The Raw Dog Food Debate

Ever wondered if feeding fresh food to your pet is a good idea? In this episode, we dive into the world of kibble vs raw pet food from a veterinarian's perspective. Dr. Jessica Levy shares her initial skepticism and the surprising journey that changed her views on feeding pets beyond kibble and canned food.

🐾 What you'll learn:
- The initial perception of homemade pet food in veterinary practice
- Why vets traditionally recommend commercial pet food
- The turning point: when opinions started to shift
- The common myths about fresh food
- Key principles for a balanced fresh food diet
- How to get started with fresh food

👉🏼 RESOURCES 👈🏼

🥩 Get Wellspring's Raw Feeding Guide and learn the simple foundation!
https://stan.store/WellspringHAA/p/get-started-feeding-raw

🍖 Watch Pet Fooled and take a real look at the pet food industry
https://youtu.be/5XC1rUWWnxI?si=Z4K7TdxLr45fQhii

🐕 Check out our podcast episode "Raw Food Roulette" where we go deep about fresh food
https://youtu.be/HmS8SA7-Lik?si=j-M6_hY88nqFd1p5

📖"Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet" by Kymythy Schultze
https://a.co/d/0faNDEN5

🤓 Want an in-depth education about raw feeding, check out Feed Real!
https://www.feedreal.com/courses

Don't miss future episodes!

Make sure to follow to catch more insight into the holistic approach for animals in an inviting, honest, and realistic way, right here on The Crunchy Carnivore Podcast.

Connect with Dr Levy & Melissa

Instagram |  wellspring_haa

YouTube | Wellspring Holistic Animal Academy - YouTube

Website | wellspringhaa.com

Email | wellspringhaa@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I remember early on in practice when I um encountered people who were uh making their own dog food or who were feeding their dogs what they themselves ate. I did think they were crazy. I didn't think, oh my god, they're gonna poison themselves somehow. Uh but you know, I did think it was a little strange because we were definitely taught that, you know, dogs ate dog food and cats ate cat food.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

You've pour it out of a bag or a can't get it out of a can.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

So um I kind of made a a very slow transition and you know worked my way through all the stages of you know, better food, grain-free food, even better grain-free food, blah blah blah. Uh, but um even so, all that dry food still took a toll on my dogs.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Welcome back to another episode of the Country Carnivore Podcast. I'm Melissa Weidenhammer, and I'm here with Holistic Fett, Dr. Jessica Levy. And today we're gonna talk about um the great diet debate, uh, kibble versus raw. If you've been following any of our topics through our videos or our podcasts, we talk about raw diet all the time. We talk about how important diet is all the time. And even if you haven't, you've probably heard a tremendous amount online, right? There's everybody's talking about what you should feed your dog and what's the right way to do it, what's the wrong way to do it. And um there's a lot of information that's very overwhelming out there. And so we really wanted to just do a solid, thorough kind of walk through this whole topic about kibble versus raw, um, about just dog diet in general. Um, and so I think really where we want to start is talking about, you know, what are really, what is really the problem with feeding dry dog food? Is it really that bad to feed kibble?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah. Like one of the central issues I get asked pretty much all the time, is there a kibble that I could feed? You know, I don't know if I can do raw, I don't know if I have the freezer space, I don't have the head space, I don't know how to do it, I'm afraid. My vet said not to. Is there a kibble that will suffice?

SPEAKER_02 2:22

And I think the the this would be a question that would be l asked less often if people really did understand the truth about kibble and all the ramifications and all of the issues with it. I think because it's been so normalized, there's that thing in the back of people's heads are like, it can't really be that bad. I mean, it's everywhere. It's stacked in my vet's office. I can go to any store. I can, there's all different kinds. I'll just buy a better kind. Right. And it costs a lot of money. It absolutely does.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Honestly, we do not get paid by any raw food company. No.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Or kibble, but no, and we actually prefer to use multiple companies because variety is key. So there's no, I mean, we have some that we really like, but um, we're not gonna point and say, you know, this is this is the way. But I do think the normalization of kibble over the course, you know, since the 1950s, 1960s, really it's only been since the 1960s. And I think that is just it, you know, we're getting just far enough away from that that it's like people really just think it's just always been this way. It's actually pretty new.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And those people are not dead yet. Many of them. Yeah, so it's it was really like not that long ago. Because like this this topic is always approached as if kibble has always been here. As long as there have been dogs, there has been kibble. Right. And that is just not true. The first bag of kibble hit a store shelf in like 1956, less than a hundred years ago. So no evolution has taken place in that time.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

So I think what's really important is to call out the culprit of normalization as being a huge problem with why it's so hard for people to wrap their head around it. But we're here to to come against that and say that's actually not, it's not true. Like it's really not, it's really not okay, even though it's, you know, just because everybody's doing it doesn't mean it's good, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So, what are the top issues that you think of when you think of feeding kibble?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Um, the very first thing that comes to my mind is the carbohydrate content. I mean, that's I think there's a lot of like top things in my head, but that's the first problem. It's so inflammatory. It's their bodies are not meant to process carbohydrates, they're not omnivores, which is a uh just a ridiculous debate that is still going on. It's not hard to prove that they're carnivores and not omnivores. But the carbohydrate percentage in kibble is anywhere from 40 to 70 some percent, sometimes more. They're maybe meant to take in 6% and not those kind of carbohydrates. And either.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Right, and not every day.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

So it just it hinders digestion, it's pro-inflammatory, it's completely biologically inappropriate. It makes them fat.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

It makes them fat and sad and lethargic.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

So the carbohydrate, I guess, is the first thing that comes to mind, although it is kind of hard to pick like one thing. So, what about for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

It's dry. Yeah, it's no moisture. And we're so used to seeing the dog, you know, eat the kibble and then go and drain the whole bowl of water, which is really abnormal when they eat their natural diet, when they eat real food, they don't do that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Mm-hmm. The other, you know, thing, just to go back to the carbohydrate content for just a minute, this is a huge cause of bloat. So all you dog owners out there that are so worried about bloat, kibble is it's it's really a kibble-related problem for the most.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

It's a dry food disease.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Yeah, it's a dry food problem. And so, you know, you've got the carbohydrates mixed with the lack of moisture, it's like this perfect storm for bloat. So if you're gonna get bloat, that's your highest risk factor. Is is gonna be is gonna be that. The other thing that um you know comes to mind too, like once you understand the truth about the top the ingredients that go into there, no matter how good an ingredient label looks, there is no regulatory system that is watching where this food comes from, what the real source of the protein is, you know, it just can say chicken, what part of the chicken, what kind of chicken, where do they get the chicken, all of that stuff is is so just the lack of really understanding the what the ingredients even are, what the source of the ingredients are, the lack of of just ingredient control um with dry food is is a problem.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah. I think the synthetic vitamins and minerals that usually come pretty quickly after, you know, the first few ingredients is the stuff that looks good. That's where you find the chicken, the brown rice, the barley, the whatever. And then it devolves into this list of chemicals. Those synthetic vitamins and minerals I think do a lot of damage. They're really not good for our dogs. They um sap the body of the energy that should be being used to digest food. Instead, they're having to deal with this synthetic soup that they've been fed. And then a lot of the vitamins are because they're synthetic, and so that means that they're parts of vitamin complexes or they're mirror images of vitamins, which means the body has to utilize energy and drain resources to try to figure out what to do with it. To try to use the vitamins. Yeah. So that that's not how we're supposed to get our nutrition, you know, from those synthetic vitamin mineral mixes.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

And then, you know, the another big problem, anybody who has been taught conventionally how to feed a dog kibble, you never switch the food. This is a huge, huge problem to never feed a different food. This is how you pigeonhole your dog into getting allergies, among other things. Having allergies to things, um that that same thing every day, every day, every day, that is how you build a sensitivity to food.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Right. Like we know we're not supposed to do that for ourselves. We know we have to eat a varied diet, and you're supposed to eat all the colors of the rainbow and that kind of stuff, and then we're feeding our dog this synthetic dried crud every day, every meal. Every meal of every day.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

So it's like you put all of these things together and then think about the processing on top of it. It's heated and then processed, and then it's heated and then extruded, and then it's heated. Like everything that is even put in it that is questionable in the first place is then completely taken out of it, which is why you have to have the synthetic vitamins and minerals to actually put nutrients back in there. It is the labeling, the ingredient list, the nutrient, you know, profile facts, all of that stuff is incredibly deceiving because your body, the dog's body is not really using it. And then all these factors put together, it's pro-inflammatory. I mean, your dog is gonna have digestive inflammation issues like crazy because of all these things that are put together. And this is all from kibble.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Right. And then at the very end, so you know, it's cooked, it's mixed, it's cooked some more, it's dried, then it's rehydrated and cooked, and then it goes through the extruder. Watch Pet Fooled if you're kind of unaware of how kibble is made. Uh, it's on YouTube. And the extruder is the piece uh is the machinery that makes the cute little pieces, and then the little pieces go down a conveyor belt where they are sprayed with fat. And so it helps the little pieces hold their shape. That's why dry dog food is greasy. Um and it makes the dog more likely to eat it because if you spray grease on things, your dog is more likely to eat them, and it makes the food go rancid so fast. So once you open that bag of kibble, right away air is hitting it. Even if it's a resealable bag, you're opening it once a day, twice a day, air is hitting it repeatedly, and the food is just going bad. It's going rancid the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Which again, cue back here to inflammation.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

I mean, that's gonna cause massive, massive issues. Yep. Yeah, so uh like for me, at some early point, kibble just becomes too problematic to feed. Yeah. I mean because I get asked, like, okay, but if you were gonna feed kibble, which kibble would you feed? No, too much hassle. I can't deal with that.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Nope. There's no, there really is just I I know that's really hard for people to hear. There is no good kibble.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Right. They're just like it and even so, like, some kibble is better than other kibble, but as far as good food to feed your dog, honestly, get away from kibble. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yep. So that's I mean, that's really too again, and and and I'll say it, I'll double down on what Dr. Levy said, which is if you have not watched Pet Food, it's an hour of your time well spent. Watch it one at least one time. I used to require my pet families to watch it because I only raised my puppies on raw and they were gonna go home and be fed raw. And I really wanted people to be educated and see it. It is a game changer. When you watch how pet food is made, you it you just can't bring yourself to do it again. So pet fooled is great. But these are the problems that that really, you know, um the biggest problems that are that are with kibble. It's just it's just one thing right after the other. So then we come to when people want to do things more naturally, they've been feeding kibble. And Dr. Levy, you hear this all the time, and you referenced this a minute ago. Is raw feeding a make it or break it for holistic pet care? Isn't there a way for me to do everything else natural and just feed, you know, kibble? Do I have to feed raw?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And that's kind of where you come into like the mixers and the I'll put an egg on his food, and the I'll add fresh veggies, I'll do all these extra like little things yogurt on it. With kibble, yeah. Yeah, no, those don't actually make kibble better.

unknown 12:25

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

You're kind of fooling yourself if you think that that's what's gonna happen. And so, to some extent, feeding a fresh diet, because the diet is the basis for health, right? Everything's about gut health. So, yes, you need to feed a fresher food diet, and you need to figure out what that means for you. So there are various forms of raw uh that we could talk about.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

But what I think what what for the sake of this episode, just because we have gone more into depth in a different episode about raw, um, we'll link that down below. It's called Raw Food Roulette, where we really break down kind of the ins and outs of raw and how you can view, you know, there's different options and you know, forms freeze dry, dehydrated, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of options. So if you want to go more into depth after this episode, raw food roulette is um an episode that we would really recommend that you kind of listen to. Um, but I think for for our for our purposes, for this episode, we're gonna say what we mean by raw diet. So, what we mean by raw diet when we go through this is you have raw, not cooked, raw meat, bone, and organ. You've got a variety of different whole foods that you mix into it, you've got edible bones, um, those are important. Um, and and you're varying the diet. So you're feeding something different all the time, you're rotating your proteins, you're you're feeding different foods. Um, that's what we mean when we say feeding a raw diet. It doesn't just mean, you know, feeding a recipe you found online, or, you know, maybe, you know, raw meat with something mixed in that you get from, you know, just raw ground beef from the grocery store. We mean meat, bone, organ, a variety of fruits and vegetables, different whole foods. That's what we mean when we say raw diet. Um, and so why are we so flying the banner of raw diet? Why is this such a big deal? So, Dr. Levy, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about benefits of feeding raw?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Uh the health benefits, I think, are just incomparable. The fresh ingredients, the fat the fresh nutrition, this is what your dog's body was designed for. So even if you have a morty, a yorkie, or a sheephoo, on the inside you have to see the wolf. And they're not they're not that far away from their wolfy predecessors. Um, and that is basically what dogs are designed to eat.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

So dogs, doesn't matter what breed, are 99.8 or 99.9% genetically identical to wolves. So they're their biology inside and the way that they're the mechanics of their body works is the same. Yeah, yeah. The anatomy is the same. So when you think about what you would imagine a wolf eating in the wild, that's what should be in your dog's bowl to a degree. We're a little more deliberate and a little bit more um strategic about what we're putting in the bowl. But but get away from this idea that they should be eating, you know, brown processed pellets. It should be fresh, whole, raw.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah, or like one of the pet food companies uh company claims that somehow your Labrador retriever and your golden retriever should not be eating the same food because they're different. And no, when it comes down to how they're made up on the inside and what they're designed for, just think wolves. They're not different from each other.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

So with a raw diet, you're getting fresh live nutrients, whereas with something like kibble, it's all dead. Um, and so just the amount that they're getting is, you know, as far as vitamins, minerals, is just far exceeds what you're gonna find in anything that's commercially made. And then to double down on that, these are bioavailable ingredients. So these are ingredients that, you know, the antithesis of synthetic, which is what we talked about before. This is all stuff your dog's body can actually use and assimilate. And so these nutrients and these vitamins, you're getting all of the benefits from those. It's not kind of like, you know, half done or or compromised like it would be with synthetic. Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

And you have control over the ingredients. So you don't have to wonder what is this chemical whose name I am not familiar with.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Did this chicken come from, you know, a slaughterhouse, you know, leftovers or you know, whatever. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um so you've got ingredient control, you've got it's incredibly bioavailable, their body can use it, fresh live nutrients, they're getting much more um available to them that they can use. Um and then, you know, because of how you should feed this, it's going to reduce the risk for allergies because you are feeding a variety. And again, it's that ingredient control. I can switch it up as much as I want. Right. The more I switch it up, the better off they are.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Right, because that's going to be anti-inflammatory. And sometimes that sounds counterintuitive because, you know, in vet school, we were always taught pick one food, feed that food, never change the food, never feed table scraps. And that is literally the opposite of what you need to do. You need to change the diet as much as possible. The way I think of it is in my little cartoon brain, like there's there's no scenario where you have two dogs out hunting and one dog says, Oh my gosh, bunnies everywhere, and the other dog says, I'll eat turkeys. You can't. You can't. You have to be able to eat whatever nature offers you because nature is not super kind like we are. Like I think of how I feed my dogs, and um, you know, they basically get off the couch, and I'm like, here's a chicken thigh or something. Right. Uh, and nature kind of says, Why don't you go run a marathon? Maybe I'll get you something. Right.

unknown 18:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Another thing that um people may not realize too, and I teach this to my clients all the time, is that there is a natural balance in real whole foods of nutrients that that works synergistically. So just for one example, but there's more, think of calcium. So you'll find calcium phosphate or something like that in commercially made food. But calcium needs phosphorus to process correctly in the body. This is incredibly important. Well, guess what naturally occurs in edible bones? Calcium to phosphorus ratio. There's a lot of um the raw foods that we encourage people to use that have a perfect calcium to phosphorus ratio. Nature knows what it's doing.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Right, right. So that's why sometimes people read about a uh a mineral or something like that, and they start thinking, maybe my dog needs selenium, maybe my dog needs zinc. I don't like to use minerals in isolation like that because everything in the body is in balance, and there's a lot to those balances that we don't know about. Right. And so to think that it's that simple that uh, well, if I give my dog more zinc, then I have to do something about this other single mineral, you'd probably have to do something about a hundred other minerals. And so it's just easier to feed them food that is on its own full of nutrition.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Now, to kind of just you know, as a side note to that, it is great to look up, you know, what are certain foods that are high in zinc to make sure that your dog is getting zinc. That I that is a great option, and there are certain you know, ailments or or maybe stages of life where you know your dog could maybe use more omega-3s, for example. Um, look up those whole foods, especially if they're animal-based proteins or animal-based foods that are highest in that nutrient and offer those foods. But because you're offering it in a food, the balance is going to naturally take take place.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Right, because we were talking about the issue with eggs, where some websites say if you're gonna feed the dog eggs, don't feed the whites because the whites are uh contain an enzyme that breaks down biotin. And of course, the yolk is full of massive amounts of biotin, specifically because of that. So that way, you know, in nature, if your dog raided a nest, they're not gonna break the eggs open and only eat the yolks. Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

They're gonna eat the whole egg. Yeah, shelling up. Yep. Exactly. So then all of these things put together is what really just fosters a superior gut microbiome. And we know that that is key to so much of a healthy um animal or person for that matter, is the gut microbiome. And so um, you know, dogs are naturally designed to be able to process meat and bone. They have a very uh low pH, and so they can they can break all of that down and allowing all those mechanisms to take place, it just creates a thriving environment for the good bacteria and all the things.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah, it's bas it's essentially the basis for all health.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

And so that's where you get a really good immune system, is is and and also obviously making sure to not weigh them down with toxic load, but that's another conversation. But they do work together. You have to make sure that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

When I think about these microbiome tests where you can get like an assay of the good bacteria and the bad bacteria that are inside your dog to see if the microbiome is balanced. So, what I find with my patients, who are the vast majority, are raw fed, they don't have any of the bad bacteria. They might have. Some imbalance in the good bacteria, but they really have none of the bad bacteria? It's quite remarkable.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

So then the question is this. So we've kind of gone through you know the good, the bad, and the ugly as far as kibble versus raw, right? Um if raw is so fantastic and what we're saying is is true, right? Then why do vets get so upset and oppose Raw so strongly if it's so great?

SPEAKER_00 22:33

So in 2012, the American Veterinary Medical Association uh passed a resolution against feeding raw diets to dogs and cats. This was done because um uh the Delta Society, which is the largest therapy dog organization in the United States, uh basically spoke to the American Veterinary Medical Association and said, you guys need to come out with a strong statement opposing raw food. And so the AVMA thought about it for a couple of seconds and then said that raw food is indeed a public health risk. So, yes, your dogs and cats could get some sort of infection from eating raw meat. They could potentially spread this mystical infection to others, and but mainly like you, the human, if you touch raw meat, uh-not raw meat that you would cook for your own family, but raw meat that's there for your cat or dog, you will get some infection from it, and it could possibly kill you. Uh and so, but it's important to understand that like that was the thought process in the AVMA, is we're gonna present this as a public health issue. At no time did anybody say, what do wild dogs eat? What do cats eat when there's no humans around? That was not part of the equation. Nobody, like that didn't even come into it. It's not even mentioned in the document.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah, it's not crazy for people to think, oh yeah, cats eat mice. Like it's not even like, oh, oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Because that's how they're built. Exactly. And dogs would do the same thing too. Um, but that was just like not a part of the thought process that led to the passage of this document. And basically every veterinarian quickly understood that this was the message raw dog and cat food bad, raw dog and cat food dangerous source of infection for you, your family. And you know, and if you um, you know, explain that you you wash your hands, you sanitize, you wipe down your countertops, like you're not taking the raw food and smearing it on the floor, or you know, smearing it all over yourself, or I don't know what they think people are doing at home with these things. Um so like I I had a patient who uh went to the university and had a bump removed from the dog's side, and then they were told, okay, but during recovery, like for the next four weeks, you cannot feed the dog a raw diet because of the possibility of contamination. And so the owner asked me, like, you know, what do I do about this? And I said, well, you know, don't put the food on the maybe don't put it on the don't put it on the incision.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

And I've heard the exact same thing from people that are close to us and from clients where they're they're, you know, something happens with their dog and they're literally the fear of God is put into them. If you feed your dog raw during this time period, or ever again it will kill them. It's very, very strong. And so the other so it started with this policy released in 2012 with this statement about how dangerous, how it's a public health hazard, all of this stuff with raw pet food or undercooked pet food or food for animal proteins. Um and so then since then, there is now a very active and real anti-holistic and anti-raw agenda in conventional veterinary education. This is happening in conferences, this is happening in the schools, um, it is um being drilled into conventional medicine, veterinary medicine, um, that this is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. And so it's no wonder that when people go to their conventional vet, most of the time it is met with um severe opposition, sometimes hostility. Um it can be, I mean, some of the things that we've heard be said to people is uh just appalling.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. Yeah. And my understanding too is that even at the ER, uh, if your dog is raw fed and hospitalized for whatever reason, you know, got hit by a car or fell out of a tree or whatever, they will put up signs, this dog is raw fed, you must wear two pairs of gloves to handle this animal because it's so much more risky. Um, and so that fear is kind of built into the veterinary community. Um and, you know, but we also understand who pays for veterinary education, who pays for the conferences, who pays for research studies.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

These are billion-dollar industries that are very threatened by this um approach, and it and so they're gonna do a a lot to try and mitigate that. Um, so that is why, you know, we're never here to demonize conventional veterinarians. This is what is being taught. This is the education system. And so it makes sense. That's what is believed to be correct by the person that paid a lot of money to go to school. And you're bringing your animal to them and you're wanting help, and they're, you know, they've been told six ways from Sunday, this is awful, this is terrible, it's gonna kill the animals. That's what they're gonna, they're gonna warn you and they're gonna try and get you to stop doing those things because they really believe that that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

So Yeah, and so that's interesting. So, how did you break away from Kimble and get to Raw?

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Um I think I already had a little bit of a holistic mind with my kids because of stuff I had learned with my kids. So I already had that um ability to question the narrative in me and the what is majority done. And so, and then I think honestly, you know, kind of divine timing when I would find cert information and it just it clicked, and pet fooled was my gateway. And I found pet fooled right around when I started seeing you, and so it was just this perfect, you know, I had the medicinal side where you were helping me and kind of bringing some reason and common sense. Um, and then I I watched this and it just made too much sense to me. And I just was like, I can't deny this. I don't, you know, I can't, I can't keep doing things the way and and when I was doing everything that the conventional world told me to do, that was when I lost a dog before she was eight years old to a massive tumor. So I was like, well, clearly that's not the answer. So then you right, you have something tragic happen. It kind of shatters you on the inside. I know with you it was bruiser, with me it was Violet. We all have a dog usually that is our wake-up call. So I had we lost Violet in that way, and then I had this other dog, and we were kind of, I was trying to figure stuff out, and I was seeing problems in her, and then I just kind of found the right stuff at the right time, and it all kind of came together. And it was right around two when I had already decided I wanted to um get into breeding, and so I was on that just educational kick where I was like, I have to learn everything, and I was just kind of a sponge, so it was a good, it was a good thing. So, what about you?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

I know I I was really challenged with it at first. I wanted to feed raw because I um, you know, kind of a hippie during the 80s, possibly when it was no longer popular to be a hippie. Um, but you know, I knew that natural was better in some intangible way, and I wanted to feed my dogs better as Bruiser was getting older and I was trying to support his health in any way I could. So um my mother had always made the made breakfast for our dogs that we had growing up. Um, so she would cut off the end of a loaf of bread, pour milk on it, crack an egg over it. That's what the dog had for breakfast every morning. Um, so I was kind of familiar with like feeding table scraps seemed natural to me. Thinking that I could make my own dog food didn't seem outrageous. Um and I think for me though, like the biggest challenge at that time there was one pet food, one raw pet food that you could actually walk into a store and buy. Okay. I could not remember to thaw it out. So, like for me, I hit the first stumbling block like right away. Um, and I really had to just train myself, you know, thaw, serve, thaw, serve. And so, like, that probably took up most of my initial transition time.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

So, I think, I mean, this is just a couple of examples of of of ways where you kind of you know question the narrative. And I think, you know, for you it's just even more impressive because you came from that conventional veterinary education. Now, back when you went to school and things like that, there wasn't this anti-holistic agenda.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Right. I mean we had one class uh or one lecture about why holistic medicine is bad, but I just don't remember it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Well, see, there you go. It was blocked out for a reason.

unknown 31:10

It was blocked out for a reason.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Um, so okay, so this is this is kind of why we get the opposition that we get, and you have to kind of manage that um, you know, mentally, emotionally. Uh if you are gonna feed a raw diet, just be aware the conventional practices are not huge fans of it. Some, I think some vets are are opening up to it a little bit. You know, it just depends on the vet. Um, but you know, a huge thing that you know we would love to see is just more vets being willing to just look at real information and you know, entertain some of these ideas that they're not it's not crazy. This is literally like, you know, it's pretty basic biology and science when you think.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Although I remember early on in practice when I um encountered people who were uh making their own dog food or who were feeding their dogs what they themselves ate, I did think they were crazy. I didn't think, oh my god, they're gonna poison themselves somehow. Uh but you know, I did think it was a little strange because we were definitely taught that, you know, dogs ate dog food and cats ate cat food.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

You've poured out of a bag or a can't get it out of a can.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

So um I kind of made a a very slow transition and you know worked my way through all the stages of you know, better food, grain-free food, even better grain-free food, blah, blah, blah. Uh, but um even so, all that dry food still took a toll on my dogs. And so I think if I can help anybody kind of short circuit the process because in retrospect, it was not as scary as it was made out to be. It was not as complicated as the books that I read told me. That really kind of stalled me for a while. It seemed very complex, and you know, I I've never been like I've never been the person who cooks. Um, I was a vegetarian when I started raw feeding my dogs. I'd never been in the meat department of a grocery store. I had never purchased or cooked meat.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I didn't know that about you. But I knew I knew my dogs were carnivores. And so I did it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So um I think, you know, one thing that we'll say in this process, usually people go through a process where it's like you're kind of feeding a certain kind of dry food, and then you're like, well, maybe there's a better way for me to do this. And so then you feed a more expensive, better version of dry food, and you kind of like work your way up the ranks trying to do better with dry food. Mo a lot of people finally eventually end up finding a gateway and then realize, oh, I I can't, I can't, you know, feed a dry food and expect vital health. And so one of the things that we really want to just make very clear, it is much simpler than people think to feed a raw diet. It does not have to be difficult. It's a different habit, right? You're storing it in a freezer and you're thawing it and you're weighing it in a bowl. You're not storing it in a bag, opening the bag, and scooping it into a bowl. Like it really, and it's just a matter of maybe being a little bit organized, but you don't need to have spreadsheets. This is not something where you have to track every vitamin and mineral. Remember, nature has it figured out. So if you're if you're feeding a variety, which we teach people how to do all the time, it's really not that hard to do. That being said, a very common question that we'll get is but is there an alternative to feeding raw that's just as good as raw, or like it's pretty close, right? That is if we don't want to, if we don't want to jump on the wagon all the way and feed raw, is it what like what's the next best thing to feeding raw? So there the the truth of the matter is there is nothing, there is no alternative that you can do that is as good as feeding a varied raw diet. It does not exist. Okay. That being said, there is kind of a scale or a hierarchy of ways to feed your dog that we could go down. So first you have what we've talked about, a varied balance over time raw diet. Then you kind of have your cooked, your cooked whole foods, right? There are ways to do that. Some dogs um do better as a stepping stone with a cooked diet for for a variety of reasons. So, Dr. Levy, can you share with people like what would be some good examples of maybe why you would do a cooked diet?

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Um, often when dogs are older, uh they're starting to feel a little bit colder, their digestion is not working as efficiently as it did when they were younger. And so for some older uh dogs, and I'm thinking about dogs who are over 10. Um for some of them, a cooked food diet is going to be more appealing and easier for them to digest right off the bat. And you can still feed raw food with that, so none of these things are hardcore. You either do this or you do that. Um and then sometimes it's just a matter of experimentation. Uh lately I've seen a few patients who where the owners had tried raw food and it did not go well for them for whatever reason. You know, it could have been the brand of food, it could have been how it was processed, whatever. And so um, for some of those dogs, uh cooked food is sometimes a better answer. And if I knew more about Chinese medicine and I was able to tell, like who had too much yin, stuff like that, those are the dogs that probably need a cooked diet. And again, you can that you can use that still as a stepping stone towards raw, um, or you can do some of this, some of that. Like there's no hardcore rules like thou shalt not mix your cooked and your raw. Oh, yes, you can. And then just recently, I had an older patient where um he'd stopped eating his raw food and didn't seem to like it as much. So I suggested to the owner that she just cook some meat for him for the short term. And she did that for a week, and then he very happily went back to his raw diet. Okay. So something happened. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 37:54

So, what's important um to note is that with these, um obviously you can't cook bone. You can never, ever, ever, do not ever feed cooked bone to to your dogs or your cats. Um, so there is a little bit of caveat to doing um, you know, cooked or gently cooked things. You would want to have a variety of of proteins still within that um and recipes. You want to make sure the organ is in there. Um, you don't want it to be heavy in quinoa or rice. They do not need any type of a simple carbohydrate like that. No filler, no starch. That's not that should not be a part of the recipe. Right. Um, and so varying the proteins, making sure the organ is involved, and then um feeding some type of you know, an edible bone along with that is is preferred because eggshell powder or you know, bone meal, it's just not the same calcium source as feeding actual bone.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Right. And even if you are gonna cook the meat for whatever reason, you don't have to cook the heck out of it.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

No, gently, maybe halfway, like it doesn't even have to be all the way.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Right. It can be a little bit cooked on the outside, and that's probably good enough for a dog. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

So um just some things to keep in mind um with cooked or gently cooked uh recipes. Sometimes it is a nice option, especially if you've got a senior dog. I know we recently did a seminar um where they talked about dogs with kidney issues, it can be better for them. So um there's certainly op opportunities to use a gently cooked, um gently cooked diet. Um just be careful of the recipes that and don't don't get stuck in one recipe.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

With that, even if you're gently cooking the meat, you can still add raw bone to that.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Exactly. Just don't cook the bone. That's the that's the key with that one. Um so then the next thing that we'll probably touch on as far as the best convenient option next to raw, it's definitely not gonna be as good as raw, is gonna be your freeze-dried options. They retain them, it retains the most nutrients. Um you're definitely not gonna get the fat um that you need with that. So you would want to give some good sources of fat with the freeze-dried. Um, the better the ingredients and the better they're sourced, as always, is gonna be more preferred if it can be organic or grass-fed or, you know, those types of things. But your freeze-dried processing of um of you know, a freeze-dried raw food is gonna be kind of the next best thing to actual real fresh food.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Yeah. And it's great for travel, it's great for camping. Sometimes it's a good transition for dogs.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

And some people will do half raw, half freeze-dried, or they'll go back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

I mean, you can kind of play with it. Do you freeze-dry in the morning and actual frozen raw at night?

SPEAKER_02 40:55

And I would definitely hydrate it. Um, I think that would be, you know, which I it usually it encourages you to do. And if you can hydrate it with something um besides just warm water like a bone broth or goat's milk, something that actually has added nutrition, that's gonna be even better. Um, but let's touch on one last thing as far as, you know, really outside of that, when people are asked, is there a good alternative to raw? That's kind of where it ends. And so labeling in this day and age, when you, oh my gosh, when you look at pet foods, yeah, they are capitalizing on the buzzword raw. And so we really want to caution you anytime you see anything that says, you know, raw coated this or raw pieces or raw. Yeah, it's not raw.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Right, because a lot of people, uh, a lot of people kind of jump at that and then they're like, you know, well, it's kibble, but it's got raw on it or mixed in with it. Yeah, it's still kibble. It's still kibble. So raw food is essentially, it's it's just the pinnacle of feeding your dog and cat, a fresh food diet. Uh, and so um I think the the most important thing when you're just starting out, and I will say, and we've talked about this before. I see these posts on Instagram or Facebook where these people will say, Oh, you have to feed a raw diet, but make sure you do a ton of research before you ever touch any raw food. Well, I don't know about you, but who has time to do a ton of research? And what does that mean? How much research is a ton?

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Uh that stops a lot of people in their tracks, right there.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

And so that's why we said before, it is easier than you think, it is a very simple thing to do. Uh, we have written guides that really walk you through it step by step, including a shopping list that Melissa came up with. Like how much easier could your life get? And so the main thing is you just find one place to start. And so uh if you want to try it without like a massive investment, uh sometimes people will start just by going to the grocery store, buy some grass-fed ground beef, and just try feeding it to your dog or cat. Just try it raw. If they don't like it that way, throw it in a pan, flip it around, just you know, maybe cook the outside a little bit. And I even suggest sometimes so add some salt, pepper, and butter. Make it more appetizing. Um, and so, you know, maybe that's a good place to start. Maybe eggs or even like licking the plates after your meals or something like that. Um, I feel like that's gonna get me thrown out of the veterinary community for sure.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

But even just, you know, sometimes it's really if you're really coming from that, you know, dogs only eat food out of a bag mental place, just giving them any type of real food into their bowl is kind of a place to start to get your brain into a different, you know, kind of mindset that it's like, nope. They're supposed to be eating real food. And so cracking an egg over their, um, you know, over their dry food, or you know, pouring some bone broth in there, throw in some cottage cheese, you know, grab a handful of frozen organic berries and throw it in there. Um, anytime you can, you know, a can of sardines, drain it, put it in their bowl, start getting used to the idea of putting real food in there. Sometimes that's where people need to start. And then once you see that, and I mean, there is certainly um, you know, studies out there that show just doing that can make a big difference in your dog's health. Just know that really the pinnacle is going to be that raw diet. And so use it as a stepping stone, use it as a gateway to kind of get yourself to the next step further into all fresh food. But these are just some examples, and there's certainly commercially made raw food out there. Again, we have a great episode where we really dive into all the different kinds of aspects of raw foods that are on the market called raw food roulette. We'll link that down below. Um, but grab, you know, there's lots of places that sell commercially made raw food in freezers. And so, you know, grab a patty of that, put that in with their kibble. Like start, you know, and maybe if your dog has really, you know, a lot of GI issues, we always recommend doing a gut reset to kind of prepare their gut microbiome to be able to receive that raw food better. So there's all different places to start. Um, but the I think the important thing is whatever your anxiety will allow, start somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Right. There's a million ways to dip your toe in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Hopefully, this is um kind of brings to light some of the truth about the real issues with Kebble, why we bang this drum so much. Um, and really kind of we walked kind of through all of it to show the truth about why the raw diet is so essential to really finding the most success with your dog's health. It it, you know, we we talk about it so, so much. This is why. So hopefully we've kind of um gone over uh enough and maybe you learned something today. Um, we'll link some just some uh good resources down below to learn from. Our raw feeding guide will be down there if you want to start stepping into this world a little bit. We made it very, very easy. It's a guide that's 20 pages um and it gives you the foundations so you can understand kind of how to walk through this. We'll see you next time on the Crunchy Carnivore Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Our goal is always to encourage others to seek out the holistic approach by way of education and empowerment. You can check out our online resources at wellspringha.com. You can follow us on our YouTube channel, Wellspring Holistic Animal Academy, and you can also find us on Instagram at Wellspring underscore HAA. We hope that this has been helpful and that you continue with us on your journey to holistic health for your pets. As always, we're here to be unapologetically all natural.