Why You Need To Feed Raw Pet Food To Your Dog and Cat

September 8, 2009 by Diana
Filed under raw pet food

Your Dog and Cat Needs Raw Pet Food

Most pet owners feed kibble for convenience, or because your pets like it. But the truth is, it’s frequently not species appropriate, and can seriously damage your pet’s health. Fortunately, once you recognize it’s not the healthiest choice for your companion it makes it easier to gently begin transitioning to a more biologically optimal food.

To argue whether raw pet food diets are appropriate for dogs and cats is moot; they have thrived consuming a variety of small prey for thousands of years!

Wild animals also avoid many of the degenerative health issues that affect our current domestic pet population. It is naive to believe that your pet’s health would suffer any less from consuming a highly processed diet, filled with corn and other denatured ingredients.

Knowledgeable veterinarians have wisely abandoned the idea that cats can become trendy, healthy vegetarians and that dogs can thrive on an entirely grain-based diet. Most of us have the desire to match, as closely as possible, our companions’ current diet to their ancestral diet. This should be common sense.

The Two Main Problems with a Non-Raw Pet Food Diet

One of the biggest concerns about not feeding dry food is your dog or cats teeth.

Remember: eating crunchy granola, nuts and other dry food doesn’t brush or clean your teeth. You still have to brush your teeth. Likewise, eating crunchy kibble and dry pet food doesn’t brush or clean your pet’s teeth. You still have to brush your pet’s teeth. So please don’t use this rationale to feed your pet a diet of mainly dry foods.

There are the two major problems with an entirely dry pet food diet.

Protein quality
Moisture content

Protein quality – Contrary to popular belief, protein requirements actually increase as pets age to combat catabolic processes, which can lead to muscle wasting. We have also learned that the biological availability of certain protein sources actually determines how easy or difficult they are to metabolize. For example, snouts and feathers, although 100 percent protein, are not nearly as digestible as lean muscle meat.

The quality of protein your pet eats is critical to reduce organ stress over time. The scary truth is that the majority of commercial pet foods on the market today are using rendered meats that are not even approved for human consumption. Because kibbled foods made with these poor quality meats are so difficult to digest and assimilate, they can actually cause organ disease.

Moisture content - Moisture content is another huge problem inherent in a mainly dry food diet. Our carnivorous companions were designed to consume non-dehydrated foods. Species appropriate diets – foods free of corn, wheat, rice and soy – formulated in their biologically correct form, meaning raw or minimally processed, with non-denatured proteins, contain all of the moisture needed to process the food with minimum metabolic stress.

Did you know that the natural diet of dogs and cats is up to 70 percent water?

That’s right: rabbits and mice, like our bodies, are primarily composed of water. Our pet’s bodies have evolved to consume a diet that is rich with water, not dehydrated, and not cooked.

When food is cooked and dehydrated (which is how kibble is produced), several things happen, the most detrimental of which is that the food becomes dry. Far too dry to be healthy.

This requires your pet’s body to provide sufficient moisture to reconstitute the food in their digestive tract. Although some animals may make a noble effort to consume enough water, many animals and most cats, don’t.

The Association of Feline Practitioners recommends owners feed cats a diet of primarily canned foods (vs. dry foods) for this very reason.

What are the most notable physiologic changes when our companion animals consume a dehydrated, poor quality protein diet?

Kidney stress
Liver stress
Metabolic stress

A lifetime of minor dehydration is stressful to multiple organ systems, but most notably the kidneys. It’s important to realize that this can easily be remedied by feeding canned or living food diets, and can easily be avoided by feeding foods that have not been dehydrated (dry food).

In A Nutshell

The convenient alternative of dry commercial pet food to our pet’s ancestral diet looks great at first glance, but poses significant health risks if fed as the sole diet indefinitely. Remember, our pet’s bodies are resilient. They can eat a variety of suboptimal, metabolically stressful foods on occasion and be fine, but because it’s our goal to provide a diet that most closely fits our companion’s biological requirements, we don’t recommend a lifetime of kibble.

Our goal is to provide a diet that mimics our pets biological nutritional requirements as closely as possible…in this case it means rethinking the “lifetime of dry food” theory. Thankfully, we can make one healthy lifestyle change at a time, which optimizes our pet’s chances of achieving abundant health.

If you are unable or unwilling to feed your pet a species appropriate, nutritionally balanced, raw food diet, then we strongly recommend you compromise with the next best choice: USDA approved canned foods. Our last choice would be a dry food (kibble), made from human-grade ingredients with little to no grains, and LOTS OF WATER.

Some Raw Pet Food Products We Recommend

Stella & Chewy’s Frozen Chicken Diet – 1.2 lb For Cat And Felines

Primal Pet Foods Raw Dog Food Chicken Patties 8 lbs.

Northwest Naturals Raw Dog Food Bison Nuggets 6 lbs.