Pets au natural

I've never been able to understand why people who think about GMOs, certified organic produce, free-range eggs--people who drive Priuses, use canvas shopping bags (ours are made of something like Tyvek), recycle, and have programmable thermostats, will think nothing of feeding their pets Purina.

I'm talking mostly about dogs and cats, of course. But the same is true for most other pets: why do people feed generally-species-inappropriate diets?

You don't see wolves at the zoo being fed kibble, which should, in my opinion, ring a few bells--if wolves are, essentially, wild dogs, then why shouldn't they be fed kibble? If they're not, could it be because kibble isn't actually a good food for dogs? And ditto for cats, and tigers.

Links here and here deal with raw diets for cats and dogs--it's all been written, and I'm not going to go into the supposed benefits for them, in part because I myself do not believe many of the claims. I do believe that raw diets have dental benefits--Shadow's teeth are still as pearly white as they were the day I got her--and that they are healthy and at least as good as if not better than prepared foods, when done right. I do not believe that a raw diet will cure diseases such as renal failure, although I do believe that they can mitigate the effects for quite a while. I am skeptical of claims that it helps mitigate behavioral problems, but willing to give the benefit of the doubt in most cases--but not because of "toxins" or any of that crap. I do not believe that feeding a raw diet is without risk--for me, with my biochemistry background, it's pretty much a practical application of my undergraduate degree, but for others, who have not bothered to look up things like the urea cycle online, it can be difficult to separate the information from the misinformation out there.

But I do believe that feeding a species-appropriate diet, or as close to it as one can get, is, in fact, what is best for one's pet. We humans have come a long way since the days "food safety" meant "let the other monkey eat those berries first", so it's hard to say exactly what a "natural" diet is for us. This is not to disparage the modern diet--nutritious and plentiful--but to point out that for humans, culture and environment are far more important dictators of what we eat than they are for animals, who not only are completely dependent upon their environment for their food, but also cannot be said to have any culture.

Pet food companies make a killing out of selling "Natural" stuff, but if you look at the ingredients' list, well--good luck finding any of that stuff outside of a chemistry plant. Some of the better companies actually do sell pet foods made of meat--and I don't want to know how much that costs, especially when the cost of adding one portion of meat to the weekly grocery list is so low.

That's the other thing: feeding a raw diet doesn't have to take a lot of money. It can, if you like buying those hamburger patties filled with "wholesome goodness". But my cats get mostly chicken, or whatever's cheap that week, and a bit of canned food if the drumstick is unusually small. It works out to about 1 euro/day to feed them, which is actually less than feeding them a brand name cat food.

If done properly, I do believe that feeding a raw diet is better than any brand of dog or cat food out there. Going natural, for them, makes as much sense as it does for you.

Disclaimer: I do not make any money from any of the pet food websites that I have linked to. They are merely the most prevalent brands that I can think of, and most likely to be universally available.

Laying down the lines

This is not, by any means, a complete summary of what we know about food and nutrition, nor is it meant to be. For the most part, I am merely defining what I mean when I refer to, say, carbohydrates, because going by what I've seen floating around on the Internet, there are some confused souls, to be sure.

With that in mind:

There are five basic food groups--carbohydrates, proteins, lipids (fats), vitamins, and minerals. (I did consider adding alcohol, but decided against it for expediency)

Not what you were expecting, were you?

The food pyramid that the USDA devised is still valid, for the most part, as a guide for what to eat to stay healthy. But from a nutritional point of view--the view your cells have of that apple you've eaten--all foods are made of these five things, but in different proportions.

I say "for the most part" because, in my opinion (and the opinion of just about everybody else in the world who doesn't drink 3 glasses of milk a day or eat meat) the milk and protein recommendations are still grossly exaggerated. But we'll see what the science has to say about that later.

Carbohydrates are, in a nutshell, sugars. At the molecular level, sugars look like rings--some have five links, some have six. And the most amazing thing is, depending on where they join together--which link of one sugar is joined to a link of another--they can take on different properties. Some are readily assimilated into the body. Others are wholly undigestible (fiber). Some soak up water--the starch that thickens sauces relies on this property.

Proteins are comprised of amino acids, linked together like a set of magnetic dumbbells. It is not the actual linkage that is important, though--it's what's attached to the handle of the dumbbell that makes a protein what it is (the side chain). The side chains play an important role in how the protein gets metabolized.

Lipids are the fats and cholesterol--the greasy bits. They are, essentially, long strings of carbon molecules. Carbon-carbon bonds are some of the strongest in nature, meaning that there is a great deal of energy stored in them. This makes lipids a valuable source of energy.

The most amazing thing about carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins is that the body can convert one to the other. A few steps, a few atoms added here or there, and voila--you have fat from sugar, sugar from protein, protein from sugar. These three groups comprise the main sources of energy for the body.

Vitamins are organic molecules that aid in the function of our body. Unlike the three listed above, they are not a major source of energy--rather, they are like the starter block of the wood fire--they get the fire started, but contribute little to the actual burn. But once the fire is out, and you need a new one, if you don't have enough starter, you might not be able to get it lit.

Minerals are inorganic substances (substances that come from the earth, and are not manufactured by living things). They have a diverse role in the body, too complex to cover here, but suffice it to say that it is amazing that trace amounts of a salt or metal can make the difference between sickness and health. Most minerals are only needed in trace amounts in the average diet of an average person in good health.

If you'd like to learn more about nutrition, you can start here. As I said above, the point of this is not to explain how these are integrated into a seamless picture of metabolism. The point of this is to lay out what I mean when I later say "vitamin" or the like.