that if the FDA warns humans about the creation of acrylamide, a known carciogen, during high heat processing of potatoes and grains, acrylamide must exist in dry “kibble” pet foods?) I won’t go to this specialist again.
The other concern I hear frequently is the lack of any “lifetime” studies showing a homemade diet like the one I feed is nutritionally complete. While I agree a homemade diet should not be taken lightly, the recipe I use has been researched thoroughly and used for years by hundreds, if not thousands, of caregivers. Some of the caregivers include breeders, who have fed the diet to adult cats, pregnant queens, lactating females, and kittens. Generations of cats were fed the diet and flourished – they not only survived, they thrived. That’s not a surprise, as the diet mimics what cats would eat when left to their own devices – raw/fresh rodents and birds, meat and bone. Supplementation replaces what humans take out (e.g., omega fatty acids make up for removal of the brains, eyes, etc) and what storage may deplete (e.g., taurine oxidizes upon grinding). The recipe I use exceeds the same AAFCO nutritional standards that are used to judge the adequacy of commercial diets.
Why aren’t similar concerns about lack of “lifetime” studies raised by the veterinary profession about commercial foods? As recently as the 1980s, we discovered commercial foods were deficient in taurine, an essential amino acid for cats. In order to meet AAFCO feeding trial standards for nutritional completeness, a pet food company need only enroll eight animals in a six-month trial, and only six need to complete the trial satisfactorily. There are only two lifetime studies I know of – the Pottenger study and the recent Purina dog food study. In the Pottenger study, one group of cats were fed raw meat and milk while the other group were fed cooked meat and milk. The cats fed raw did significantly better. (Skeptics claim this was due to less taurine in the cooked diet. Perhaps, but to assume adding taurine to the cooked diet makes up for any deficiencies is a rather large leap of faith, in my opinion.) In the Purina study, one group of dogs was fed commercial dog food while the other was fed 25% less commercial dog food. The group fed 25% less lived significantly longer lives – thus Purina claims dogs fed a “proper diet” (25% less) live longer.
Skeptics also claim the benefits of raw food are only anecdotal, and lack any scientific basis. In a study of cats with IBD fed raw versus commercial canned food, the raw-fed cats had better stool quality. The study discovered a ground rabbit diet did not contain sufficient levels of taurine – so the recipe I use supplements taurine. This is no different than the supplementation in commercial canned or dry. We didn’t abandon commercial canned or dry foods when we discovered they lacked sufficient taurine, why would we abandon a raw diet for this reason?
Study after study has shown the benefit of low-carbohydrate wet diets for cats with diabetes. High-moisture diets have also been shown to benefit cats with urinary tract disease, kidney insufficiency, etc. This seems to fail to convince most veterinarians to abandon the recommendation and sale of commercial dry cat food.
So, when a veterinarian at an emergency or specialty clinic asks me what I feed my cats, my general response is “a grain-free wet diet”. I leave it at that. I see no impact on the treatment I want them to give my cats. I don’t trust they’ll be open-minded enough that anything I would say would impact their thoughts or beliefs on feline nutrition. I’ve heard too many stories of caregivers unable to get proper treatment for their cats because the moment they hear the cats are raw fed, they are unable to remove the blinders that convince them the raw food is the culprit for anything that might ail the cat. In one case, the vet was adamant the problem must be pathogens in the raw food – when the cat finally got treatment elsewhere, it was hyperthyroid, easily treated once diagnosed properly – but the vet had denied the caregiver the test (scintigraphic scan) to diagnose it because of the raw food. I know at least one vet school requires all raw-fed pets be isolated from other patients – what influence might that have on the vets of our future?
I lie.
Life of the Lintee Bean 