RAW FOOD DIET

A raw nat­ur­al diet is a com­bi­na­tion of fresh whole foods con­sist­ing of chunks or ground raw meat, raw bones, veg­eta­bles and fruits. These foods are sup­posed to be fed to our ani­mals in their raw (un-cooked) nat­ur­al (un-altered) state.

For a lot of you the idea of feed­ing your beloved dog or cat raw meat and raw bones seems strange, espe­cial­ly chick­en bones. Many of us remem­ber grow­ing up being told that you nev­er ever give a dog or cat chick­en bones! It is time to dis­pel some of the “old” myths.

Our car­niv­o­rous friends anato­my and Diges­tive system:

1. Vet­eri­nar­i­ans, Sci­en­tists and Arche­ol­o­gists agree that although altered in out­ward appear­ance, today’s dogs and cats inter­nal work­ings are fun­da­men­tal­ly the same as their wild coun­ter­parts and ancestors.

2. Dogs are clas­si­fied as an OMNIVORE. That means that your dog needs a wide range of food in their diet includ­ing raw meats (includ­ing organs and fats), raw bones, fruits and vegetables.

3. Cats are clas­si­fied as a CARNIVORE. That means that your cat needs raw meat includ­ing the mus­cle, organs, stom­ach con­tents, fats and bones.

4. Look at the den­tal struc­ture of our dogs and cats. Their “fang” like teeth are designed to rip, shred and tear. There are no flat molars to grind food into small­er more work­able pieces before swal­low­ing (THEY ARE NOT DESIGNED TO CHEW KIBBLE!)

5. Dogs and cats do not have diges­tive enzymes in their sali­va. Their sali­va is designed to lubri­cate large chunks of food for easy trav­el to the stom­ach. Due to the lack of diges­tive enzymes in their sali­va, these enzymes MUST be present in their food. These vital enzymes are only present in raw unal­tered, uncooked food. ANY HEAT PROCESSING KILLS THESE VITAL ENZYMES AND TAXES THE ANIMALS PANCREAS, DIGESTIVE AND IMMUNE SYSTEM!

6. Dogs and cats have a sin­gle cham­bered stom­ach, sim­i­lar to human beings. How­ev­er their intestines are half the length of ours and their stom­ach acid­i­ty con­tent is low­er than ours. This acid along with oth­er diges­tive enzymes are what break down the food mat­ter so that the life sus­tain­ing nutri­ents can be absorbed. This acid­i­ty lev­el is also why your dogs and cats can eat raw meat and raw bones, with lit­tle to no risk of par­a­sitic disease.

7.Dogs and cats intesti­nal walls are a host to hun­dreds (400) of species of bac­te­ria and microor­gan­isms, called MICRO FLORA. The nat­ur­al bal­ance of your ani­mals micro flo­ra pro­vide enzymes, vit­a­mins, min­er­als and helps to inhib­it the growth of dis­ease form­ing bac­te­ria, such as Sal­mo­nel­la and E‑coli.

So why choose a raw diet over a cooked dry/canned diet?

1.Dogs and cats anatom­i­cal and diges­tive func­tions demon­strate how they are pre-des­tined to eat a “species appro­pri­ate” diet of raw meat, bones, veg­gies and fruits for opti­mal health.

2.Nothing can replace the nutri­ent val­ue of fresh whole raw foods going into the body. Today’s cooked kibble/canned pet diets are made of poor to low qual­i­ty foods. Even the bet­ter qual­i­ty kibble/canned prod­ucts using grade “A” and hor­mone free foods, loose vir­tu­al­ly all of the vital nutri­ents (enzymes and antiox­i­dants) dur­ing the cook­ing process. Even attempts by some of the man­u­fac­tur­ers to add back some of the nutri­ent con­tent in the form of sup­ple­ments after the food has cooled still falls far short of the nutri­tion­al needs of our furkids.

3.The steady and increas­ing onslaught of degen­er­a­tive dis­ease in our dogs and cats has forced us to ques­tion and exam­ine the qual­i­ty of the foods being used and how they are processed in rela­tion to our pets over­all health picture.