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Originally Posted by Melcakes  I think you'll find vets, vet schools and vet. nutritionists that can go either way. There are a lot of leading vets and expert board certified nutrionists and vets that highly recommend raw! There is hardly anything to base one saying that raw is not safe or unhealthy, due to the lack of studies on raw food, so these "believes" that raw is unhealthy according to some I take with a grain of salt since everything seems to be unfounded and the studies that do exists show raw to be much more healthier than kibble or home-cooked. Ye,t these vets are recommending kibble and home-cooked when there are thousands of studies that show really disconcerting issues with both. That concerns me. Most vets will not recommend raw because it's not recommend by the AAFCO which is considered to be the Green Steel of Approval and what Vets are taught in vet school and a large number of board certified Vets are part of the AAFCO. But ,the AAFCO and their standards is an entirely different subject and debate and IMO extremely flawed. The AAFCO standards are useless for evaluating raw food diets and why they are incomplete in determining the actual "nutrient standards" needed and utilized by our pets.
People say they want more studies and/or kibble proves an okay average track record, but I think evolutionary adaptations over million of years is much more of a record than just 50 years of dog food studies which show a lot of major concerns. Contrast this with a whole prey animal. Raw food's "best" is a brutal battle for survival over a span of several million years. Species evolved and adapted to their environments, thriving on fresh raw foods. If wolves and dogs have survived the worst of nature while eating fresh raw prey, what does that say for raw diets? A whole raw prey animal (unprocessed and NOT ground), or whole raw foods, contain the exact proportion of fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. One will be hard-pressed to test this in a lab, as the testing itself alters the perfect proportions. Nature's laboratory is how we know it is perfect. This is the food that keeps wolves, other canids, and felines alive and thriving, even in the face of intense pressures and hardships (many of which are man-induced!). Nutritional deficiencies arise because the animals cannot get enough to eat, NOT because the food is insufficient in nutrients.
Canine longevity and quality of life has been decreasing for many breeds since the advent of processed food. This new generation of veterinarians know nothing but kibbled, processed food and the ailments induced by it. |
i am sold on the benefits of raw diet. for me personally, i do not argue that raw is probably the healthiest form of diet for dogs(safety is my biggest concern for feeding raw). what i am trying to ask very specifically is the risks of feeding a raw diet. i want to know in a worst case scenario, what can happen to my dog when i feed him raw.
if i ask you to be a spokesperson against raw diet for dogs, and i want you to
convince me that feeding dogs a raw diet is dangerous for dogs. can you try to do that?
the information i am trying to get is NOT to stop me from feeding raw to my dogs, but for better understanding of the WHOLE picture. i would most likely still want to include raw as a big part of my dogs diet, but i just want to be well informed of the worst case scenario. is that fair? i would like the complete and full disclosure.
just to give an example, there are medications that increase the quality of life for dogs because it reduces discomfort for the dogs, but it shortens their life. would i still choose to give that type of medication to my dogs if they need it? yes, i want them to have quality of life over quantity of it. but YES, i definitely want full disclosure. it would make me feel better to know.