Grains? In Commercial Pet Food?

While this may come as a surprise to you, commercial diets are not well-suited to the dog's and cat's nutritional needs, physical make up or metabolism. In other words, they simply, are not 'biologically appropriate.' They are primarily made up of grain products and are cooked/processed at high enough temperatures to destroy any true available nutrition.

Contemporary canine nutritionists agree that dogs, being carnivores, are not only unable to process complex carbohydrates (grains & potato products) well they have no dietary need for them.

Studies demonstrate that unlike humans/omnivores, dogs (carnivores) do not 'carbo-load,' that is, they do not store up energy from meals high in complex carbohydrates. While human athletes successfully practice this technique, it results in an accumulation of lactic acid in dogs (which causes the muscular pain experienced after unaccustomed exercise).

Based on research in the dog and with other species it has been found that dogs can be more healthfully maintained without carbohydrates, especially when the diet supplies enough fat and protein from which the metabolic requirement for glucose is derived.

Dogs, being the carnivores they are, are not designed to eat grains and do not produce the necessary amounts of enzymes in their saliva (amylase, for example) to start the break-down of carbohydrates and starches; amylase in saliva is something omnivorous and herbivorous animals possess, but not carnivorous animals. This lack of the necessary enzymes, places the burden entirely on the pancreas, forcing it to try to produce large amounts of amylase and cellulase to deal with the starch, cellulose, and carbohydrates in grains and plant matter. (The carnivore's pancreas was not designed to secrete cellulase to split the cellulose into glucose molecules), nor have dogs "evolved" to become efficient at digesting and assimilating and utilizing gains or plant material as a source of high quality protein. Herbivores do those sorts of things. Read Canine and Feline Nutrition Case, Carey and Hirakawa Published by Mosby, 1995

Grains are full of carbohydrates which once eaten, easily convert to sugars. Cancer cells feed on sugars, and it is believed that by decreasing the amount of carbohydrate in the diet, we may greatly reduce the risk of our pets getting cancer (which is a growing problem among modern dogs and cats).

Grains and or grain based foods are also, the main cause of yeast infections, such as Candida Albicans in our pets. Symptoms of yeast over-growth or infections include:

- habitual scratching, usually the ears, sides of the torso and underbelly
- chronic ear infections
- incessant licking of the genitals or the paws or both
- lick granulomas
- rashes, most often on the underbelly
- hair loss
- blackening and rough skin patches
- Allergies (so called) and when the yeast begins to move into the head; loss of hearing; loss of eyesight; loss of intelligence, memory and comprehension.

Yeast infections always start somewhere in the digestive system; but then move to the genital area, on to the ears; then finally to the brain, taking over the entire body. It is insidious. In allopathic/conventional medicine, these symptoms are treated with antibiotics or steroids; which only serve to make matters worse by killing off the friendly flora or bacteria in the body and thus lowering the immune system.

The multi-billion dollar pet food industry (yes they even make "prescription dog foods", advertise their use of high-quality, whole grains in their food. They say these provide an "excellent source of protein" for our dogs and cats.

Large amounts of grain may be an appropriate source of protein for omnivore species...but NOT so for our cats and dogs that are primarily designed to eat meat as their protein!

This brings me to what 'grains' in commercial pet food really are. When whole grain is used in dog food, (and even cat food), (be it oats, barley, wheat, rice, kumut or corn) it has often been deemed unfit for human consumption due to mold, contaminants, or poor handling practices. Some brands reportedly contain damaged, spilled, and spoiled grain known as "the tail of the mill." This can include the hulls, chaff, straw, dust, dirt, and sand swept from the mill floor at the end of each week, which are totally unnatural nutritional ingredients! Most of these ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used strictly for "filler" and have no nutritional value at all! They are also economical for the pet food companies!

Imagine AAFCO approving 'the tail of the mill' as acceptable grains in your pet's diet! Unbelievable? Sorry but true!

GRAINS - Could this be why your pet scratches constantly?

Yes, grains are one of the most common causes of allergies in pets. Other symptoms brought on by feeding grains and the over-growth of yeast may be as broad ranging but serious as: Mal-absorption of food nutrients, joint problems, arthritis, diabetes, colitis and kidney or bladder infections.

Too much money has already been spent by American pet owners to their veterinarians, to "treat" the above-mentioned symptoms. It's a shame that most veterinarians do not take their patient's diet into consideration FIRST, when in fact, most of these symptoms are directly related to what the pet is eating. Sadly the feeding of cooked and grain laden foods help keep your veterinarian in a thriving business by charging you great amounts of needless money on lab work, steroid pills, creams, shampoo and antibiotics to treat the symptoms of itching as well as keeping you coming back for frequent vet visits when the symptoms return as soon as the medications run out..

Not all Carbohydrates in Pet Food are Grains

Potatoes -

With the word out on grains not being digestible and causing allergic reactions in our dogs, the latest trend in pet foods is the elimination of most grains or even all and the addition of potatoes to help bind the processed product together and be a source of carbohydrates.

In theory it all sounds great right? Never mind potatoes are still not digestible to dogs and cats but they also contain a carcinogen- *acrylamide. As a daily maintenance food, potatoes are not a good thing! They may actually be a part of the cancer epidemic in our pets! The August 14, 2002 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, reported presence of high levels of acrylamide in carbohydrate rich foods like potatoes.

*Acrylamide induces gene mutations and has been found in animal tests to cause malignant stomach tumors. It is also known to cause damage to the central and peripheral nervous system.

Tapioca -

Tapioca is often used instead of potatoes in processed pet food as a binder. Tapioca is almost pure carbohydrate and on top of this fact, it is often chemically modified before formulation in food products and as such, presents a threat to health by binding essential minerals that play key roles in many critical enzyme systems, and also producing the disease, parakeratosis.

Furthermore, natural tapioca contains cyanogenic glycosides (specifically linamarin and lotaustralin) which yield hydrocyanic acid upon hydrolysis (as occurs in the stomach). Hydrocyanic acid (hydrogen cyanide) is highly toxic to humans and animals. The toxicity is dose dependent and therefore animals or humans fed a steady diet of any food that yields hydrogen cyanide are at risk with accumulation over time.

Genetically Modified (GM) Products -

I will not get too deep into the controversy over GMOs in foods here but do want to point out that the FDA does not require pet food (or human food for that matter) labels to inform consumers if a product contains a GM grain or meat source.

So, as I see it, if our pets were never designed to eat grains or carbohydrates in the first place and they have no access to them in the wild, why on earth would we want to feed them? Would you feed a horse or a rabbit a juicy steak? Why not? So why would you feed your pets a cooked diet that contained grains or other carbohydrates?
Dr Jeannie and The Whole Dog recommends an all raw S.A.R.F. (Species Appropriate Raw Foods) diet of raw meat, bones and organs.

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More About Grains
a reprint from HEALTHY PETS-NATURALLY
by Russell Swift, DVM: To Feed or Not To Feed...Grains.

At the recent American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association Conference, I discovered that I am not the only one questioning the use of grains in commercial and home-prepared pet foods. Grains, such as oats, wheat, rice barley, etc., are composed mostly of complex carbohydrates. They also contain some protein, fiber, B-vitamins and trace minerals. However, they are NOT part of the natural diet of wild dogs and cats. In the true natural setting, grains hardly exist at all. Wild grains are much smaller than our hybridized domestic varieties. This means that even a mouse or other prey animal is not going to find much of its nutrition from grains. Therefore, the argument that "dogs and cats eat animals that have grains in their digestive tracts" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Prey animals that live near farms or other "civilized" areas are likely to have access to grains. This is not a truly wild diet.

What other clues do we have that grains are not necessary for carnivores?

1) Dogs and cats do not have dietary requirements for complex carbohydrates.

2) Grains must be cooked or sprouted and thoroughly chewed to be digested. Carnivores do not chew much at all.

3) The other nutrients in grains are readily available from other dietary ingredients. For example, B-vitamins are found in organ meats and trace> minerals come from bones and vegetables. (Unfortunately, modern farming has stripped many trace minerals from produce and supplementation is usually best.)

Why have grains become so "ingrained" in pet feeding? To the best of my knowledge grains were mainly introduced by the pet food industry. The high carbohydrate content provides CHEAP calories. In addition, grains assist in binding ingredients. We have become so used to feeding grains to dogs and cats that most of us get nervous when we decide not to use them. I know people who have been "grain-free" feeding and doing very well. My own cat is one example.

What are the negative effects? I believe that carnivores cannot maintain long-term production of the quantity of amylase enzyme necessary to properly digest and utilize the carbohydrates. In addition, the proteins in grains are less digestive than animal proteins. As a result, the immune system becomes irritated and weakened by the invasion of foreign, non-nutritive protein and carbohydrate particles. Allergies and other chronic immune problems may develop. The pet's pancreas will do its best to keep up with the demand for amylase. What does this pancreatic stress do over a long time? I don't know, but it cannot be good. I suspect that dental calculus may be another problem promoted by grain consumption.

Actual quotes from Veterinary School books...

"Some question exists regarding the need of dogs and cats for dietary carbohydrate." - Small Animal Clinical Nutrition III (1990), published by Mark Morris Assoc.

"There is no known minimum dietary carbohydrate requirement for either the dog or cat. Based on investigations in the dog and with other species it is likely that dogs and cats can be maintained without carbohydrates if the diet supplies enough fat or protein from which the metabolic requirement for glucose is derived." - The Waltham Book of Dog & Cat Nutrition (1988), edited by Dr. A. T. B. Edney

"Provided the diet contains sufficient glucose precursors (amino acids and glycerol), the glucogenic capacity of the liver and kidneys is usually sufficient to meet the metabolic need of growing animals for glucose without the inclusion of carbohydrate in the diet." - Nutrient Requirements of Dogs (1985), published by the National Research Council

Some other thoughts on grains -

Grains, first of all, are NOT a species-specific food. The things they tend to graze on are not oatmeal or polenta or white rice, but grasses and green twigs and berries and flowers and the like. Also, the amount of grains present in a prey's stomach (let's use a rabbit as an example) is very small - the stomach is small and the prey also doesn't go grazing in a grain field - they eat berries and twigs and roots and flowers and grasses, etc. I have fed whole rats to my cats before, and the ONLY part they leave (and they leave it every time) is the stomach. So who's to say the cat or dog would even eat the stomach all of the time? Now, we all know that no animal in the history of the world has ever cooked a thing in its life, and to feed grains we typically cook them, right? Another bad thing, since cooking isn't natural. Prey away from "civilized" areas would have little to no exposure to our modern grains. Wild grains are much more like grasses than the grains of today.

Looking at the chemical structure of grains, it is clear that they are made up mostly of simple and complex carbohydrates - that is, they break down to sugars like sucrose or glucose in the body. We have all been warned of the feeding of sugars, even natural sugars, in the risk of cancers and heart disease. Grains breakdown to sugars. Mucus is made up of carbohydrates (70%) with about 20% protein and some lipids (fat). Now when you feed a food rich in carbohydrates, more mucus is produced. This isn't a bad thing you say? Well, mucus in the body is a good thing, within reason. If your body has more mucus than it actually needs or uses, then absorption of nutrients in the gut is reduced, parasites have more food (intestinal worms typically eat mucus), and more mucus is present in the respiratory tract, which can be annoying especially if you or your animal has a cold or some other respiratory distress (try not eating any grains while you are sick and amaze yourself by how fast the excess mucus clears up). Dogs and cats also have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates (like mentioned above in the quotes) because they can manufacture their own body energy form proteins and fats - something that humans can't do as well or as fast. They also don't have the teeth for grinding up grains - if whole grains were eaten they would be excreted whole too. Look in a horse's or cow's mouth - those are plant eating teeth. Are your dog's or cat's teeth even remotely similar? Plus cows and horses have huge cheek muscles and the bones to support those muscles - look at the cheeks of them as opposed to the cheeks of dogs or cats. Dogs and cats have excellent jaw muscles for catching, bringing down and devouring prey with little to no chewing. They also have no salivary amylase - the enzyme that herbivores and omnivores have to start breaking down the grains from the moment they enter the mouth.

Many pets with allergies have allergies to one or more grain (typically corn and the legume soybean). Allergies like this result because the immune system, which has sensors and lymph patches (Peyer's Patches) in the gut, gets irritated at the constant bombardment of something it sees as foreign. We all probably know about animals that are also allergic to over cooked meat (such as beef-based kibble, etc.). The immune system sees things like kibble as foreign materials.

Another good reason not to feed grains,a friend, Reina Pennington pointed out...grains, which are seed heads of grasses and other plants, are seasonal - definitely not around all year long! Plus, they wouldn't be around in large quantities, and the animals that originated from the areas where these seed heads are found are herbivores, not carnivores! The carnivores who lived there ate the herbivores, not the grains.

If you are feeding grains for fiber from time to time, try using them whole and uncooked (i.e. more natural). Dogs (and cats or all carnivores for that matter) don't have the intestines for needing fiber - basically no microbial action attacks the food in the large intestine because it is so small and short and the rate of passage is so fast.

FYI I have been made aware of an increasing amount of people who have had success in curing (yes, curing) their dog's urinary incontinence through diet. If they are on kibble, they try raw feeding meat and bones. Many people have been able to decrease or stop completely the unnatural and potentially harmful drugs used to control this.

If they are already feeding raw, the minute they eliminate the grains, the dogs regain their urinary control. Just totally eliminating grains in dry kibble has had a healing effects on pets.

These are all concepts taken from various veterinary school textbooks as well as a nutritional physiology class.

Dr Jeannie and The Whole Dog personally feel that unless something is very good for our dogs - why feed it? And grains are not needed, digestable or good for our carnivorous pets!