Vet student discussing grain-free and raw foods

... noticing a lot of insistence on grain-free diets. I'd like to try to clear up some misconceptions!

So this is a really long thread I stumbled upon, but this vet student is posting on Reddit about the misconceptions of grain-free food's benefits, as well as cautioning for uneducated raw-feeding. She addresses it for cats and dogs, but she's answered lots of questions about what tends to be better, and some other vet students and vets chime in with why some foods are good, why some foods aren't bad, and why raw can be problematic when done by people who aren't completely honest or aren't completely aware of best practices and all of the specific needs to create a complete diet.

She clears up what people assume by-products are and plant vs animal protein.

What say you, cat-oisseurs?

I'd like to see her debate Dr. Pierson on the subject of nutrition. Or Dr. Becker. She'd definitely lose. She's only a vetstudent and she's trying to sound like she's as much of an expert and her viewpoint is as valid as theirs are.

I'm not convinced.

She seems pretty open to discussion as long as people are courteous. Maybe post the link and see how she responds?

IMO, she's completely missed the point.

The history of "grain-free" marketing was a high protein, low-carb diet for cats, a biologically appropriate food for an obligate carnivore. As it grew in popularity, large pet food companies jumped on the bandwagon and created inexpensive "grain-free" cat food by using other forms of carbs.

"Grain-free" has been perverted into a marketing gimmick. Consumer beware. She is right that grain-free is not synonymous with low-carb, and that's why I no longer "tout" grain-free. I suggest people feed a species-appropriate diet to their cats - and that is a high-protein, low carb diet that is optimal IF animal-based proteins are fed. Cats have very limited pathways for carb/starch metabolism.

Just because cats CAN derive nutrition from grains does not mean it's good for their organs long term. What's the point of arguing whether grains are good for them or not? They are not built to USE them. You have an obligate carnivore in your care. Feed it right.

I agree that raw diets should be balanced.  Can't agree more about that one.  But I wouldn't go so far as highly warning people against a raw diet.  I'd simply encourage them to become more educated about it before making it a sole part of their cat's diet.

I disagree about fats vs carbs, but whatever. 

Very true - she and another vet chime in in the comments regarding the actual needs of the pets (as well as consulting with professionals with what individual pets need) and they drive home the need for protein and fat with low carbs.

I think it's an interesting perspective, and I do like seeing the discussion either way. I sure as heck don't know as much as she as a vet student, or raw feeders do, so it's a neat read either way. I've found foods that my cats and our vet are happy with, but there are a lot of people (r/pets seems to be full of well-meaning owners who just don't know better) who could learn from the discussion. I know there are lots of raw feeders here, and lots of people who've dealt with cats with special dietary needs, so all the first-hand experience is great to have in discussion.

Oh - domestic dogs - canis canis - are still in the family canidae, the order carnivora. People may "consider" them omnivores, but that does not make them so.

I read that earlier and thought about posting it here too. Maybe I misread somewhere but I thought I read her say that plant protein is fine because basically protein is protein and is metabolized the same. But for a cat, proteins are not created equal. 

Someone *might* want to introduce her to this paper: Plantinga et al. 2011. Estimation of the dietary nutrient profile of free-roaming feral cats: possible implications for nutrition of domestic cats, British Journal of Nutrition / Volume 106 / Supplement S1 / October 2011, pp S35-S48. (Full Report Available for free).

And though everyone's probably seen this recently in this thread http://www.thecatsite.com/t/277128/grains-and-a-balanced-diet , I'll say it again.

When cats do not have access to human garbage, they naturally consume a diet that is composed 100% of prey animals. Not corn, not wheat, not vegetables, not grasses, barley, oats.... Even eating the stomach and intestines of prey results in a carb content (NFE) of just 2.8% on a dry matter basis (and 2% on an energy basis). For cats, from a macronutrient perspective, their diet is 62.7% protein, 22.8% fat, 11.8% ash and, as already pointed out, just 2.8% "carbs." (Dry matter basis)

This is also confirmed by an (earlier) Waltham study: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/6/1039.full#R22


It's difficult to feed a cat their evolutionary diet using grains. Unless, of course, they're being broken down into their components. But humans thrive on diets that include fresh foods. I'm not sure why we expect our pets to thrive on such highly processed foods. In fact - they're not.

- 59% of cats are now overweight or obese and this problem is at "epidemic levels;" so it isn't surprising that with that extra weight, according to http://www.stateofpethealth.com/Content/pdf/Banfield-State-of-Pet-Health-Report_2013.pdf

- 67% of cats have arthritis; or that
- Incidence of diabetes have DOUBLED in the past five years;
- 85% of cats over the age of 3 years have dental disease (and with kibble being the predominant food fed, I think that puts to rest the notion that kibble is good for cats' teeth);
- Kidney disease is 7x more common in cats than dogs; and
- according to VPI Insurance, digestive issues have ranked as one of the top two reasons for a vet visit seven out of the last nine years.

. :scratch:

Yeah, it looks like a couple people asked about plant proteins and I can't remember if it was her or someone else who came and said they're fine when cooked? Do you have a reddit account? I'm currently a lowly lurker.

I wonder if someone wants to post a collective comment of the info here (copy+paste, rather than linking to the site) contradicting the replies she's posted to see what she has to say, or if you'd consent to my posting from a new account?

I don't have the patience to sign up. Feel free to use anything I've posted. I don't need the credit - the information is public and freely available for anyone to find.

Does Dr. Becker have a website compiling findings the way Dr. Pierson does?

Ohmygoodness, I shouldn't have kept reading. This person is just dangerous.

"Oh dear, that's a huge myth. Dead pets do not make their way into the food chain! Firstly, they don't go to any slaughter houses. Slaughter houses are specific to the species of animal they slaughter. Since all slaughter plants have to be inspected, there really isn't a way to make a dog/cat slaughter plant without the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service knowing about it. It is slaughter plants that do the grinding and rendering of their animals, there really isn't a practical way to incorporate dead pets into pet food unless a pet food company created its own machinery to do so and add it to the meat that it already receives. Possible? I suppose, but unlikely.

If that doesn't comfort you, the FDA (who has no vested interest in pet food companies) conducted a study testing for dog and cat DNA in pet food and found none. DNA tests are highly sensitive, so it is extremely unlikely that companion animals are incorporated into commercial pet food. Here is an official FDA link for more info on that! http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/FDAVeterinarianNewsletter/ucm110419.htm

As far as animals that aren't poultry or beef, those would be listed under meat meal, which basically means mixed meat meal (such as if a pet food company receives beef, chicken, turkey, and pork by-product meal and combines them, that would be classified as meat meal). While it could technically include any mammal, it is not practical or cost-effective to incorporate weird animals into the mix. There's probably sheep and goat in that mix as well, which is very edible, though less attractive to consumers who don't typically eat sheep and goat!"

I was JUST researching this VERY issue this morning, wondering about the issue of dead pets and 4D (non-slaughtered animals) in pet food.

It is NOT slaughter plants that do the grinding and rendering of animals, she is very confused - and there is NO requirement that meat in pet food go through a slaughterhouse. USDA facilities are where animals meant for human consumption are slaughtered. According to the USDA, "30 percent of the liveweight of hogs and about 44 percent of the liveweight of cattle" cannot be used in human food consumption. This stuff goes to the rendering plant. But it is NOT just "leftovers" from human food consumption that are rendered, and there is NOTHING about pet food that requires the food quality for human consumption. If it is downed (non-slaughtered animals), then it MUST be rendered, it can't be in canned food. But "slaughter houses" have nothing to do with pet food manufacturing other than being one of several sources of ingredients.

From a 2011 USDA report:

"Some inedible offal, along with normally edible offal that has been deemed unsuitable for human consumption, bones from meat processing, and cattle that are unsuitable for human consumption (nonambulatory and other condemned cattle), is rendered for use in the industrial, cosmetic, and feed manufacturing industries." (Pet foods and animal feed are the SAME REGULATIONS).

Sorry - it directly opens the PDF, so it's the google link: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=vEkqtB7Mfn4j80tFJTkz6A&bvm=bv.66111022,d.cWc

Interestingly, data from 1990 indicate that 27% of renderers own pet food facilities: (p 5) http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/emergingissues/downloads/render.pdf The report was conducted based on BSE/Scrapie concerns, but has some interesting info.

"Feed manufacturers reported the animal source for 124 different dairy feed products. Sixty-six ( 53 p e r c e n t ) of the feed products contained MBM/MBP from unknown animal sources and from manufacturers that do not exclude any species." (This is animal feed, not pet food). (Same report)

And the discussion of dead sheep vs slaughtered sheep in that report, again, makes it clear that 4D animals are a part of the rendering output.

Let's face it: Del Monte's 9Lives Daily Essentials Dry food that costs $1 a pound is not going to be the same stuff as Newman's Own Organics adult dry at $4.31 a pound. At $1 a pound, I don't think you know what's in the "meat meal" used in the product.

As to the dead pets thing?

I think it's far less common now than it once was, and the tonnage of dead pets pales in comparison to downed farm animals, road kill, expired food products, tallow and grease from restaurants - and the stuff that we like to see in kibble: the leftovers of human food production. I also think pet food manufacturers take the steps they can to ensure that dead pets aren't in their food.

But dead pets are definitely rendered into animal feed (though likely only from larger city high volume kill shelters), there's no question about that. Many of the articles are old, but 2009 isn't that long ago. The City of Los Angeles has a contract with a rendering plant that receives animals picked up from the city sanitation department, and has had, for 30 years.

There are plenty of what seem like legitimate articles(or reports that refer to articles) on rendering plants, where the renderers state they render euthanized pets. These are not hard to locate. They view it as a community service - which it is.

http://www.neontommy.com/2009/02/las-360tonayear-animal-renderi

"The city of Los Angeles is responsible for the disposal of these animals. The Bureau of Sanitation, which picks them up from the shelters on a daily basis, trucks the bodies to the West Coast Rendering facility in Vernon, an industrial area south of downtown.

The contract between the city and West Coast Rendering states that the plant will provide pick-up and rendering services for three years, from 2006 to 2009. This contract is worth $648,000 plus an additional service fee of $200 per ton of animals brought in monthly.

"We've held this contract with West Coast for the past 30 years," said Nat Isaac, project manager for the Bureau of Sanitation's dead animal disposal program. "This is our method of choice and it's always how we've dealt with the animals that have been euthanized or found on the streets."

Every month for the past three years, the city has delivered 30 tons, or 60,000 pounds, of animal bodies to West Coast Rendering's facility, according to Isaac. The plant is required to keep monthly records and provide them to the city.

The sheer number of animal bodies may be a result of overcrowding in the city animal shelters. There are currently 50,000 animals housed in six animal shelters across the city, according to L.A. Animal Services. Most of the animals are cats and dogs.

The city is making efforts to cut down on the number of animals euthanized by following a no-kill policy in its shelters. At the beginning of 2008, the city enacted a law requiring most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered by the time they are 4 months old. Still, the city euthanized about 15,000 animals last year, according to L.A. Animal Services."


Does this "meat meal" with pets in it makes its way into pet food? Probably not. Not usually. And it probably happens a lot less now than it did in the 80s and 90s. Anne Martin published her book, "Foods Pets Die For" in 1997, and if pet food manufacturers weren't already careful about their sourcing, they worked harder at it after that, I believe.


http://cruinthe.tripod.com/nexus/articles/petfood.html

"When City Paper reporter Van Smith visited Baltimore's Valley Proteins rendering plant last summer, he found that the "hoggers" (the large vats used to grind and filter animal tissues prior to deep-fat-frying) held an eclectic mix of body parts ranging from "dead dogs, cats, raccoons, possums, deer, foxes [and] snakes" to a "baby circus elephant" and the remains of Bozeman, a Police Department quarterhorse that "died in the line of duty".

In an average month, Baltimore's pound hands over 1,824 dead animals to Valley Proteins. Last year, the plant transformed 150 millions pounds of decaying flesh and kitchen grease into 80 million pounds of commercial meat and bone meal, tallow and yellow grease. Thirty years ago, most of the renderer's wastes came from small markets and slaughterhouses. Today, thanks to the proliferation of fast-food restaurants, nearly half the raw material is kitchen grease and frying oil.

Recycling dead pets and wildlife into animal food is "a very small part of the business that we don't like to advertise," Valley Proteins' President, J. J. Smith, told City Paper. The plant processes these animals as a "public service, not for profit," Smith said, since "there is not a lot of protein and fat [on pets]..., just a lot of hair you have to deal with somehow."

According to City Paper, Valley Proteins "sells inedible animal parts and rendered material to Alpo, Heinz and Ralston-Purina". Valley Proteins insists that it does not sell "dead pet by-products" to pet food firms since "they are all very sensitive to the recycled pet potential". Valley Proteins maintains two production lines - one for clean meat and bones and a second line for dead pets and wildlife. However, Van Smith reported, "the protein material is a mix from both production lines. Thus the meat and bone meal made at the plant includes materials from pets and wildlife, and about five per cent of that product goes to dry-pet-food manufacturers..."

A 1991 USDA report states that "approximately 7.9 billion pounds of meat and bone meal, blood meal and feather meal [were] produced in 1983". Of that amount, 34 per cent was used in pet food, 34 per cent in poultry feed, 20 per cent in pig food and 10 per cent in beef and dairy cattle feed."

The myth is that it is pervasive.

Here you go:


FDA Compliance Policy CPG Sec. 675.400 states “No regulatory action will be considered for animal feed ingredients resulting from the ordinary rendering process of industry, including those using animals which have died otherwise than by slaughter, provided they are not otherwise in violation of the law.”

http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/ucm074717.htm

FDA Compliance Policy CPG Sec. 690.300 states “Pet food consisting of material from diseased animals or animals which have died otherwise than by slaughter, which is in violation of 402(a)(5) will not ordinarily be actionable, if it is not otherwise in violation of the law. It will be considered fit for animal consumption.”

http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/ucm074710.htm

Figures. Exceeded max character count, haha. Since I'm a new member, I need to wait 10 minutes to post the dead pets stuff... great info though. I really hope she has the time to review it all and respond.

To avoid sending anyone to that huge long thread, I'll post her replies here:

'll need more time to reply to this properly, but some food for thought for starters: you should be careful about correlating these disease facts to being caused by processed foods. Cats in the wild don't typically live longer than 3-4 years, so we don't see diseases like diabetes and dental disease and kidney problems because they don't live long enough to get them!

I addressed the concern about plant vs animal proteins in another comment that I will hunt down later and link, so I will get back to you on that!

About diseases like diabetes, that is typically a result of over feeding and over conditioning and obesity rather than a product of the diet itself. you also have to consider that nowadays people are taking better care of their cats, so more diseases are being reported and cats are living longer as a result of better care. The longer your cat lives, the more likely it is to get one of these diseases such as arthritis!

Anyway, I am heading out to exercise now, but hopefully this is enough to get started!

Click to expand...

Places that do not allow animal burial (large ones like horses), the animals are rendered and turned into pet food.  And let me tell you, we put a LOT of chemicals in and on horses.  Some of these chemicals cats can't have.

No point in bothering with those types, I'll tune out anyone who suggests plant protein is perfectly fine for an obligate carnivore.  Or who thinks cats need carbs. 

"I'll need more time to reply to this properly, but some food for thought for starters: you should be careful about correlating these disease facts to being caused by processed foods. Cats in the wild don't typically live longer than 3-4 years, so we don't see diseases like diabetes and dental disease and kidney problems because they don't live long enough to get them!"

Um, no. African Wildcats are virtually identical genetically to the domestic cat ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070628-cat-ancestor.html ). African Wildcats have an average lifespan of 15 years. Cats in the wild in urban and suburban settings have short lifespans because it isn't safe - not because of diet. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Felis_silvestris/ Their natural diet serves African Wildcats just fine.

As a vet tech, she should have access to JAVMA. This article is only access via payment: Zoran & Buffington 2011. "Effects of nutrition choices and lifestyle changes on the well-being of cats, a carnivore that has moved indoors," J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2011 Sep 1;239(5):596-606. http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/ab...id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed

A quote from the article

"Fortunately for cats, their current preeminence as pets has resulted in substantial improvements in their general health and life expectancy. Protecting them from their natural predators (larger carnivores and primates) and providing preventative medical care to decrease their risk of illness from infectious diseases has increased the average lifespan of cats from 4.5 years (which is typical of an outdoor cat) to nearly 15 years. However, despite these benefits, this crepuscular carnivore has been removed from a free-roaming, active existence to a captive, indoor,
sedentary one. Cats have gone from frequent consumption of small meals that consisted of animals they could catch and kill to consumption of prepared diets of human choosing, which are often available in excessive amounts and consist of less protein and a wider variety of protein,
fat, and carbohydrates than is found in wild birds, insects, and small rodents. Cats are one of the few true carnivores humans have attempted to domesticate. People also have attempted to get cats to adapt to human lifestyles and preferences, which sometimes leads to a failure to recognize or understand the perils of domestication and its effects on feline behavior, well-being, and health. As a result, there is increasing evidence that many of the chronic health problems of domestic cats are directly or indirectly related to nutrition or lifestyle changes that have been imposed on them by their owners (Table 1)." p. 596

Winn Feline summary: http://winnfelinehealth.blogspot.com/2012/03/cats-nutrition-and-lifestyle-choices.html

GoingPostal said:

No point in bothering with those types, I'll tune out anyone who suggests plant protein is perfectly fine for an obligate carnivore.  Or who thinks cats need carbs. 

Click to expand...

I could tell her kind when she insisted from the get-go that she wasn't the product of a "funded by Hill's" nutrition education. Well... clearly she's received some of her education from a pet food company rep., because what she's saying runs pretty true to what I have read on Hill's website. Even sadder is that she admitted she takes pride in her nutrition education. Um.... OK. Whatever.

Face it, she is yet another typical, conventionally trained, allopathic vet in the making. I keep hoping her breed will die out in favor of holistic/integrative.