Dr. Hirsch here, I am going
to talk a little a bit today about fresh food nutrition specifically for dogs
in this segment and why this is important information that I would really like
for my clients to be aware of prior to their appointment with me.
So nutrition is truly the fundamentals of our health
and wellness. Vast majority of animals that come to me are already on some sort
of kibble or sometimes canned food diet and because that’s what veterinarians
have told them for a very long time is what is healthy and best to feed their
animal, that’s truly what they think they’re doing the best by their animal to
feed. My approach is different and how we view things here at Holistic Pet Care
as a practice is really truly that fresh food is tremendously better for our
animals than processed food.
Fresh, high quality, balanced, ideally free range or
pasture sourced food is what I like to optimally aim for. Anything that you can
do to improve what your currently doing is better than doing nothing at all. When
I say fresh food what do I mean? I mean food that is not shelf stable. Otherwise,
food that if it sits out for several days or without refrigeration or freezing
is going to spoil. Why? Because that food is food that hasn’t been pumped with
a bunch of preservatives and hasn’t been processed in a way that actually does
change its nutritional content and it’s what gives the best nutrition to our
animals. For many of my patients, that is a raw food diet, however other things
that fall into fresh food diets are lightly cooked diets and home cooked diets.
All of these are certainly options that can be phenomenally helpful for our animal’s
overall health and wellness.
Sourcing is a really big piece of what I like to
educate people about because you’ll find ppl who have attempted to go to toward
a fresher based diet than kibbles and many canned foods. But I still often times
will tell them that I’m not thrilled with the choice because it’s not very
species appropriate in terms of the amount of carbohydrates that are in some of
these, as well as my concerns about sourcing sometimes mold issues, sometimes
some other things that have come up with some of the very more widely available
in grocery stores and really big box pet stores with some of those products.
Why do I care about sourcing so much? Sourcing is a
big deal because the nutrition of what we eat is affected by what that being,
by whether it be plant or animal, has been exposed to when it was alive. And
for meat-based products, animal-based products, the way that those animals lived
indeed affects their nutrition once they become part of the food supply. And
this also stands for people as well, although I’m speaking about dog nutrition
today. Really what I’d like for people to understand is that, pasture raised
animals that are either free raised or pasture raised or have appropriate
activity levels and a more natural lifestyle are tremendously less stressed
than animals that are raised in confinement and large production scale
facilities; that is very very common in conventionally raised/processed food
animal situation. So feed lots and high capacity poultry operations and other
situations lead to a significant amount of stress in the animals that are
there. Thinking about the concerns with both GMO concerns as well as herbicides,
pesticides, other contaminants; so optimally if we can have ingredients that
are actively organically sourced in terms of vegetables and fruit that is
involved, that’s optimal. Is it always possible in every situation, no; but
again I just want people to understand what sets apart some products from
others in terms of their sourcing.
And then when it comes to the fresh food being,
whether to choose raw or whether to choose lightly cooked or whether to choose
home cooked. One of the things I like to advocate for is, for growing animals, for
young animals, puppies, young animals that have not reached their maturity yet.
I do personally prefer a high quality commercially balanced diet because the calcium
and phosphorus ratios as well as a number of the vitamins and minerals that is
necessary for having a balanced diet and is really helpful when animals are
actively growing; is something that I don’t like to leave up to chance or to
hoping that clients get recipes right.
Adult animals I think can do very very well on home
cooked foods as well. My favorite resource in that regard is Dr. Judy Morgan ‘Yin
Yang Nutrition for Dogs’, available online and also available in an e-book for
on kindle as well. We do carry copies here in the office so if that’s something
you’d like to actually take a peek at, when you like to see us, happy to share
it with you. Dr. Morgan’s book is a phenomenal resource to understand the
basics behind nutrition in a Chinese perspective and Chinese balance. So, one
of the things I will often ask my patients, about my patients of my clients are
their preferences about temperature that they prefer. Is your animal always
looking for the sunniest warmest spot to lay or do they like to maybe sprawl out
on a cool wood or tile floor or lay in front of a fan or find areas that are
cooler near an air conditioning vent? Because that can give us some clues into
what an animal is searching for in terms of balance in its own body. And combined
with what I find as part of my holistic physical exam which includes tongue and
pulse from a Chinese perspective, I can often help guide my clients in terms of
different proteins to potentially choose to find the optimal balance for yin
and yang and aiming for a really balanced healthy optimal health situation that
the diet can really support.
I really look forward to seeing you in the practice,
moving forward; have a great day.