Definition of a Holistic Veterinarian

Many people are confused by the definition of a “holistic veterinarian”. Sometimes, it’s confused with “alternative medicine”, which makes many people uncomfortable. But the definition of “holistic” is actually something very reassuring.

Think of “holistic” as meaning, “whole”, “maintaining health” and “preventing illness”.

We are an illness-centric society. Our health insurance pays for medicines after the fact and only very rarely pays for preventative measures such as medical tests, nutritional supplements, or exercise programs. So think of “holistic” as also being more focused on maintaining health and preventing illness rather than reacting to illness after the fact.

What is a “holistic veterinarian”?

A holistic veterinarian is one who treats the “whole animal”. For example, while they have traditional medicines and treatments at their disposal to help sick animals, they are interested in supporting the animal’s full health picture by exploring the animal’s diet, water intake, exercise, sleep, environment, and emotions.

One holistic vet gives this excellent definition:

The main focus of veterinary holistic medicine is prevention of disease through natural diets, proper exercise and training and mineral, vitamin & herbal supplementation. The holistic perspective of healing recognizes that the whole body must be in balance for good health to exist. This means not only treating the physical symptoms of a disease but also supporting the body’s immune and organ systems in healing the disease, or imbalance, itself. Prevention of disease is encouraged by taking an assessment of the mind, body, spirit and environment, and making the necessary changes to support the well being of your pet.

Online Holistic Veterinarians

There are several veterinarians who publish articles and educate the public via the Internet or books. I’ve learned a great deal from each of the following veterinarians:

Dr. Jane Bicks

Dr. Jane is a highly respected and nationally recognized holistic veterinarian. She is the author of three national books on pet care and nutrition and has served on professional boards including the Cornell Feline Health Center. Dr. Jane served as the President of the Veterinary Medical Association in NYC and was appointed by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to help start one of the largest animal shelters in the United States. She has also appeared on many network television and cable programs and numerous radio stations as a veterinary expert.

Dr. Jane is the formulator of my pet’s food and I sit in on weekly conference calls with her as she takes questions from people about nutritional answers to their pet’s health problems. This education over the last two years has made a huge difference to my pet’s health.

Dr. John Syme, aka DogtorJ

DogtorJ is one of my favorite holistic vets online. He is very down to earth and real and is exceptionally focused on nutrition as a solution to many of our pet’s problems. It was from his website that I first learned that epilepsy can often be alleviated through changing the pet’s diet.

Dr. Martin Goldstein

Dr. Martin Goldstein (Dr. Marty) is considered by many experts – and thousands of satisfied clients – to be America’s foremost holistic veterinarian. His success with critically ill pets, especially cancer patients, is world renowned. He is the author of the book, The Nature of Animal Healing, which I read when it first came out in 1999 and which completely changed many things about the way I feed and nurture my pets.

If you want to be truly holistic, get his book and refer to it often.

Incidentally, he prefers raw or home-made diets but recognizes their impracticality in today’s busy society. He makes the distinction between “ultra premium” foods and “super premium” foods. I am glad to say, as a multi-pet parent, the best route for me was the “ultra premium” route, which are non-grained based pet foods using organic or natural meat.

Dr. Shawn Messonier

A frequent contributor to Animal Wellness Magazine, his articles on many of your pet health topics are easy to find on the Internet. I simply google on his last name, Messonier, and whatever is my question of the day.

Dr. Jean Hofve

Dr. Jean Hofve is also a top holistic vet. She was interviewed quite often during the pet food recall. Watch for her articles, I gain a lot from them.

Where can I find a holistic veterinarian?

I must say, it’s tough to find holistic vets. I live in Colorado where you would think everyone is into natural health, but my own vet is simply a fairly progressive 78-year-old traditional vet! I love her dearly and admire her dedication to spending literally all of her days saving sick pets, but she is not holistic.

That’s okay. She is willing to work with me when I have a nutritional idea. What is more accessible to us are holistic animal lovers who are very good at nutrition and general health. You can’t seek answers to medical questions from them but you can certainly check out what they have to say about good food, natural remedies for fleas and hotspots, behavior problems, and so forth.

However, there is an excellent resource guide for holistic vets at Animal Wellness Magazine. This is the Number One health magazine for animals in the country. I bought it at the health store for years, saved every issue, and finally subscribed to it. I have learned so much from it. Click on the link for Holistic Vets to see if there is such a vet near you.

P.S. Coming up in February is a special annual issue dedicated to Cat Health. This will be the first time they’ve done this and I can’t wait to see it.

Milk Thistle for your Pets

There are two great, over-the-counter supplements that you can give to your pets that could make a huge difference in their overall health: Milk thistle and L-Lysine. In this post, we’ll cover Milk Thistle, a common “weed” with extraordinary healing properties.

Milk Thistle

PetEducation.com, the veterinary resource arm of Drs Foster & Smith, says that “milk thistle is well-known for its use in liver disease”. That’s an understatement.
In humans, it has shown positive effects in treating nearly every known form of liver disease, including cirrhosis, hepatitis, necroses, and liver damage due to drug and alcohol abuse. Milk thistle works due to its ability to inhibit the factors responsible for liver damage, coupled with the fact it stimulates production of new liver cells to replace old damaged ones.

I stumbled upon it because I had read that if you want to alleviate environmental toxins from hormones, pesticides, detergents, etc. (a topic of interest to me), you need to “heal” your liver, and milk thistle is the herbal remedy of choice. Your liver is basically a filter and it tires and wears out as we grow older. That “regeneration” property mentioned above really gets your attention!

But once I started reading about it, the documented health benefits just don’t quit. I am now quite a fan and won’t go without it.

Several of my friends and family, concerned about liver damage from medications such as acetominophen, have also seen the need to take it.

This link in an herbal encyclopedia speaks to some of the health benefits.

http://www.kcweb.com/herb/milkt.htm

For veterinary use, it is often recommended by holistic veterinarians to treat canine and feline liver disease. Specifically, Dr. Shawn Messonier, who writes for Animal Wellness Magazine, and holistic websites such as littlebigcat. Here is one of Dr. Shawn’s articles on milk thistle, wow.

http://www.petcarenaturally.com/articles/liver-disease.php

Note that for veterinary use, Dr. Shawn recommends that you only use milk thistle if your pet develops a liver problem. And while I will advise you to always consult with a vet when wanting to use milk thistle, most vets are not into holistic or herbal remedies and may not be familiar with this one.

For the purists among you, here is a link to an Alternative Medicine study that searched through all of the medical databases to see if there was anything to the alternative community’s recommendations for milk thistle. While they are very scientific and complain loudly about lack of certain types of studies and data on dosage and quality, and ask questions about was this success due to the duration of the treatment or the early stage of the disease, they do conclude that there is enough benefit to milk thistle to warrant further study.

http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/milktsum.htm
If I can just add my own opinion… 90% of what comes through our mouths gets filtered by the liver. But the melamine contamination in the 2007 pet food recall created crystals in the kidneys and that’s what killed the animals. I doubt if any research has been done to see if milk thistle would have prevented this condition… and indeed, just with my layman’s understanding, it doesn’t look like it would have.

THAT said, there are many other types of toxins our pets can be exposed to and if those toxins result in liver aging or distress, milk thistle might be a great remedy.

Teresa Holladay, “The Pet Food Lady”

http://holisticpetfood.wordpress.com

Fish Oil for Veterinary Use

I ran across something I posted in April and thought it might be good to print it again.

Good News For A Change – Fish Oil As A Veterinary Supplement for CRF Kidney Disease and other Inflammatory Problems

Posted: 27 Apr 2007 07:55 AM CDT

I have been wanting to write this post for quite some time but there has been too much recall news to keep up with. So I’m just MAKING myself write it. After reading this, you will want all of your pets, especially if they have illnesses, to be on fish oil.

I am a vegetarian and after learning about the broad health benefits of fish oil , I became a believer so yes, now I take a daily fish oil supplement.But this post is about veterinary use. (To learn about fish oil for humans, check this blog article).

Holistic foods often do not make special needs medical diets, and unfortunately, animals with kidney problems, diabetes, and pancreatitis CANNOT eat the dry holistic brands because they have too much protein, carbs, fat, or phosphorus. The veterinary brands get their protein sources from grains and in that case, it’s what is needed for our poor babies.

But there is a lot of veterinary research on the use of fish oil to treat the inflammation that is often found in the the kidney, pancreas, etc., and so that is something that you CAN do for your pets.

I am not a veterinarian and cannot give you medical advice. But I can give you a few links, a little info, and encourage you to speak with your veterinarian about possibly using fish oil as an adjunct or complementary treatment for your sick dog or cat.You can google on “fish oil” and “veterinary” or “fish oil” and “companion animals” or “fish oil” and “kidney disease” and “feline” or “canine” and get a number of great articles on fish oil. Dr. Andrew Weil, the holistic MD found online at http://DrWeil.com, has this to say about fish oil for pets:

Fish oil is good for dogs – and cats! Veterinarians first used omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish oil to treat canine allergies but now recommend it for a wide variety of conditions ranging from kidney disease to arthritis and high cholesterol. Adding fish oil to your dog’s food provides anti-inflammatory effects and can help relieve itching due to atopic dermatitis, an allergy-related skin condition.

The Veterinary College at Colorado State University found that fish oil helped with toenail loss in dogs!

Toenail Loss In Dogs – Lupoid onychodystrophy is a disease in dogs that causes them to lose their toenails. A research team studied the effect of fatty acid supplementation (for example, fish oil or primrose oil) in treating dogs with this condition. This study compared the fatty acid concentrations in the blood and nails of normal and affected dogs. Studies showed an improvement in the conditions of dogs with lupoid onychodystrophy, but researchers don’t know if the improvement is due to the anti-inflammatory characteristics of fatty acids or if affected dogs developed the condition because of a fatty acid deficiency.

It won’t take you long to find good articles on fish oil.

Here’s one last one by

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKA/is_2_62/ai_61361463

Thanks to medical advances, cats are now able to survive some conditions and illnesses that were once fatal. But these same problems — hyperthyroidism, heart problems, urinary tract obstruction, and diabetes can damage the kidneys. Strays are at particular risk, since they are more likely to have been exposed to toxins that can damage the kidneys, as are aging cats since their kidneys may not function very well.

Omega-3 fatty acids may help improve kidney function. Be sure to supplement with fish oil, not flax seed oil, since cats can’t convert the linoleic acid in flax seed oil to the final form, arachidonic acid. How much? Pop a hole in a fish-oil capsule and give your cat about 2 drops daily.

Quality Counts

Let me just refer you to this page on fish oil quality so you can see that you need a pharmaceutical grade fish oil with certain very high IFOS ratings.

Get the oil, not the capsules, if you plan to use if for your pets. It’s just easier!

Dosage is as follows:

Large dogs – Full human dose

Medium dogs – Half human dose

Small dogs and cats – 1/4 human dose

So, in the wake of all these acute kidney failures, there is at least ONE more healthy thing that you can do for your pets.
Teresa Holladay, “The Pet Food Lady”
http://holisticpetfood.wordpress.com

Why Your Cat Needs a Premium Natural Dry Food

My last post about canned cat food may have left you with the impression that no dry food is any good. I certainly didn’t mean to convey that so let me write a companion article to “Why Your Cat Needs Canned Cat Food”.

And by the way, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We had a full day of snow here in Colorado. I stayed in warm and safe with my kitties all day, talking to family and friends on the phone and enjoying the peace of the day in my own way. If you’re inclined to watch truly funny Christmas cat videos, I posted a few YouTube classics on my homepage at http://teresaholladay.com

Let me start by making a distinction between commercial dry dog and cat foods, so-called “premium” dry pet foods, and natural or holistic dry pet foods.

Well, actually, there is little difference between the commercial brands and the so-called “premium” brands. By “premium”, just know that it’s nicer packaging and a higher price than the grocery store brands and your vet may even carry it at their clinic. (You’re going to want names and I’m going to try to avoid that so as not to get in any trouble!)

Read your pet food label. All of these commercial brands contain by-products and inferior grains such as corn, wheat, or soy. Sometimes, the premium brands tout that they do not use artificial colors or chemical preservatives. To most of us industry observers, they are “premium” only in price and advertising and perhaps because they may add some real meat.

Natural, also known as ‘holistic’ brands, vehemently oppose any use of by-products or the inferior grains. (Some grains are necessary to shape the kibble. In these cases, only US grown brown rice or other similar grains are used). Since holistic pet foods use meats, they don’t need to flavor with sugars or meat-type flavors, and they use natural, rather than chemical, preservatives. Many also add probiotics or chelated, bio-available minerals.

Going back to something I said in the “canned cat food” article, what you want to avoid are the “high carb, commercial dry food diets” as they contribute to obesity and all of the related health problems.

Focus on the term, “high carb”. “Dry” is not the bad guy. “Carb” is. What are carbs? Grains and sugars. Dogs and cats don’t eat them in nature. So while your pet may like the taste of a typical dry pet food (because it’s highly sugared and flavored), and they may even live to what most people think of as a ripe old age, they will do much better on the high protein, low carb holistic diets.

It took us until the 21st century to start to “get” the connection between diet and health, for both people and animals. It’s been hammered into us by the gurus but most of us didn’t really listen until something up close and personal made us pay attention. In my case, it was the death of two beloved cats within three weeks of switching them to a so-called “premium”, albeit corn-based, brand. This was years ago, long before the 2007 pet food recall.

What is it that is making you pay closer attention?

There was a very interesting Q&A section in the Washington Post last week by veterinarian Michael W. Fox. One reader commented on changing a dog from Beneful to a homemade diet, and another reader switched from canned Alpo to cottage cheese, chicken, and ground beef. In each case, the switch away from that original food created great health results.

The take home message is: Diet Counts. It does make a difference. Those grains, almost always inferior product grown in other countries who do not follow our strict safety rules in pesticides and fertilizers, and those preservatives — Would YOU want them in YOUR breakfast? No wonder our pets get sick, get allergies, throw up and get diarrhea. Even epilepsy is often attributed to grains in pet foods.

I have associated with holistic pet parents for years. Trust me, NONE of us would ever go back to a food that contains certain ingredients. We simply have our own unbiased testimonials from our pets.

Dry food is good for your pets. Canned food is good for your pets. AS LONG AS it’s high quality and follows “the rules” for certain types of ingredients. We can’t all feed our pets the way they would eat in nature. We need the dry foods for cost and convenience and they’re perfectly fine for our pets.

Just continue to educate yourself on what will be the best food for your pet and for your circumstances, and enjoy your fur family. Loving them, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Teresa Holladay, “The Pet Food Lady”
http://holisticpetfood.wordpress.com

Why Your Cat Needs Canned Cat Food, the “Catkins Diet”!

Cats are obligate carnivores. They need 2-3 times more meat than dogs. Their natural prey is rodents, lizards, and birds. It’s not possible to give them this level of protein in dry food diets, although high protein in natural, holistic cat foods get might close to it.

Cat Fancy magazine ran a story during the summer of 2007 featuring their readers’ oldest cats. The oldest cat was 36 years old! And there were many cats in their 30′s!

Did you know that the natural lifespan of a cat is 27-30 years?! We’ve gotten used to “senior cats” at age seven and greater, and are proud of our oldest kitties living 17-20 years. The truth is, they could live much longer if we were feeding them closer to what they would eat in nature.

One of my readers asked an excellent question on December 20:

Wait a minute…I thought canned food wasn’t as good for animals as dry food??? It supposedly doesn’t have as much vitamins and nutrients as dry food. I’ve always been told by my vets, and have also read, that you should only use canned food as a “treat”, every once in a while, maybe 2 – 3 times per week with their regular dry food, and only a small amount at a time.

Hmmmm? Could you please explain why you believe the opposite and where you received your findings?

I can understand why a veterinarian would say that. Most veterinarians, like our personal physicians, get very little training on nutrition.

But once you look into natural nutrition and natural healing for pets, you’ll discover that every HOLISTIC veterinarian recommends high quality canned cat food. [And the definition of HOLISTIC, whether it's for humans or animals, is an emphasis on the WHOLE creature -- diet, exercise, water intake, emotions and stress levels, environment].

Let’s talk first about why you want to avoid the high-carb dry diets and then about seeking out the nutrient-rich wet cat food diets. Most of the canned cat foods you would find in the grocery store or even PetSmart and PetCo would not fit the definitions I’m going to give you on high quality holistic canned cat foods.

Avoid Carbohydrate-rich Commercial Dry Cat Foods
In other words, no corn, no wheat, no soy, no sorghum

Let’s start with my favorite holistic pet resource, Animal Wellness Magazine. By the way, their next issue (January 2008) is a cat issue and their annual Feline Wellness Magazine is due out in February 2008. Get them!!

Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins, DVM, Esq. has an article in the December/January 2008 issue on feline fatty liver disease. She makes some very important statements about dry cat food diets.

Feline fatty liver disease, hepatic lipidosis (HL) is a condition we see with some frequency in cats. It’s invariably linked to the carbohydrate-rich commercial diets, especially the dry ones, so commonly fed to felines. These high-carb diets assault the sugar-controlling functions of both the liver and and the pancreas, causing obesity and predisposing the cat to HL.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of preventing obesity by avoiding commercial dry cat foods.

If your cat is overweight, removing poor quality dry food from the diet and switching him to a low-carbohydrate, high-protein premium food will help take off the excess pounds.

Feline Diabetes

She does not mince words about the connection between dry cat food and feline diabetes. On her web site at www.yourdiabeticcat.com, she states, “Without the constant feeding of highly processed, high carbohydrate dry foods, better suited to cattle than cats, adult-onset feline diabetes would be a rare disease, if it occured at all.“

IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease)

Dr. Lisa Pierson, DVM, states, “Too often these cats are treated with a high level of steroids and a so-called ‘prescription’ DRY diet. I feel very strongly that this common therapeutic regimen needs to be re-evaluated. There are an impressive number of anecdotal reports of cats that were terribly ill with IBD exhibiting dramatic improvement when ALL dry food was removed from their diet.“

CRF (Chronic Renal Failure)

Dr. Lisa Pierson, DVM, states, “It is troubling to think about the role that chronic dehydration plays in feline kidney failure. And remember, cats are chronically dehydrated when they are on a diet of predominantly dry food.”

Diarrhea

Diarrhea and other allergy-related conditions are often caused by corn or wheat fillers in dry cat food. After eliminating other potential medical causes, switching to canned or raw food can make the diarrhea go away almost overnight.

Sensitive Stomach

Again, after eliminating other potential medical causes, you could be very surprised to discover that your cat throws up far less often when you take away foods and treats that are made with corn and wheat fillers.

This list could go on and on. Pancreatitis, liver disease, allergies, even epilepsy have been linked to the high carb, grain-based diets in standard commercial pet foods.

We’ve covered why you don’t want dry diets. Let’s look at why you NEED canned, wet food diets for your cats.

Holistic Vets Explain Why Cats Need Canned Cat Food

Dr. Jean Hofve, a very highly regarded holistic veterinarian, recommends MORE or ONLY canned cat food diets:

“Canned foods are higher in fat and protein, and lower in carbohydrates, than dry foods. Their high water content increases the cat’s overall fluid intake, which keeps the kidneys and bladder healthy. The higher fat contributes to skin and coat health. Because the ingredients are more easily digested and utilized by the cat’s body, canned foods produce less solid waste in the litterbox.

“Adult cats need 2-3 times more protein than dogs. Yet dry cat foods generally supply only about 1/3 more protein than dry dog foods—about 30-35% in dry cat food compared to 20-26% for the average dry dog food. “Kidney” diets for cats in renal failure are even more restrictive with 26-28% protein (such diets should never be fed to normal cats; they will cause muscle wasting as the cat breaks down its own body for protein). Canned cat foods contain 45-50% protein, and canned kitten foods may contain up to 55% protein. (All percentages calculated on a dry matter basis.)

“There is increasing evidence that carbohydrates (starches and sugars) in dry food are simply not metabolized well by many, if not most cats. While obesity is caused by many factors, the free-choice feeding of dry food to a relatively inactive cat is a major player. Obese cats are prone to joint problems, liver and kidney disease, and diabetes.

“Recent research has shown that high-carbohydrate diets are to blame in most cases of feline diabetes. Many overweight cats are carbohydrate-intolerant, and should be fed low-carbohydrate diets (think “Catkins” diet!). This means canned food. Experts are now recommending canned kitten food as the primary treatment for diabetes. Many diabetic cats can decrease or even eliminate their need for insulin, simply by changing to a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. Ultimately, canned food may be even more beneficial as a preventative for this devastating disease.

Hydration

As one veterinary hospital explains, another reason for adding MORE or going to ONLY canned cat foods is to increase your cat’s fluid intake. Cats are desert animals and have a poor mechanism for drinking water. In nature, they get fluids from their prey. And so they are prone to diseases that come from not enough water, such as urinary and kidney problems. The more water a cat takes in, the lower the risk of bladder stones/crystals and feline lower urinary tract disease (a common cause of painful urination and urination outside of the litterbox).

But can you get enough nutrients in canned cat foods?

Most of the concern about lack of nutrients in canned cat foods come from an old study performed by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger over 50 years ago, which resulted in evidence that a cooked meat diet caused physical deterioration in cats and their offspring, over a period of time. Contemporary experts have questioned whether it was the lack of taurine, rather than the cooking, that caused the nutrional deficiencies Pottenger cited.

In the citations by holistic vets noted above, not one suggested that there would not be enough nutrients in today’s canned cat foods. So let me just start by showing you a comparison of what you would get in a holistic food vs. what you would buy at the grocery store.

Note that the holistic food at the left, Instinctive Choice, can be fed to cats with obesity, diabetes, kidney problems, and urinary tract problems, making it an excellent choice for those of us tending to sick animals. Note: It can’t be fed to cats with pancreatitis. If you have questions, always take the pet food’s fact sheet, available from the rep or the company, to your vet to ask their opinion.

Notice the use of by-products, wheat, non-chelated minerals, artificial colors and preservatives in the commercial canned cat food on the right. If you watch the movie on the HealthyPetNet website called, “Do You Know What’s In Your Pet’s Food?”, you will learn what you are really feeding your cat.

Instinctive Choice by HealthyPetNet Organic Chicken Chicken Liver Chicken Broth Turkey Chicken Meal (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols) Shrimp Fish Oil Ground Agropyron Repens Grass Calcium Sulfate Guar Gum Minerals (Iron Amino Acid Chelate, Zinc Amino Acid Chelate, Cobalt Amino Acid Chelate, Copper Amino Acid Chelate, Manganese Amino Acid Chelate, Sodium Selenite, Potassium Iodide) Choline Chloride Sea Salt Taurine Vitamins (Vitamin E, A, D3, B12 Supplements, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin) Inulin Rosemary L-Carnitine

9 LivesMeat by-products fish water sufficient for processing poultry by-products fish broth tuna shrimp wheat gluten calcium carbonate wheat flour sodium tripolyphosphate salt titanium dioxide guar gum potassium chloride dried whey steamed bone meal natural flavor choline chloride vitamins (vitamin E supplement, vitamin A supplement, thiamine mononitrate, niacin supplement, d-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, menadione sodium bisulfite complex, vitamin D3 supplement, folic acid, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement) carrageenan taurine minerals (magnesium oxide, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite) iron oxide caramel color sodium nitrite (to promote color retention) red 3.

In a separate article, I will review the ingredients in a number of reputable holistic canned cat foods. Generally, you will have to purchase them at a health food store or via telephone or online as they are not available at grocery stores or the pet discount stores.

My preference is Instinctive Choice. It’s an exceptional food, you can get wholesale pricing just by setting up automatic shipping, and it is shipped direct to your door via UPS or USPS, making it accessible even to people who do not live close to a health food store. Unfortunately, it is only available within the United States.

Teresa Holladay
The Holistic Pet Food Blog

Cornophobia, Demon Corn, Is Corn In Pet Food Really All That Bad?

With corn, corn gluten meal, ground corn, corn grits, corn bran, and corn meal so prevalent in commercial pet foods for dogs and cats, one does have to ask… Is corn really all that bad for your pet?

“When you read the label on a bag of cat food and the first ingredient is ground yellow corn, it should make you stop and think,” says Dr. Jean Hofve, DVM, a holistic veterinarian in Jamestown, Colorado. Even some premium pet foods list corn or corn-gluten meal among the top ingredients, but these foods do little other than keep costs down. They do help to form the kibble, and corn-gluten meal is a cheap source of protein, but too much can contribute to health problems, especially in cats.

As a holistic pet parent who lost not one but two kitties within a few weeks of switching them to a so-called holistic brand (at the time, I wasn’t tuned into to “corn” as a problem for pets), and the vet blamed the corn, I avoid corn in pet food even more that I avoid by-products.

In this article from IsYourPetFoodSafe.com, the parent of The Holistic Pet Food Blog, I’ll tell you why.

Catkins or Carbs?

The November/December 2007 issue of Animal Wellness Magazine has a very simple reason to avoid high-carbohydrate diets in pet foods… and since most of the carbs in pet foods come from corn, I read this article as strong counsel to avoid it in your pet food.

There are medical conditions such as obesity, pancreatisis, diabetes, and liver disease which are being seen with greater frequency, especially in cats. The culprit, according to Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins, DVM, Esq., is a high-carb diet. “These high carb diets assault the sugar-controlling functions of both the liver and the pancreas, causing obesity and predisposing the cat to hepatic lipidosis (liver function impairment). Liver disease, in particular, is “invariably linked to the carbohydrate-rich commercial diets, especially the dry ones, so commonly fed to felines”.

Aflatoxin

Mere diabetes, obesity, and liver problems are just the most common thing that can happen to your pet. I was shocked to find out that corn is highly subject to the aflatoxin fungus. Aflatoxin is a fungus common on legumes, corn, and other grains, and it’s as deadly to humans as it is to dogs and cats. It attacks the liver and causes death. Notice I didn’t say, “frequently”. More like, “almost all the time”.

Steve Shrum, president of the South Carolina Association of Veterinarians, a state hit pretty hard by dog deaths, said, “It takes such a small amount, and there’s pretty much nothing you can do with the process that will inactivate that toxin once it gets in the food supply.”

Aflatoxin is a well-known fungus and when pet food companies tell you they have strict quality controls, one thing they are constantly testing for is aflatoxin fungus.

Of the many major pet food recalls over the last thirteen years, aflatoxin features prominently. Just two years ago, Diamond Pet Foods recalled 19 brands made over a four-month period because of documented dog deaths from liver toxicity.

Food intolerance and allergies

According to Dr. John Syme, a holistic veterinarian who preaches that food intolerance, allergies, celiac disease, and even epilepsy are all related to certain grains in pet foods:

“The most serious food intolerances are those to the gluten grains (wheat, barley, and rye), casein (dairy products), soy and corn, with the first three being the most common… Gluten, dairy products, soy and corn are doing an incredible amount of harm to a phenomenal number of people and animals”.

Commercial and even some so-called holistic pet food companies don’t want you to know this

One prominent, extremely high-priced, so-called holistic pet food manufacturer claims that the “they have corn and we don’t” premise is merely a marketing technique. They call it “cornophobia”, the “demonization of corn” in pet foods, and proudly list “corn meal” as the Number One ingredient in their top-selling K-9 dog food.

A quick check of high-profile manufacturers such as Iams, Purina, Science Diet, Diamond, and Flint River shows that they all find a way to distance themselves from the growing public awareness of corn as a potentially harmful ingredient in their pet’s food. One manufacturer states that all corn is grown within the U.S. Another declares that it’s not genetically modified. Others promote the “corn as a top nutritional ingredient” myth.

To be sure, cats and dogs can live well into their teens on a corn-based, dry commercial diet. We’ve gotten used to it, think it’s normal… but our pets are now dying in what used to be their prime years.

Do you know what the natural lifespan of a cat or dog really is? 27-30 years. True. Cat Fancy ran a feature during the summer of 2007 on their readers’ oldest cats. The oldest was 36 and many runner-ups were in their 30′s. This is no accident. This is good nutrition.

Learn for yourself

The reality was something that I learned for myself. I do animal rescue and feed $600 worth of pet food per month. The very first time I fed a truly holistic brand, not one touting “organic corn” but one that had NO corn… my cats stopped throwing up. All of them. Their eating and their litterbox habits changed for the better. Their coats became glossy and their chronic illnesses improved.

It was absolutely unbelievable. So much for “sensitive stomach” foods. All I needed to do was get them away from the corn.

If you consider your cat or dog to be your child and are an “adopt for life” pet parent, one of the 85% of pet parents who would risk their life for their pets, start reading the label on your pet’s food. Take the time to seek out and try safe, holistic pet foods that DO NOT CONTAIN corn.

My favorite pet food has a short video that is the best thing you can do for your pet. Titled, “Do You Know What’s In Your Pet’s Food“, it will tell you how to read the label.

That video is an eye popper and is the only thing like it on the web. Let it educate you so that you, too, can choose the healthiest food for your pet.

Teresa Holladay
IsYourPetFoodSafe.com