If a cricket chirps in a can,

Can anyone hear it?

If you thought kibble was problematic, my furry friend, you ain't seen nuthin' yet!

Ms. X, your intrepid writer, enquired in a health food store once "Why is it impossible to buy a can of dog food with actual animal fat in it, and without carrageenan?"  For a response she got... you guessed it... crickets chirping.

Do you know what the ingredients are in a can of cricket? Just one.  Crickets.

Do you know what the ingredients are in a can of cat food?  (No, it's not cat.)  Or a can of dog food?

Keep reading.

Ms. X doesn't want to tell people what to put in their AAFCO approved dog food, but she doesn't mind telling them what not to put in.

The list of no-no's are pretty much the same as the kibble.  No vegetable oil, no grains (no soy), no carrageenan or gums.  And then the other, lesser stuff, which in the case of canned food includes, of all things, dirt.  (That's not even in the canned cricket ingredient list).

Gaining in popularity as a health supplement, "Montmorillonite Clay" or "bentonite clay" will show up on the ingredient labels of canned pet food from time to time.  Bentonite is an aluminum silicate that will dissolve in the stomach or intestines (according to Dr. Ray Peat) thereby increasing the body's aluminum burden.

Just what little Fluffy needs.

As with the kibbles, I have a sampling of canned foods to review ingredient-wise with you.  Let's start on the cheap end, with Pedigree Choice cuts this time.  Amazon sells a case for $1.31 per 13.22 oz can.

Ingredients for the choice cuts with beef:
Sufficient water for processing, Chicken, Meat By-products, Wheat Flour, Beef, Liver, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Caramel Coloring, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Natural Flavors, Guar Gum, Vegetable Oil (source of Linoleic Acid), Minerals (Potassium Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, Copper
Sulfate, Potassium Iodide), Sodium Alginate, Natural Smoke Flavor, Xanthan Gum, Onion Powder, Bay Leaves, Vitamins (Vitamin E, A & D3 Supplements, D-calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate {vitamin B1}, Biotin), Garlic Powder, Sodium Nitrite (for color retention).  

That's a lot of wheat.  And vegetable oil.  And thickeners, though guar gum may be somewhat less problematic than carrageenan or xanthan gum.

Let's move up the price curve a bit.  Canidae Grain Free Pure Elements canned dog food, $3.17 per 13 oz can (per Amazon).  Ingredients are:

Lamb, lamb broth, turkey, turkey broth, chicken, peas, sweet potatoes, suncured alfalfa, cassia gum, carrageenan, salt, guar gum, choline chloride, minerals (dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, zinc proteinate, iron proteinate, copper proteinate, manganese proteinate, sodium
selenite, calcium iodate), vitamins (vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, niacin supplement, calcium pantothenate, biotin, vitamin A supplement, riboflavin supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, vitamin D3 supplement, folic acid). 

Whoa!  Triple whammy on the thickeners.   Now, I realize I haven't gone into much detail about what exactly I find so objectionable in these "no-no's", other than to put lots of links up.  My goal here is to get through the problem statements and onto the solution, then we'll come back and analyze the problem in more detail.

So in the Canidae above, we see a lot of cheap protein (peas and alfalfa) and a lot, lot, lot of thickeners.   It is impossible to get away from the thickeners in canned pet food.  Even the Wysong Au Jus line, which has so few ingredients that dogfoodadvisor.com puts a disclaimer that it is a "supplement only" and "never intended to be fed as a complete and balanced canine diet", has guar gum.

Yup.. Duck Au Jus - Ingredients: Duck, Water Sufficient for Processing, Animal Plasma, Guar Gum.

Bloody thickeners Batman!

Now the Canidae is pricey.  $3 per can may not sound so bad, but if you have your average 80 pound dog you will need to feed it 4 cans a day.  $12 a day to feed the dog.  Now if a dog eats 2-3% of his body weight in meat each day, our 80 pound dog is going to eat about 2 pounds of lamb, which Ms. X priced at the bulk goods store recently in the $4 per pound range.  Still cheaper than Canidae.   And please, the food quantity numbers are only to play the pricing games.  Ms. X is not advocating here any sort of feeding style.

Now just in case you are made of money, or you are caring for Leona Helmsley's dog (which only lived to 12, btw, despite being a small breed and having - one presumes - the most expensive food in the world), let's look at the upper echelon of canned foods.

Addiction New Zealand Venison and Apples Entrée, $4 per 13.8 oz can on Amazon.  Ingredients?

Venison, Apples, Carrots, Potatoes, Peas, Carrageenan, Cassia Gums, Dried Seaweed Meal, Taurine, Calcium Carbonate, Choline Chloride, Zinc Sulphate, Ferrous Sulphate, Vitamin E Supplement, Copper Sulphate, Manganese Sulphate, Niacin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid

Now I know there is probably not a dog alive that doesn't want to sink his fangs into some New Zealand deer (or bushtail, they offer that too, you know), but look at this for a second.  Just like we saw in the kibble realm, the more expensive the more it looks home made.  Deer meat, apples, carrots, potatoes and peas.  Stew's On!   Is it deer season yet?

What was that T.C. Hawley said?

The dog will thrive on any diet which will keep man healthy.

Food Fights

Before we launch ourselves into the brawl, Ms. X would like to write a public disclaimer.  She has no accredited nutritional or medical training.  Nothing she writes should be construed as advice.  So there.  You're on your own.  But you all ready knew that.  That's why you are here, right?

Never fear.  Ms. X isn't the type to rest on her own laurels anyway.  Her only job is to switch on the truthlight.

Let's focus on kibble first.  A lot of pet owners ask,  "I can buy a 50 pound bag of Ol' Roy at Walmart for 20 dollars.  Why should I buy some expensive bag of kibble that costs more than my family's food?"  "What's wrong with kibble?"

Good question.  The answer is "probably nothing".  That's right.  Millions and millions of dogs (and cats) have lived reasonably long and reasonably healthy lives on crap-in-a-bag, and some argue that pet breeding should focus on pets that thrive on "crapple".

It really is a difficult position to argue with, so Ms. X will simply say that taking that argument to its logical conclusion, the pet food corporations should also take over the breeding.  They just need to expand their feeding trials a bit, team up with the registries and viola!  You want a Hills puppy or a Purina kitten?

We're not actually too far from that, are we?

Ms. X, being of a more natural bent, would prefer to breed her own dogs (she doesn't), hunt her own meat (she doesn't), and farm her own vegetables (she tries).

So why not feed kibble?  Well, I do sometimes.  Overall though, I want better.  My requirements for store bought food are simple:  No vegetable oil.  No carrageenan or gums.  No grains.  No soy.  Easy, right?  There are a lot of little things too, but those are the things I simply won't pay for.

Let's look at kibbles available.  On the cheap end of the spectrum is the aforementioned Ol' Roy.  The ingredients are pretty benign at first glance.

 Ol' Roy Complete Nutrition (ingredient list is from dogfoodadvisor). Ground yellow corn, meat and bone meal, soybean meal, poultry by-product meal, animal fat (preserved with BHA and citric acid), corn gluten meal, natural flavor, brewers rice, salt, potassium chloride, color added (titanium dioxide, yellow #5, yellow #6, red #40, blue #2), choline chloride, zinc sulfate, vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, niacin, copper sulfate, vitamin A supplement, biotin, manganous oxide, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12 supplement, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin supplement, sodium selenite, calcium iodate, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement, cobalt carbonate 

Of the major "no-no's", soybean meal is the obvious. Soybeans are awful in 99% of formations.  Bone meal is sometimes high in heavy metal contaminants. BHA - love the animal fat, but not fond of the carcinogenic preservative.  Corn gluten meal - corn is a grain, corn gluten meal, like the soybean meal, is a cheap low-quality protein.    And then there are the added colors.  Red #40 alone is notorious.

Well, maybe for a little more money, we can do better.

For a "middle of the road" kibble, let's look at something we have all heard of.  If you own a TV, you have seen the commercials for Blue Buffalo.  They advertise constantly, claim they are better than other leading dog foods, and believe it or not, the advertising works!  Internet forums are full of people who have "made the switch".  So why not Ms. X?  Well, here are the Blue Buffalo ingredients.

Life Protection Formula Lamb & Brown Rice Recipe for Adult Dogs

Deboned Lamb,   Oatmeal,   Whole Ground Barley,   Turkey Meal,   Whole Ground Brown Rice,   Peas,  Tomato Pomace (source of Lycopene),   Flaxseed (source of Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids),   Natural Flavor,   Canola Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols),   Alfalfa Meal,   Whole Potatoes,  Sunflower Oil (source of Omega 6 Fatty Acids),   Whole Carrots,   Whole Sweet Potatoes,   Blueberries,   Cranberries,   Apples,   Blackberries,   Pomegranate,   Spinach,   Pumpkin,   Barley Grass,   Dried Parsley,   Garlic,   Dried Kelp,   Yucca Schidigera Extract,   L-Carnitine,   L-Lysine,   Glucosamine Hydrochloride,   Turmeric,   Dried Chicory Root,   Oil of Rosemary,   Beta Carotene,   Calcium Carbonate,   Dicalcium Phosphate,   Vitamin A Supplement,   Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1),   Riboflavin (Vitamin B2),   Niacin (Vitamin B3),   d-Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5),   Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6),   Biotin (Vitamin B7),   Folic Acid (Vitamin B9),  Vitamin B12 Supplement,   Calcium Ascorbate (source of Vitamin C),   Vitamin D3 Supplement,   Vitamin E Supplement,   Iron Amino Acid Chelate,   Zinc Amino Acid Chelate,   Manganese Amino Acid Chelate,   Copper Amino Acid Chelate,   Choline Chloride,   Sodium Selenite,   Calcium Iodate,   Salt,   Caramel,  Potassium Chloride,   Dried Yeast (source of Saccharomyces cerevisiae),   Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product,   Dried Bacillus subtilis fermentation product,   Dried Enterococcus faecium fermentation product

Wait a sec.  Where is the animal fat?  Instead, we get Flaxseed, Canola and Sunflower oils.  Yuck.   The lamb and turkey meal are okay, though I'm not so thrilled with the cheap pea protein.  Then there is a long list of "so what's?". There is nothing wrong with dogs eating fruit or berries or parsley, but are they so critical they need to be embedded in Fido's daily rations?  There also is the requisite Alfalfa meal and Dried Kelp.  What is the fascination with alfalfa meal?  People love feeding it to carnivores.  It figured prominently in the early days of raw diet formulations.  Turns out it is another cheap and plentiful low-quality protein.  Then there is the kelp.  In other words, supplemental iodine.  A topic in and of itself.

What about a "natural" higher end kibble (that doesn't advertise in PrimeTime), for example?  Organix, by Castor and Pollux has a grain free formula that is just the thing.  Organix Grain-Free Adult Dog Food:

Organic Chicken, Poultry Meal, Organic Tapioca, Organic Peas, Organic Soybean Meal, Organic Potato, Dried Egg Product, Salmon Meal, Poultry Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Organic Chicken Liver, Natural Chicken Flavor, Organic Flaxseed, Salt, Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Vitamins  (Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2 Polyphosphate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium
Pantothenate, Niacin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Biotin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Yeast Culture (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus
Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus Niger Fermentation Extract, Dried Trichoderma longibrachiatum Fermentation Extract, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Solubles, Rosemary Extract.

There's that soybean meal again, just like Ol' Roy, though this time it is organic.  Doesn't matter.  Organic soybeans are still soybeans.  The cheap protein "peas" crops up again, as well as salmon meal and flaxseed.

Salmon meal has a lot of problems.  There is the high omega 3 content; if they are farmed salmon there are concerns about high levels of toxins; if they are wild caught, well, there is the whole Fukushima polluting the Pacific problem.

And why tapioca meal?  All this, by the way, is up to $4 per pound.

This stuff is close to the upper end of the standard cooked kibble pricing, but not the upper end of dog food pricing.  Not by a long shot.  The absolute upper echelons of kibbles is reserved for a class called "freeze dried".

Fifteen years ago, the only easily available freeze dried food was Abady, a sort of hippy holdover.  Fifteen years ago, the cats didn't really like Abady.  They had no appreciation for how expensive it was.

These days, at almost $8 per pound, Honest Kitchen has one of the most expensive freeze dried foods on the market.

It has:

Dehydrated free-range chicken, organic flaxseed, potatoes, celery, sweet potatoes, apples, alfalfa, organic kelp, honey, pumpkin, green beans, cabbage, bananas, papayas, basil, garlic, rosemary, tricalcium phosphate, choline chloride, zinc amino acid chelate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, potassium iodide, potassium chloride, iron amino acid chelate, copper amino acid chelate.

Pretty simple, huh?  Almost throw that together in the kitchen yourself.  As long as you have the requisite flaxseed and kelp on hand, that is.  Who decided flaxseed was essential for dogs anyway?  I think it is part of that whole "Essential Fatty Acid" fad.  And just because the government forces iodine supplementation doesn't mean we have to mix kelp into our homemade dog food.  But I digress.

Flaxseed, kelp (and bananas and celery) aren't the only objectionable quirks to this freeze dried food.  Freeze dried food is very susceptible to lipid oxidation.

It is interesting though, is it not, that the closer the ingredient list gets to something you could easily make in your kitchen, the more expensive it becomes?  So why not throw together an oxidized mess of chicken and bananas in your kitchen?  Fear.  What if it's not BALANCED!

Remember T. C. Hawley:

The dog will thrive on any diet which will keep man healthy.

Feeding the Beast

The arrival of a new pup or kitten sparks a flurry of research, how to train the new pet?  where should it sleep?  and most importantly, what should it eat?  

A mere 10 years ago, or maybe 15 now, raw feeders were a fringe group and corn meal was the prominent ingredient in all kibble.   Now, feeding a raw diet is widely accepted and for those who won't, there is a rainbow of kibble options in all levels of grain, gluten free, and grain free, organic, holistic etc. etc..  Recipes for raw diets or even cooked homemade diets are plentiful.   Science Diet's share of shelf space in the pet supply store has dwindled considerably.

Vets are getting in on the act, following the famous footsteps of Ian Billinghurst, the Australian veterinarian who brought the BARF acronym into the mainstream.  There is constant chatter and worry among owners about a "balanced" diet and IS their furry baby getting enough cranberries and fish oil?

Times have changed.  But like the old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same.   15 years ago Ms. X took a deep breath and plunged into raw food.   She tracked down a early copy of Pottengers' Cats (which hadn't been reprinted then).  She studied Billinghursts' Grow Your Pup With Bones and meticulously followed the Feline Future's recipe for raw cat food.   She worried about the dreaded bacterial infections from raw meat, would the bones puncture their intestines? And was she giving them enough fish oil?

Then the furry babies grew up, the fur-less babies arrived and after a few years Ms. X switched the furred portion of the household back to crap-in-a-bag or "crapple" as it is called these days.  The pets grew and lived and died and the cycle has begun again.

And once again, Ms. X is asking (and answering) the question, what should they eat?

We'll talk about this in detail over the next several posts, but for now I'll leave you with this quote, by T.C. Hawley, the famous Rhodesian Ridgeback breeder. 

The dog will thrive on any diet which will keep man healthy.

Dog, It's what's for dinner.

This could turn into the most entertaining conflict of the decade. After years of spewing hate on those cultures that eat dogs, animal rights activists, who were often the first to jump on the green bandwagon, are suddenly coming face to face with their conflicting emotions.

Bluntly put by a New Zealand writer:

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

For some time now, we have waited (but breathing comfortably) to see which of the environmentalists would be the first to stop talking about population reduction and start practicing it. Perhaps now, the possibility of a slightly less harsh radical approach to planet salvation will appease the conscience of many.

We shall see, eh? Who among them will love the planet more than Fido?

How do you get out of the conundrum that your useless pet is a bigger Gaia rapist than a Land Cruiser? The moral dilemma must be tearing them apart.

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living....

Professor Vale says the title of the book is meant to shock, but the couple, who do not have a cat or dog, believe the reintroduction of non-carnivorous pets into urban areas would help slow down global warming.

"The title of the book is a little bit of a shock tactic, I think, but though we are not advocating eating anyone's pet cat or dog there is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment."

Just a shock tactic, eh? More like a moral beat down between the holy factions of the religion of global warming.

NEWSFLASH - People don't eat their "pet" chickens.

Still, perhaps they will learn a little tolerance for cultures that have used dogs sustainably for millenia?

Any bets?

How to make a dog insulin resistant

Overfeeding kibble is a good place to start.

Blog Hyperlipid recently reported on a study done with dogs in an attempt to prove that saturated fat causes insulin resistance.

The goal of the study seemed noble enough:

the development of peripheral and hepatic insulin resistance relative to one another in the context of obesity-associated insulin resistance is not well understood. To examine this phenomena, we used the moderate fat-fed dog model, which has been shown to develop both subcutaneous and visceral adiposity and severe insulin resistance.

and the authors concluded:

Our results indicate that a diet enriched with a moderate amount of fat results in the development of both subcutaneous and visceral adiposity, hyperinsulinemia, and a modest degree of peripheral insulin resistance.

How did they achieve these results? To quote Peter (of Hyperlipid)

Cr@p in a bag: Total calories 3,885kcal/d

For "less cr@p in a bag but plus 2g/kg bacon grease": more like 3,945kcal/d


This is for a 27kg dog sitting in a cage.

Go on, read that again; 3,945kcal/d. I'm not joking.

The real trick of course, is to blame the subsequent insulin resistance on saturated fat.

Peter writes:

So this is another study where the introduction and discussion are utterly divorced from the methods and the results (and from reality). It's worth just flicking through the methods and, in your mind's eye, look at how much money was used on these dogs. A clinical MRI was around about £1000 a shot in the UK Home Counties in 2009.

This study was funded in the US of course, guess we all look forward to such sterling research with our tarp funds.

Where's PETA when you need them?

Nutritional Heresy

Tonight, I watched that great documentary "Fathead", by Tom Naughton. In the back, in the extended interviews section, Dr. Al Sears talks about the relationship of grains to heart disease, and he tells a great story.

It seems back in the 60's, they were trying to prove that fat caused heart disease. So they fed dogs just tons of saturated fat, but none of the dogs got heart disease! So the researchers concluded that dogs just could not get heart disease, so they abandoned their study of dogs, and turned to rabbits.

Well, guess what happened. They fed rabbits saturated fat (not a nutrient you commonly get from grass) and those rabbits developed heart disease in a matter of weeks.

"Eureka!" The researchers cried. And they concluded that saturated fat caused heart disease in mammals (humans, rabbits etc.) Except dogs. Dogs just didn't get heart disease.

Dogs, just don't get heart disease. Right.

Heart disease is a huge medical industry for dogs these days. Weight loss is a huge problem too. What's the connection? Same one humans suffer from, Carbohydrates.

And rabbits are a great model for human cholesterol and saturated fat processing, right? Rabbits are notorious for having bodies low in saturated fat. And their natural diets are, of course, fat free. They are strict herbivores. They even have a disease named after them, Rabbit Starvation. It's what happens when you eat a high protein low fat diet. In short, you get sick and die.

I'm quite sure any of my readers are smart enough to figure out that perhaps, rabbits were an inaccurate human model when it comes to dietary fats.

Speaking of fat dogs, our second topic for nutritional heresy: Spaying Makes Your Dog Fat.

Gary Taubes (of Good Calorie, Bad Calorie and "What if it's all been a big fat lie" fame) explains this phenomenon at this lecture (beginning about 38:00, but you should watch the whole thing).

Removing the estrogen makes the animal accumulate fat in its fat tissues. Because the fat is going into the tissues, there is an energy deficit elsewhere in the body so the dog has to eat more. If it can't eat more (and many owners try to reduce food intake after spaying) then the metabolism and energy expenditure will just slow down.

In short, you feed your dog a certain quantity, lets say 1 cup of food per day, and the dog maintains a normal weight. Then you spay the dog. After the surgery you continue to feed your dog one cup of food per day, but now your dog will get fat.

In short, your dog isn't getting fat after spaying because it is overeating. It gets fat after spaying because you made it get fat.

Pet owners are lied to about this one on a regular basis. Ms. X has a mission to shine the truthlight on false teachings, and the myth that spaying (or neutering) won't make your dog fat is just that. A myth.

Website after website blames the owner when a dog that has been fixed gets fat. I'm willing to blame owners for lots of things, like not training their dog and then turning it into a shelter because it misbehaves.

But I like to assume that pet owners are intelligent and responsible, and can handle the truth about spaying and neutering. I like to enable them to make the best decisions for them and their pets.

The truth is the best medicine.

More Than You Knew

about fluoride, that is.

It seems there is a degree of concern about the level of fluoride in dog food.

We already know that our furry friends (unless they sate their thirst with Perrier)are exposed to fluoride in their drinking water, as are we all, and there is reasonable question as to it's influence on the incidences of osteosarcoma, especially in dogs neutered while they are still growing.

Now, it seems that even Beverly Hills puppies can't escape fluoride by just hitting the bottle.

Together with drinking water from the tap that has been fluoridated, some puppies may be exposed at five-times the safe limit, according to Environmental Working Group -- though it must be said that the safe limits were not designed specifically for dogs
Read more.

EWG recommends choosing dog food brands free of bone meal and meat by product ingredients like chicken by-product meal, poultry by-product meal, chicken meal and beef meal.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/dog-food-fluoride-47063002#ixzz0KFn66YSb&C

I don't entirely agree with the schools of thought that shun "by-products" and "meal", offal and bones are quite valuable food sources for dogs. When my dog gets ahold of a living food source, the only thing she leaves is the ears. Maybe she'd even eat them, if I let them ripen for a couple days. The offal went first, and the bones weren't far behind.

However if you are raising puppies, nothing, nothing beats a raw diet. If you have a large breed, and you plan to neuter early, you might want to filter the fluoride out of the water too.

Keep pups skinny

Several years ago I read a statement to the effect that you don't accumulate fat cells as an adult, you just enlarge the ones you have. It was a statement in commentary on a website, with no supporting evidence.

It was one of those comments in passing, that rolls around in the brain as having superficial merit, and so you wait, until the evidence catches up with it, or doesn't.

In this case, the evidence did.

From the magazine "Nature":

The factors determining fat mass in adult humans are not fully understood, but increased lipid storage in already developed fat cells (adipocytes) is thought to be most important4, 5. Here we show that adipocyte number is a major determinant for the fat mass in adults. However, the number of fat cells stays constant in adulthood in lean and obese individuals, even after marked weight loss, indicating that the number of adipocytes is set during childhood and adolescence.

People find roly poly puppies irresistible. Cute little round fur balls are often proclaimed 'what a healthy looking pup'!

(Same goes for children too.)

But the life time of problems (Hip Dysplasia, anyone?) that obesity brings with it, are anything but healthy.

Irradiation Dangers

A recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald announced that Australia had banned cat food irradiation.

The Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, has ordered the controversial sterilisation process, which has been in place for more than a decade, to cease immediately, following compelling overseas evidence that some cats can suffer fatal neurological damage after eating irradiated dry food.

Dogs do not appear to be affected by similarly treated food.

About 90 cats fell ill last year and 30 died before a Sydney vet, Georgina Child, made the link in November between the mystery illness and a brand of Canadian gourmet pet food called Orijen.

So what's happening? Why is irradiation killing animals?

For more information I dug up a Consumer Release from Champion Petfoods on the problem.

They say the problem is Vitamin A defeciency. Irradiation, it turns out, destroys Vitamin A.

This affects cats more than dogs because cats, being obligate carnivores, can't synthesize their own Vitamin A but must get it in the already already synthesized version such as is found in animal livers. Interestingly, cats are also quite resistant to Vitamin A toxicity.

Champion Petfoods also lays blame to the creation of free radicals.

When irradiation is applied to food, the molecular structure of long chain fatty acids (DHA, EPA) is altered. This causes the formation of free radicals that are then released into the body.
ORIJEN CAT foods contain very high levels of EPA and DHA unsaturated fatty acids and therefore have a much greater potential for free radical formation (in response to irradiation) than do conventional dry cat foods.

The cats are dying from consuming irradiated foods. What does that mean for the rest of us?

Fat is one of our most important food groups (except trans of course). Meat, a source of saturated and unsaturated fats, is a primary target of irradiation. In addition to vitamin A, some studies have shown B, C, E and Niacin are all depleted by irradiation as well.

Once again, the cat has been our canary. People have been up in arms about irradiation for a long time. Now that we have casualties, let's pay some closer attention to the criers.

http://www.sustainable-city.org/articles/irradiat.htm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/irrad/dangers.cfm

http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html

http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/food/irradiation/index.html

Gary Taubes on . . . feeding dogs?

I've posted about "low-carb" for dogs before, but never from a weight-lifters site.

Josef Brandenburg at Tmuscle.com has a great interview with physicist Gary Taubes.

All right. I know what you're thinking. A bodybuilder interviewing a physicist? What kind of alter-dimension is this? Just proves low carbing affects the brain, right?

It can all be explained.

Testosterone Muscle: You started out writing on stuff like rocket science. How did you first get interested in obesity and public health?

Gary Taubes: Well, after I finished my first book, Bad Science, on the cold fusion nonsense in Utah, some of my physicist friends said to me, "If you like writing about bad science, you should check out public health. You'll have a field day."

So I started writing about public health, and it turns out the science was pretty universally terrible. I did a story for Science magazine, in which I spent a year on the controversy over whether dietary salt causes high blood pressure. One of the worst scientists I ever interviewed — and I had interviewed some really terrible scientists in my life — took credit for getting Americans not only to eat less salt, but also to eat less fat and less eggs.

I literally put the phone down when I was done with the interview, called up my editor, and said one of the five worst scientists I've ever interviewed took credit for getting Americans to eat less fat and less eggs. I don't know what the story is with fat and eggs, but if this guy was involved in any substantive way, then there's a good story.

Sometimes it is just that easy to sniff out the rats in the woodshed. Scientific training can help refine the ol' sniffer, but scientific training alone does make a person smart. All those bad scientists Mr. Taubes interviewed are ample proof of that. There remains an element science has yet to discover that separates intelligence from idiocy.

Ms. X calls it "Truthlightium".

These days Mr. Taubes is best known for authoring the watershed article "What If It's All Been A Big Fat Lie?" in the New York Times.

In that article he questioned the "knowledge" we all had that low-fat was good and fat, especially animal fat, was bad.

When I was a young girl, I had a whole set of craft dolls bought with coupons from the back of Blue Bonnet Margarine boxes. Crisco was normal shortening. That's how deeply my family believed the evil-fat hypothesis. I was a teenager before I tasted real butter.

Our family dog ate vegetarian dog food. (THAT, is a whole 'nother post.)

After the NYT article came a book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories". GCBC made the link between carbohydrates and heart disease and a whole host of other health problems.

TM: Let's get to the most controversial point: You say that eating extra calories won't make people fat.

GT: The assumption that fat tissue isn't regulated at all is almost naive beyond belief.

[GT] If you look at animals, all animals regulate their fat tissue very carefully. You can't just force animals to overeat and make them fat.

TM: Really?

GT: They won't do it. The only animals that will get fat by dietary means are very carefully bred rats in laboratories, and house pets that don't eat the foods they evolved to eat.

If you've ever looked at cat food, it's packed with carbohydrates. And yet cats are carnivores in the wild. Felines don't eat carbohydrates. They eat meat. That's what they do. And yet we take then into our homes, we feed them carbohydrates, and lo and behold, they get fat.

Ditto dogs.

Combine the carbs with inbreeding and viola! Disaster.

Several years ago someone wrote that cats were first domesticated because they were so good at protecting the grain stores from the rodents that consumed them. The cats were good because they ate the rodents. They didn't eat the grain.

How far we've come.


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Is Irradiation Safe?

A new study is being reported about serious side effects in cats that ate a diet of irradiated food.

Irradiated food causes demyelinating neurological disorder in cats

Scientists studying a mysterious neurological affliction in pregnant cats that have been fed irradiated food have discovered a surprising ability of the central nervous system to repair itself and restore function when placed back on a normal diet.

In a study published today (March 30, 2009) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that the restoration in cats of myelin - a fatty insulator of nerve fibers that degrades in a host of human central nervous system disorders, the most common of which is multiple sclerosis - can lead to functional recovery.

“The fundamental point of the study is that it proves unequivocally that extensive remyelination can lead to recovery from a severe neurological disorder,” says Ian Duncan, the UW-Madison neuroscientist who led the research. “It indicates the profound ability of the central nervous system to repair itself.”

The new study arose from a mysterious affliction of pregnant cats. A company testing the effects on growth and development in cats using diets that had been irradiated reported that some cats developed severe neurological dysfunction, including movement disorders, vision loss and paralysis. Taken off the diet, the cats recovered slowly, but eventually all lost functions were restored.

Now the first thing some technophile is going to say is "but we're not cats!"

Of course we're not. But cats are like our canaies. You are what eat I guess (lol). Cats are much more sensitive to chemicals and such than we, or even dogs are. Speaking personally, if it kills my cat, I don't want it anywhere near my kids.

This study comes as no suprise, though, to students of Francis Pottenger. Pottengers' studies with cats has been responsible for converting many a pet owner to a BARF diet for their pets, and taking a long and hard look at their own diet.

Probiotics for your dog

Dr. Mercola has a great article on pet health to consider:

Dogs, cats and snakes are carnivores, with sharp, interlocking teeth designed to grasp prey.

Cats and snakes are obligate carnivores, which means they must consume a meat diet to maintain health, whereas dogs are scavenging carnivores, who, in addition to a meat based diet, can consume other types of foods without dire consequences.

What Happens if My Pet’s Gut Bacteria Gets Out of Balance?

Immune reactions provoked by an imbalance in intestinal bacteria can seriously compromise your pet’s health.

Inflammatory conditions and several types of arthritis have been linked to abnormal GI responses in both people and pets. Intestinal permeability is increased in a wide range of diseases. When excessive amounts of antigens (small reactive proteins) are absorbed, all sorts of systemic reactions can occur.

An overgrowth of bad intestinal bacteria can contain proteins that your pet’s immune system may mistake for healthy proteins, sparking an abnormal immune response.

This inflammatory cascade can create a number of symptoms and degenerative changes in your pet’s body.

In people, the link between dysbiosis and atopic dermatitis, chronic pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and rheumatoid arthritis has been established.

Can any of these conditions develop in your pet? Yes -- all of them.

Zero carbs for dogs

From time to time, I touch on the subject of diet. If you look at the books I recommend in the side panel at The Gutendog Press, you will see such titles as "Grow your Pups with Bones" and "Pottengers' Cats". Coupled with my link to Dr. Eades most excellent blog, my furry comrades might cleverly arrive at the conclusion that I support the raw / low carb ways of life.

You would be correct.

It doesn't mean I practice it exclusively. I have, and then I haven't. And then I have, and then I haven't. You know how things go. But in the "have not" periods, we are less optimally sustained.

Recently I scholar.googled this little gem of a study from 1977 -

Metabloic responses to exhaustive exercise in racing sled dogs fed diets containing medium, low or zero carbohydrate by Elaine P. Hammel, V.M.D., D.S. et al.

The superior ability of racing sled dogs fed diet A [protein, fat, carbohydrate in the proportion 39:61:0] to mobilize body fat during a bout of exercise, coupled with their hematopoietic response to training suggests that this is a highly suitable diet or these dogs.

Other features of dogs fed diet A were higher serum concentrations of albumin, calcium and magnesium; these may help to combat tendencies towards hypovolemia, hypocalcemia, and hypomagnesemia. These propensities of a low carbohydrate, high fat, and protien diet may also be advantagious in other dogs subjected to sustained strenuous work, such as foxhounds, gunning dogs and military scout dogs.

What makes this study unique is that they were not trying to make the sled dogs lose weight. Often low-carb studies in dogs (cats, etc) are focused on weight loss, just like in humans. There are several studies showing the effectivity of low carbohydrate diets in getting your dog or cat back to a healthy weight. I will post about those another time.

In this study, they looking at performance. And, carbs were not required there, either.

PEANUT BUTTER PET TREATS RECALLED

This list is from Fox News. Click This Link for the complete details including recalling firm, lot numbers and UPC codes.

Carolina Prime - 2 Pack Hooves Peanut Butter Hooves
Carolina Prime - 4" Rawhide Bone Peanut Rawhide
Carolina Prime - 6" Beef Shank Peanut Butter Dog Bone
Carolina Prime - 6" Rawhide Bone Peanut Butter Rawhide
Salix - Healthy-Hide-Deli Wrap 5" Peanut Butter Filled Rawhide
Salix - Healthy-Hide-Deli Wrap 5" Peanut Butter Filled Rawhide
Grreat Choice - Large Assorted
Happy Tails - Multi-Flavored Dog Biscuits
Shoppers - Valu Multi-Flavored Dog Biscuits
Happy Tails - Multi-flavored Dog Biscuits
Grreat Choice - Peanut Butter
Peanut Corporation of America or Parnell's Pride - Pet Food Paste
Grreat Choice - Small Assorted
Grreat Choice - Small/Medium Assorted
Grreat Choice - Small/Medium Assorted
Grreat Choice - Small/Medium Assorted
Carolina Prime - Pet 2pk Hooves Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime - Pet 4" Rawhide Bone Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime - Pet 6" Beef Shank Peanut Butter
Carolina Prime - Pet 6" Rawhide Bone Peanut Butter
Healthy-hide - Deli-wrap Peanut Butter-Filled Rawhide dog treats
Carolina Prime - Pet 6” Healthy Hide Beef Shank Peanut Butter

About 31 million pounds of peanut products have been targeted in the recall. At the FDA site, you can search for products involved in the recall.

The Rescue Store

Click on the image for a larger view.

Resolute Left Overs.

Do your New Years' Resolutions involve trying to cut back? Whether you're cutting back on expenditures or food intake, or both, this article is for you.

"Leftovers are Not a Bad Thing", from NaturalNews.com is a rare, rational read about feeding dogs. The author lays out the case that Leftover, are indeed, not a bad thing. Used to supplement your dog's kibble intake, they can help you fulfill your New Year Resolutions. You won't be tempted to scrape the bowl, if you know that it will feed Fido supper, and that's one less meal of kibble you have to buy, cutting expenses.

As the price of everything goes up, dog food goes with it. And, if you are eating a healthy low-carb diet, your leftovers are almost guaranteed to be dog-friendly.

So go ahead. Supplement with your own leftovers, and both of you can avoid the scourge of obesity.

Bailout the Kennel Clubs!

Yeah. Why the heck not? Everyone else gets a bailout. And by everyone else, I mean of course businesses that are too big to fail. Businesses that lost their customer base, that found their income and profit margins were vanishing.

Whoa dude! Sounds familiar!

Today, we are losing market share at an alarming rate, especially in the retail sector. We are being challenged competitively and financially. - Ron Menaker, AKC Chairman, September 2008

Well, in September of course, bailouts weren't yet in fashion. Buuuuutttt, now it's December. Now, AKC's sister-across-the-pond, The Kennel Club of Britain, is falling into a dark abyss. Their annual glitzy soiree, the Crufts Dog Show, has been dropped, DROPPED from the BBC broadcast lineup.

Well do tell.

Yes, it was because of this MUST SEE TV! In case you missed these fine broadcasts, the series details many of the clear and present health and well being risks to purebred dogs.

While Ms. X cheered the series, she must issue her comrades a balancing perspective to consider - BBC is basically state-run television in Britain, funded by taxpayers. It is NOT a free market force.

How do you think this public censure of purebred dogs will effect registrations of the Kennel Club in Britain? Will it have spillover effects into the US?

Kennel Club chairman Ronnie Irving said he "was very sorry" that BBC audiences would miss out on the "remarkable diversity" of the show.

"However, we have been forced to reject the insupportable conditions imposed by the BBC, who have told us they will only televise the show in 2009 if certain breeds are excluded from participating.

Those breeds include

Basset hound

Clumber spaniel

Dogue de Bordeaux

Mastiff

Neopolitan mastiff

Pekingese

Blood hound

Shar pei

St Bernard

Chow chow

German shepherd

Bulldog

Rhodesian ridgeback

Cavalier spaniel

The british Kennel Club, of course, has a plan that should counter any falling revenue.

The club has announced it plans to issue new rules about how pedigree dogs should be bred and, in partnership with The Dogs Trust charity, has commissioned an independent review - the results of which are due to revealed in early 2009.

And then, part B.

The club is also calling on the government to give it statutory powers to make its Accredited Breeder Scheme compulsory throughout the country - a system that would make it illegal for non-members to produce or sell puppies.

Hot Dog! They've just been knocked around for promoting genetic defects and they want the government to give them real power to make every dog breeder in the country conform to their standards!

I wonder if our beloved "Kennel Club" might have something similar in mind.

What's in your dogs' food?

The government kindly allows all sorts of poisons to enter the food chain, both ours and are animals. I mean, they practically push soy down our throats, then there is high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and oh yeah, let's not forget Carbs in general.

So when a little pentobarbital (a euthenasia drug) slips into the dog food, no biggie. From the government standpoint anyway.

Back in 2002, the FDA released a report of their 2-year study/testing finding pentobarbital (the drug used to euthanize animals) in pet food. Their findings were that many brands of pet foods –- purchased right off of store shelves -- contained the euthanizing drug pentobarbital. With that finding, the FDA began an 8-week test to see if levels of pentobarbital in pet food could be harmful to pets. The FDA testing showed that the amounts of pentobarbital in pet food would not harm pets (even though their study only tested dogs). You should know that the FDA ran their testing on 42 twelve week-old Beagles –- and again the testing was only for 8 weeks.

Should the government crack down on pentobarbital? Nah. The last thing you really want is the Feds trying to fix things. The more they "fix", the more things break. Too much of our lives, society, daily choices are already built around government "fixes", to the point where a consumer mounted protest of pentobarbital in pet food would very likely result in the perpetrators pushing for changes to disclosure laws and labeling laws. We are almost in an unbreakable circle, where everything lives and dies by government "legality" and legislation. And where government is just a giant committee responsive only to those that scream the greenest.

A society where a company can be "too big" to allow it to fail won't be deterred by a few dead dogs.

The best you can ask for furry reader, is just knowing. Then you can exercise a few, non-government regulated options.

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The Dangers of Soy

Furry Readers, soy is not a health food. Please keep this in mind when feeding yourselves and your dogs. After all, Ms. X wants all of you around, reading this blog, for a long, long time.

Should we worry about soya in our food?

"We discovered quite quickly," he recalls, "that soya contains toxins and plant oestrogens powerful enough to disrupt women's menstrual cycles in experiments. It also appeared damaging to the thyroid." James's lobbying eventually forced governments to investigate. In 2002, the British government's expert committee on the toxicity of food (CoT) published the results of its inquiry into the safety of plant oestrogens, mainly from soya proteins, in modern food. It concluded that in general the health benefits claimed for soya were not supported by clear evidence and judged that there could be risks from high levels of consumption for certain age groups. Yet little has happened to curb soya's growth since.

Soya increases the protein content of processed meat products. It replaces them altogether in vegetarian foods. It stops industrial breads shrinking. It makes cakes hold on to their water. It helps manufacturers mix water into oil. Hydrogenated, its oil is used to deep-fry fast food.

Soya is also in cat food and dog food.

The rumors about soy have floated for years, FINALLY they are being proven. Read the whole story.

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Toxic Fertilizer Enters the Food Chain

This is a story Ms. X feels very strongly should be read by EVERYBODY. That is, everybody that raises animals, gardens or eats food. Did I leave anyone out?

Industrial herbicide taints British soil.

Gardeners across Britain are reaping a bitter harvest of rotten potatoes, withered salads and deformed tomatoes after an industrial herbicide tainted their soil.
...
The affected gardens and allotments have been contaminated by manure originating from farms where the hormone-based herbicide aminopyralid has been sprayed on fields.

What this article neglects to mention is...what happens to the cows? This stuff can deform a potato and the cow is still safe to eat? What about the cows' calves? What about our kids if we eat this stuff?