Nutrition Lessons from Man's Best Friend: University research shows....
 

Nutrition Lessons from Man's Best Friend: University research shows that fresh,... -- WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., June 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., June 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Independent university research now demonstrates that feeding dogs fresh, healthy, whole food diets instead of highly processed kibble and cans results in improvements in measures of health.
The results of a landmark study conducted by animal science researchers in California show that feeding a group of dogs a freshly prepared, whole food, lightly cooked, nutritionally balanced diet made from real food is scientifically shown to increase white blood cells and blood proteins that could benefit immune health. The groundbreaking research is being presented this week at the 14th Annual American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition's (AAVN) Symposium, held in conjunction with the 2014 American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) Forum in Nashville, Tennessee.
The study, which was conducted over 12 months, is the first time in veterinary nutrition history that the long standing practice of feeding dogs highly processed kibble diets, made from feed grade ingredients not allowed in the human food chain, is scientifically challenged. The results support what human nutritionists have been advising for decades – stay clear of heavily processed foods, and eat wholesome, balanced meals that are prepared fresh from the highest quality ingredients available, are lightly cooked, and have no preservatives. This same advice appears to be true for our canine best friends.
Dr. John Tegzes, VMD, diplomat of the American Board of Veterinary Toxicology, professor of veterinary medicine at Western University Health Sciences, and co-author of the study, hypothesizes that the secret may be in the quality of the ingredients, "The USDA certification process is the best food handling and quality control process we have in this country, and among the best in the world. If you start with wholesome USDA certified ingredients and do not destroy their nutritious value with heavy processing, then it's fair to assume that you would have a more favorable result."
In short – these results suggest that it may be healthier to feed our dogs a balanced real food diet made with USDA certified ingredients, instead of a processed commercial dog food. Dr. Tegzes explains, "It's exciting to ponder that if the trends we saw in our data continue over the lifetime of the dogs, we may see a decrease in chronic diseases such as cancer, renal failure, kidney disease, inflammatory bowel disease, dental disease, etc. in our pets."
These findings shouldn't be a surprise. The USDA and US Department of Health publication, 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, specifically recommends a balanced whole food diet over heavy vitamin and mineral supplementation or processed foods for people. A recent report revealed that the FDA feels that the process by which ingredients are defined in the pet food industry "ultimately falls short" and that "the majority of ingredients that are included in the AAFCO official publication are neither approved food additives nor are they generally recognized as safe (GRAS)."
Yet, until recently mainstream veterinary recommendations for nutrition have been loyal to these heavily processed, shelf stable diets that are artificially supplemented with vitamins and minerals that are otherwise destroyed during the kibble making extrusion process.
"These results are game changing", says Dr. Oscar E. Chavez, veterinarian, professor of clinical nutrition, and member of the American Society for Nutrition. "I see a future where feeding your pets real food is the best medical recommendation. Our role as veterinarians will be to help support pet parents achieve this level of wellness by ensuring the diets are properly balanced for long term feeding." Dr. Chavez was a full time tenure-track faculty during the research; he was so impressed with the results of the food on his own Golden Retriever, Rey, that he has since joined the company behind the recipes full time as Chief Medical Officer. Rey celebrated his seventeenth birthday earlier this year.
Times are changing and modern veterinarians and pet parents are no longer comfortable reaching for a bag or can recommendation. "We've seen a definite shift in the market", says Shawn Buckley, founder of JustFoodForDogs LLC, the company behind the diets used in the study. "Some vets have shared with us that their clients are expecting a better quality offering from their clinics than the processed food they traditionally carried, which was once considered the healthiest option."

Wow, VERY interesting and groundbreaking! To my knowledge, there has never been a true conclusive study showing that real / fresher food is indeed superior to processed food - for dogs, that is. I mean, it makes logical sense and common sense to me - but it's nice that there is actually a study to now prove some of this, or at least begin to prove it.

Would be quite interesting to know how it's received at the conference.

Very interesting! I will likely be home cooking within the next few months... I've been wanting to for so long...

wow now wont it be a hoot if in ten years we are all feeding this way and kibble is a thing of the past.....very interesting thank you for posting.

oh good on you. There is some good pet nutrition out there, Lew Olsson Phd. and Monica Segal are two that I like.
I am lucky to be killer in the kitchen so I don't eat a lot of processed foods and I had to think that way with my dogs too, it really did seem just like common sense. If I had kids I would not be buying packaged processed stuff for them. Although I do have a weakness for canned Chef Boyardee ravioli, eek!

I think a really big step would be to teach proper pet nutrition at vet school. Perhaps once a vet intern decides their field, whether it be farm, wildlife or our household pets, they could have courses set up specific to the digestive systems of the animals and their bodies needs. Rather that than 5 days of instruction from the Pet food companies

Yes indeed

IMO pretty much a no brainer that human quality home cooking would be best. BUT.....here's the big issue with this idea. People just will not be willing to put the time and effort into home cooking. For Pete's Sake they don't even vet properly!

It doesn't take much to prepare a weeks worth of food in wee baggies, but you're right!

right but that would be those who just dont do it all the way around. so agreed on that level but I think for those who are good pet parents it is a direction to consider.

I am going to buy the kit to try my own. i hate feeding my kidz bil jac and it is the only brand they will eat twice a day everyday. it has a nasty preservative in it that I just cannot digest. lol

I think that would be a fab step and it would benefit pets and parents who wanted to be educated alot.

At any/all medical conferences, the vendors are always there - so you *know* there'll be huge representation by Iams, Science Diet / Hills, Purina...what have you...and it'd be so interesting to hear them try to rebuke/refute this study. Would love to hear how they spin it, or if they actually show integrity to support it, while not denigrating their own products. A fine line.

I am trying to home cook for my 10 year old Yorkie but I am always nervous that she is not getting a balanced diet. Ive read a lot on the internet but I am never really sure if she is getting proper nutrients. I feed a protein (chicken or salmon) rice and a veggie. I am reading more about probitoics and wondering if a teaspoon of yogurt would be a good addition.? I like the idea of home cooking but I am definitely confused about exactly what to feed.

As you should be. You're likely not properly balancing the meals if you're finding recipes online. You need a recipe from a vet nutritionist. Does your 10-yr old Yorkie have any medical issues?

Omg...I teach Food Production and am a fairly good cook (If I say so myself) and I LOVE chef Boyardee--- when I was a kid my mom would buy it by the case for me lol... I thought I was the only person lol:eek:



It is work for me anyway...I prepare about 3 weeks at a time and it is a full afternoon. I think the danger with homecooking is being sure it is balanced nutrition. I shudder with fear when I read someone is feeding chicken and rice (without any supplements or other ingredients)...that has potently risk too.



I agree that nutrition should be taught in vet school. It is more important then we realize, just look at the ground breaking discoveries in human nutrition !!!!

I also agree... it must be done correctly or it could be more harmful then not.

I would recommend a probiotic over yoghurt as it doesn't contain the same active ingredients. Lew Olsson's book is great for information.

I consider myself not only a good pet parent but a good human parent too but with all that goes on in my life sometimes you just can't do it all. But if it was an absolute necessity for one of my pups I would take the extra steps to home cook. At one of my last vet visits I started to discuss home cooking with Dr. Young and she was very interested in Dr. Remillard's site and said that there were clients that would love to use a service like she offered. They are not referring clients to her for a balanced home cooked diet for those dogs with issues who's owners are interested in cooking. I just can't love my vets more! :)

Some here have used this website for home cooking, they also sell a supplement that insures they are getting every nutrient that they need: https://secure.balanceit.com/

Here is a review of the website: Make your own pet food - my review of BalanceIT.com - a site with recipes for how to make your own pet food

Looks like there are already skeptics of this "study" and its conclusions.

JustFoodForDogs Brings Us Some Classic Marketing Masquerading as Science | The SkeptVet

Let me address your "news" flash with who and what PR Newswire is and how it works.

PR Newswire is actually a marketing company that is PAID by the product company. For an annual fee of $195 you can become a member and for an additional fee of $495 annually they will keep your commercial/article stored in their Google archives for 1 year. What that mean is when a consumer does an internet search of a topic your advertisement which is written like the one posted by the OPer on this thread it will pop up as a search topic.

Here is a link to their webpage that you can see how to become a member and all of the services that they offer. PR Newswire: press release distribution, targeting, monitoring and marketing

Want more to you advertisement just pay a higher fee and they will Tweet it or add pictures and videos.

This article is nothing except an advertisement for Man's Best Friend. Shawn Buckley who is mentioned in this article was appointed in April 2014. He's his PR Newswire release and the big announcement JustFoodForDogs Appoints New Chief Medical Officer as the Veterinary Nutrition Team Expands

Here's the announcement that Dr. Chavez is now working for the company too.
JustFoodForDogs Appoints New Chief Medical Officer as the Veterinary Nutrition Team Expands

The article that is posted to this thread is actually an advertisement for the JustFoodForDgos company and just hype to sell their products. It's not some type of "breaking news" regarding dog nutrition. It's an OPINION commercial and should be taken as such. But thanks for sharing anyway.....

It's worth nothing that this company's veterinarian, who once worked for Banfield, while he may be a nice guy and even kinda cute, is not a diplomat of the ACVN and therefore not a veterinary nutritionist.

Here again, Lew Olson might have written a book about Holistic nutrition but she too has a goal.

Lew has her Masters degree in Social Work and her PhD in Natural Nutrition. She writes a monthly canine nutrition column for the B-Naturals website. So again, she has a vested interest in promoting Holistic with her website.


BTW.....you can get an ONLINE PhD in Natural Nutrition which I find interesting.


Some are so quick to jump on the Iams, Purina, Royal Canin are commercial dog foods but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the Holistic vets are also in it for the money. IMO probably even more so because their practices actually depend on the consumer purchasing their supplements as well as the required TWICE yearly office visits.

I visit the vet yearly, give vaccines as needed dependent upon each dog's needs and a 3 year rabies for each. They are tested year and take HW prevention monthly. Yes, I feed RX kibble because that is what they need. But my vet doesn't require more than one visit yearly and blood. So explain to me how purchasing from a Holistic vet a boat load of supplements, titers instead of vaccines at a 3 year or more rate, blood draws to check for HW (for those HW is poison peps) who instead chose things amber beads and Mosi-Q and vet visits TWICE a year to do all of the above is so not about the money these vets are making. I've heard it over and over that vets make money off the RX food they sell. But what about all of the supplements, blood work for checking HW and titers that are purchased from the Holistic vets? :confused:

Well I guess a little eye candy wouldn't hurt unless is contains Xylotol........

[QUOTE=Lil Sis;4447553]Omg...I teach Food Production and am a fairly good cook (If I say so myself) and I LOVE chef Boyardee--- when I was a kid my mom would buy it by the case for me lol... I thought I was the only person


I just laughed so hard when I read this -- when my son was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan (5 times) and I would ask him what he would most like for me to send him, he would say a certain cookie he liked and Chef Boyardee Mini Raviolis:D

I would send them a case at a time and he said guys would follow him around asking it he had gotten a package from his mom lately! They would offer him ridiculous amounts of money for a can😄

I think they ate them cold right out of the can.

Even kids at the local elementary school were sending him cans:D


As for this food. I have started home cooking for Cali - Dr Remillard diet. Not wanting to criticize my cooking, but she really likes to have some kibbles in it:D
I think she likes the crunchy part. So sometimes it is like a topper, but more an more we are moving into the home cooked world. All of the recalls freak me out.

I would never hang my hat on one study.

No and this wasn't even a real study.

[quote=yorkiemini;4452924]That's just too funny! :p


Dr. Remillard is a great source for home cooking and it I were to ever decide in the future that it was time to feed mine home cooked she would be my choice. I don't think a lot of people understand how domain suffixes are given out.

Believe me I am not an expert but if it says .com they are a USA commercial website selling something (justfoodfordogs.com or Nike.com...etc). But there are also others like for instance .edu which is an US educational site like a school. Another example would .gov which is US government site like say WhiteHouse.gov or the IRS.gov and then there is also .org i.e. Wiki is .org. There are a bunch more for different countries and these are just a few examples.

The internet is overseen by Al Gore (joking :p) ICANN/ Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia so my suggestion is to pay attention to the .com and go from there to decide if it's commercial, educational, organization etc. to help digest what is posted on the internet.

If you take a closer look at this "study" it's just a gimmick commercial to sell their products disguised as a scientific research study. So unless you are a savvy consumer which they are hoping you are not you'll fall right into their hype.

Not to get completely off track, but I wonder about this too. I've been to a number of vet hospitals and most do suggest an annual visit and labs. I don't consider labs to be a "requirement" because the only "required" items are the ones that I want to pay for. For me, though, I usually lean heavy toward prevention and this has paid off to early identify problems and try to address them. Looking at your apparently healthy dog bopping around and assuming it is the picture of health is the wrong thing to do in my view because some things can't be seen by an owner at home (e.g. elevated liver enzymes, protein or crystals in urine, thyroid functioning, and the list goes on). So it is a good move in the long term to visit a vet for an exam and have them do some basic labs.

Let me clarify what I meant by blood......an annual HW blood draw is required to have the HW preventative prescribed. My vet does not require any other blood work. It might be suggested for their overall healthy analysis but not a requirement for their annual checkup. Sorry for the confusion. My statement was referring back to the the dangerous lack of some people not treating monthly with a HW prevention that is backed by science and instead chose to use unproven herbal remedies and amber beads.

I know what you meant but I was just making the point that you can decline services offered but that it's better in my view to do labs. We do HW as an add-on to other blood but also have done it as a snap test for cheap.