Nutritional consult- Not Happy

After more than 2 years of feeding homemade raw, I finally gave in to a vet's advice to pay for a nutritional consult after some recent tummy/pancreas issues in one of my three cats.  

Dr. Valerie Parker of the Ohio State Veterinary Medical Center charges $212 for a phone consult and another $100+ if you want her to work up a recipe for you... What a load of BS! To start the consult she basically told me she plugged my recipe into her program which uses USDA info and my cats are "horribly malnourished" She says there is no choline, Vitamin E, Iodine, magnesium...etc. but then in the same breath said that she didn't have info in her program on half of the ingredients I use... like venison or soft boiled eggs. 

She then said she could help me make cat food in a much easier, less complicated way that would be less expensive than what I am doing now.... if I use the BalanceIt website and purchase their supplement mix.  Did I really just pay more than $200 dollars for a sales pitch?!

She goes on to explain that she generally just works with dogs so she doesn't know specifics about cats and their nutrition (So why is she advertising as a cat and dog nutrition specialist?). She was not happy with the lack of carbohydrates in my recipe. I pushed her about why she prefers 'Balance It' over other supplement options and she said she didn't know of any others, but her friend is the owner of 'Balance It' so it is a good company that I should trust. She suggested I switch to kibble! She offered to send me a list of recommended commercial brands of food. She questioned my cat's poultry allergy; she said chicken allergies are not very common at all  and how could I know that the chicken was the problem ( they got loose stinky stool whenever they ate things with chicken and it went away when we avoided things with chicken) and then questioned it again after I explained.

I am just so mad that this woman admits to me that she doesn't know cat nutrition all that well, tries to sell me on her friends product, says dogs and cats can eat the same things, suggests kibble would be better than a homemade diet, and then tells me it will be cheaper if I buy high end commercial food ( or a prescription diet!!) for my three cats rather than hunting deer for them and purchasing a few supplements to make it complete. 

Tonight I am trying to redo all my math from two years ago when I figured out what they needed to be eating... but I am just so angry ( and it was a long day at work) that my mind is not doing the math right. 

Thank you all for listening. 

Did your vet recommend her?  If so, you ought to give him or her the heads up that Dr. Parker is, by her own admission, woefully lacking in areas of feline nutrition.

I'd be really irritated if I were you too. I had feline nutritionist go over my raw feeding and she was really good.  She was one of the professors at the University of Florida Veterinary College in Gainesville.  I really am sorry you had such a bad experience.

I would be miffed too - anyone would.  I think I would respectfully ask her for a refund.  Granted, animal nutrition is a complex subject about which many experts disagree.  But since she admitted that she has limited expertise in cat nutrition, $200 is a lot to pay for a questionable opinion.  I think you are entitled to a full or at least partial refund.  I wish you the best.

I agree, Rick.  She should absolutely request at least a partial refund.

You know, I was just about to say what a beautiful gray cat you have when upon closer examination I realized that your avatar is in black and white!  Your cat photographs are fantastic.  My family had picture day about three weeks ago.  One of the photos of me and my daughter  that came from that sitting is actually my avatar.  When we added to cats to the mix though it got REALLY interesting.  Suffice it to say that Atticus and Thirteen, my year old male and female domestic short hair cats, are not fans of the camera.  I wish I knew your secret!

pisces7386 said:

 
After more than 2 years of feeding homemade raw, I finally gave in to a vet's advice to pay for a nutritional consult after some recent tummy/pancreas issues in one of my three cats.  

Dr. Valerie Parker of the Ohio State Veterinary Medical Center charges $212 for a phone consult and another $100+ if you want her to work up a recipe for you... What a load of BS! To start the consult she basically told me she plugged my recipe into her program which uses USDA info and my cats are "horribly malnourished" She says there is no choline, Vitamin E, Iodine, magnesium...etc. but then in the same breath said that she didn't have info in her program on half of the ingredients I use... like venison or soft boiled eggs.  

She then said she could help me make cat food in a much easier, less complicated way that would be less expensive than what I am doing now.... if I use the BalanceIt website and purchase their supplement mix.  Did I really just pay more than $200 dollars for a sales pitch?!

She goes on to explain that she generally just works with dogs so she doesn't know specifics about cats and their nutrition (So why is she advertising as a cat and dog nutrition specialist?). She was not happy with the lack of carbohydrates in my recipe. I pushed her about why she prefers 'Balance It' over other supplement options and she said she didn't know of any others, but her friend is the owner of 'Balance It' so it is a good company that I should trust. She suggested I switch to kibble! She offered to send me a list of recommended commercial brands of food. She questioned my cat's poultry allergy; she said chicken allergies are not very common at all  and how could I know that the chicken was the problem ( they got loose stinky stool whenever they ate things with chicken and it went away when we avoided things with chicken) and then questioned it again after I explained.

I am just so mad that this woman admits to me that she doesn't know cat nutrition all that well, tries to sell me on her friends product, says dogs and cats can eat the same things, suggests kibble would be better than a homemade diet, and then tells me it will be cheaper if I buy high end commercial food ( or a prescription diet!!) for my three cats rather than hunting deer for them and purchasing a few supplements to make it complete. 

Tonight I am trying to redo all my math from two years ago when I figured out what they needed to be eating... but I am just so angry ( and it was a long day at work) that my mind is not doing the math right. 

Thank you all for listening. 

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I go to the nootropics forums too.  Some people are talking about eating eggs to get their choline,  so it definitely doesn't sound like she is right on the NO choline part of it.  

I recently did a $250 nutrition consult for my dog, per our veterinarian's request . They used software from BalanceIT.com to create a nutritional profile for the diet. They didn't push the Balance It supplement on me, instead they included bone meal, fish oil, canola oil and a multivitamin in the recipe. I had a few concerns with the recipe they gave, so they offered to reformulate based on my requests, for no additional charge. I also asked about an iodine supplement and was told "Iodine is not analyzed in most foods in the USDA database, making the amount of iodine in the formulated diet appear artificially low.".

One can get a nutrition consult and a custom diet created at https://www.petdiets.com/ The founder is a board certified veterinary nutritionist who used to work at the local vet hospital. A sample generic recipie from when she worked at the vet hospital is here. I think she did consulting for BalanceIt for awhile before starting her own company. I wouldn't be surprised if the PetDiets.com custom diets use the BalanceIt supplement.

Honestly, you'd probably get better advice from the raw feeding group on facebook in terms of diet suggestions. Are you part of that group? If not I would totally suggest you join. They are a wealth of information and experience and they could point you in the right direction. Many are former members here.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RawFedIBD/ 

Thank you all for you support! I've sent her a letter explaining and justifying my complete dissatisfaction and requesting that my bill be cancelled. She brought almost nothing to the conversation other than the BalanceIt brand name and a wildly inaccurate and incomplete analysis of my food (using the balance it software). Basically she had missing ingredients or ingredients with horribly limited analysis for more than 40% of my recipe during the phone consult and obviously made almost no effort to remedy that. I don't have anything against Balance it, but she used their paid software in place of her own knowledge or effort. Even the recipes she offered to work up for me were the same ones I could calculate myself with the BlanaceIt free analyzer. It also really bothered me that BalanceIt, which she outright said was her friend's company, was the only brand name she actually said during the phone call. 

I spent a lot of time this week figuring out my recipe with a whole bunch of help (big shout out to Mschauer!) and I am feeling pretty good with it, I'll supplement a few vitamins, but no major changes. I'll definitely be checking the recommendations you all posted.

I'll let you all know how it goes when I get her response! 

Please make sure your vet knows that this is not someone the vet should be referring her/his clients to.

I have a mix Norweigan forest cat and he has eaten mostly kibble and is overweight because of that. I have recently acquired two kittens both Maine Coons and the breeder suggested a high quality canned food with not vegetables just meat or a raw food that can be purchased or made at home. Making it yourself is expensive in the beginning due to the essential oils and vitiminnes that need to be added but. They can be naught in bulk. At the end of each year I usually through out 40- 50 lbs of meet from my freezer which I could use for cat food.....well that is me...Like you I am still learning and want what is best for my kitties to live a long and healthy life........good luck

Pasquale said:

 Making it yourself is expensive in the beginning due to the essential oils and vitiminnes that need to be added but.

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Essential oil? No. Why would you add those? Essential oils are dangerous to cats, and completely unnecessary. The vitamins and minerals you add to make raw food complete are not expensive at all. 

missmimz said:

Pasquale said:

 Making it yourself is expensive in the beginning due to the essential oils and vitiminnes that need to be added but.

Click to expand...

Essential oil? No. Why would you add those? Essential oils are dangerous to cats, and completely unnecessary. The vitamins and minerals you add to make raw food complete are not expensive at all. 

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From the context, I suspect pasquale means fish oils or similar for the omegas/essential fatty acids

Columbine said:

From the context, I suspect pasquale means fish oils or similar for the omegas/essential fatty acids

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lol that makes way more sense!