iary 1 fl. 2002
22
y now, many of us have made
and broken our new year’s
resolutions to eat healthier.
So why not make a resolution
that’s a lot easier to keep— to help
our pets eat healthier?
I’m one of those dog-crazy dykes who’d do anything for my
beloved pooch, including cook her food from scratch, which
I’ve done for most of her seven years with me. It started out as a
necessity— she has a delicate stomach and can’t tolerate com
mercial foods— but now that 1 know what’s in the stuff 1 used to
buy, I’d never go hack to it even if 1 could.
Fortunately, my dog weighs just 14 pounds, and in an hour
1 make a batch that lasts three weeks in the freezer. If 1 had a
dog family that weighed in at more than 300 pounds— as a
friend of mine does— I would need industrial-sized vats along
with a commercial freezer for storage. In considering this
option, size does matter!
So when I heard two gay guys in Oregon had started a raw
pet food company, I had to check it out. Which then led me to
learn far more than I ever wanted to know. In fact, some lists of
commercial pet food ingredients were so disgusting I couldn’t
keep reading. (They commonly contain recycled rancid restau
rant grease, peanut hulls, carcasses of diseased animals, feathers
and so on, ad nauseam.)
I read books; digested numerous informative Web sites; inter
viewed vets, pet keepers and food makers; and conducted a
monthlong taste trial with six cats and five dogs. And because
we queerific folk tend to dote on our furry families, lots of Just
Out readers should welcome this wake-up call.
What’s really in those crunchy bits?
G
Finding
optimal
ways
to feed
our furry
friends
by Oriana Green
✓
..... •
m-
including intestines, udders,
esophagi and possibly diseased
and cancerous animal parts.”
Its literature goes on to say,
“The cooking methods used by pet
food manufacturers— such as ren
dering, extruding (a heat-and-pressure
system used to puff dry fotxls into
nuggets or kibble) and baking—do not
necessarily destroy the hormones used
to fatten livestock, or drugs such as
antibiotics or the barbiturates used to
euthanize animals.”
But what the extremely high tempera
tures do destroy is much of the nutritional
value in the food— so synthetic vitamins
must be added at the end of the procès;
along with chemicals to increase
palatability.
According to British vet
Kathy Partridge, “I do believe
all commercial foods should be
judiciously supplemented
(preferably with real, raw
foods), as they are completely
dead and processed.”
She also is opposed to the heavy grain content in most com
mercial pet foods, because dogs and cats are primarily carni
vores. “Dogs don’t have the complex digestive tract that cows
or horses have for breaking down plant material.”
In the 1990s consumer interest in more healthful
eating inspired some companies to stress the natural
ness of their pet foods, but Partridge also comes
down hard on those. “Science Diet was the all-
time worst food I fed. My dogs were a mess of
skin and gastrointestinal problems. N o Pro-
Plan, Eukanuha, lams, NutroM ax, Sensible
Choice, etc. They’re all very similar; lots
and lots of grains in proportion to animal
protein.”
Jeff Judkins, a vet since 1984, opened
one of Portland’s first holistic practices
in 1995. He previously practiced in
Alaska, where he observed hardwork
ing sled dogs “who eat only fish,
mostly salmon, and they do very,
very well.”
He is adamant about
cat diets in particular. “I
^ ^
A rose is
a Rose is
a raw food
lover
PHOTO BY MARTY DAVIS
rowing up on an Indiana farm in the 1920s, my father
always had a dog— who, like other pets at the time, was
fed leftovers from his family’s table. One day Skippy would
get ham scraps, baked potato skins, broccoli stems and maybe
some eggs. The next day it might be an apple, a meaty beef
bone and a heel of homemade bread soaked in a bit of milk.
Skippy thrived on his diet of great variety and had few health
problems.
Then along came Alpo. And by the 1950s, when I got my
first dog, the convenience of store-bought food had won out
over the old ways.
Soon the big companies convinced us that their products
provided complete balanced nutrition and that for optimum
health pets should eat the same food for the rest of their
lives. Like drive-through restaurants and frozen entrees,
prepackaged pet food was touted as just one more modem
culinary convenience.
But along the way most o f the companies got swallowed
up by huge corporations that also make human food, and
thus was bom a symbiotic relationship that spelled bad news
for our pets.
According to the Anim al Protection Institute, a national
advocacy nonprofit founded in 1968, “Pet food provides a
market for slaughterhouse offal,
grains considered ‘unfit for
human consum ption’ and
similar waste products to
be turned into profit,
WHEN ONLY
W III DO
think dry cat food is not healthy.... They’re meant to eat mice
and birds, not grain. I think feeding dry cat food is responsible
for hyperthyroidism; it didn’t exist in cats 30 years ago. I also see
a lot of dental problems in cats who’ve eaten dry food all their
lives," he warns.
Naturally, there’s a better way
P
et keepers have several alternatives: supplementing the
best-quality dry food with fresh ingredients; preparing
batches of food at home; and buying frozen or freeze-
dried raw food. Especially key if your cat or dog is overweight
or showing any signs of ill health, a better diet will prolong
Fluffy’s life and improve the quality o f it.
Holistic veterinary pioneer Richard Pitcairn recommends
raw food diets and believes variety in an anim al’s diet is
good emotionally as well as physically. He puts it in human
terms: “Think about eating the same thing for the rest of
your life.”
Partridge also urges a raw food diet, calling it “critical to
good health,” because it contains “enzymes, g(xxl bacteria and
other life forces.” She notes that planting a raw potato will