Things To Consider Before Transitioning Your Animal To A Raw Food Diet

Ask yourself:

- How important is this to me and my animal?

- Is it important enough to commit to it for 3 weeks,

3 months, or 3 years?

- Is it important enough to step out of my comfort zone

and ultimately improve my companions quality of life?

Converting your companion’s diet is not for the faint of heart.

Our animals are very perceptive and will sense any reluctance buried beneath our exterior continence. Therefore any lack of commitment will forestall a successful outcome. Decide how long you will commit to this project. The rewards will be great. Your companion will quickly show the “benefits”. Once you get into the flow of feeding raw food it will be as natural as mixing up an already prepared salad…just add some water (dressing), a little this and a little that, mix, and serve.

Be prepared to experiment.

Cats and dogs thrive on the same raw meat to vegetable ratio. Although, some small cats and dogs seem to prefer the higher ratio of meat to vegetables (90%meat to 10%veggies). You may have to adjust the mixture until you find a combination that works for both of you. Some animals will need special ratios for their specific needs. Most are just fine on the prepared meals sold in stores, which is a ratio of 25% veggies to 75% meat. For the most part, dogs and cats thrive on the same recipe of fresh raw meat dinners. Try to use organic meat and veggies whenever possible. If organic is not accessible conventionally grown is still far better than commercial pet food or fast food.

This could be a slow process. Be PATIENT and OBSERVE!

The other thing about changing diets is that for most animals it should be done gradually. Just like people our companions have different likes, needs, and personalities. There are always exceptions. For example some animals are just fine converting to raw in a short space of time. Others will not eat the raw food at first. But until you figure out that your situation is unusual follow our suggestions.

We once converted one of our dogs “Cold Turkey” and she had diarrhea for a year. That was back in our hard core days.
We were not considering what she was showing us. We refused to feed her the kibble that was recommended by her breeder. We kept offering her a raw food meal until she reluctantly ate what we wanted her to eat - poor girl. It sent her running into detox mode. It wasn’t necessary to speed through the process. It doesn’t have to be that dramatic. A gradual back and forth – with your companion’s assistance - will keep everyone happily on the same page. Watch for signs of detox throughout the entire process. Diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, eyes and or nose running, and unusual amounts of itching are all signs of detoxification. A gradual approach makes life easier for all concerned. Raw food, though great for our companions, can be a shock to their digestive track. If you existed on only processed food you would experience withdrawal and or detox once you started a “fresh food” diet. Converting is a matter of weaning our companions off their present food onto their species appropriate diet gradually.

You might have to be FIRM.

If after the conversion process you have an animal that eats the food sometimes and not other times or an animal that is not always hungry at meal time... eliminate all treats and any other food sources. Smaller animals especially fill up quickly on treats. Animals are smart. They can be reluctant to eat their meal when they can depend on filling up on treats later. Most animals take to the raw food quickly.
Cats that are indoor/outdoor animals have already experienced raw food because they are natural hunters. Nature has a way of protecting these animals that kill for sport. They will only eat what they are taught to eat. This fact can make indoor cats a challenge to convert to raw. Be patient. You’ll be happy with the results once you see the difference raw food makes in their quality of life.

By feeding raw food dinners we are trying to duplicate what our companions would eat in the wild. There they would consume most if not all of their prey. They would eat the skeleton as well as the fur. In our attempt to mimic Nature we have to add calcium or ground bone to the dinner. Raw meat is high in phosphorus. Calcium is needed to balance out all that phosphorus. Enzymes and probiotics are needed to ensure your animal is assimilating all that good food you are feeding. Animals in the wild would get this from the gut of their prey.

Cows graze. Cats and dogs in the wild do not. Feed an adult cat/dog only once per day unless the animal is sick or underweight. Cats and dogs are designed to gorge when there’s food and fast when there’s not. We all know puppies and kittens need to eat multiple times throughout the day. They are growing so fast they have to consume amounts of food that will facilitate their continuous growth spurt. They need lots of calcium to support the speedy growth of those bones. Feed your adult companions at a time convenient for both of you.

A healthy adult dog needs to eat once per day and fast for 24 hours every week or two. We fast our adult dogs on every Sunday so their digestive tracks can rest and detoxify. It helps to have a pattern. Then they know what to expect and they are fine without eating. They always have plenty of clean distilled water to drink. Sometimes we give them a bone to chew on.
Some dogs will skip a day of eating on their own. These are usually single animal households. These dogs are not under pressure to consume their food before their “house mate” eats everyone else’s food. Don’t be alarmed. If they are acting normal there’s no reason to be concerned. They will eat eventually. If they are lethargic and not acting like themselves, it is time to be concerned. Personality changes are good indicators that something is wrong.
Cats are different. They are much more independent than dogs. You DO NOT want your cat to stop eating. Sometimes cats just need exposure to different food. Put down the new food at meal time next to the regular meal. Eventually they will naturally investigate it. If you’re trying to speed things along, you might use a treat or some other type of “bait” to coax your cat into trying the new food. If your cat will not eat, is lethargic, and or starts to hide be very concerned. It is part of their nature to only eat what they are taught to eat so they are very comfortable resisting dietary changes. That’s why we feel it is very important to get them use to changes in their diet from when they are very young.

Now don’t get overwhelmed with the details. One step at a time, get your companion transitioned to eating fresh wholesome raw food.

We recommend feeding organic meat and veggies whenever possible. Sometimes organic is not readily available in your area. Don’t let that stop you. It is far better to feed raw meat and veggies whether they are organic or the meat and veggies sold at most grocery stores. RAW is the operative word here.

Lita Caesar CHM - The Dark Side of the Commercial Pet Food Industry:Rendering Plants

It is extremely important that cat and dog owners everywhere know about this recycling process that is at the center of the billion dollar pet food industry... Rendering Plants.
It is impossible to make an informed decision about what to feed your companions if you don’t know about rendering and the part it plays in the food chain.
It's interesting how rendering plants came into being.

Only a percentage of every food animal is used when making human foods, while the rest is considered unfit for human consumption. The 50% deemed unfit has to be disposed of. Slaughter houses and packing plants were sending out these portions with the trash and they ended up in landfills. How to properly handle the toxic waste created by the “disposed” animal carcasses became a big issue. Due to eminent government regulations the slaughter houses had to find a better way to dispose of the “unusable” portions. What do industries do when they can no longer dispose of their toxic waste in the trash? They either pay heavy fees for toxic disposal or they “RECYCLE”. Out of the desire to recycle this trash the rendering industry began.
Let’s define rendering. 1: to extract (as lard) by heating 2: DELIVER, GIVE; also: YIELD 5: to cause to be or become: MAKE. You get the idea. Creating a facility to expel ingredients out of leftover scraps, there by creating “usable” by-products was actually a financial stroke of genius. There are approximately 286 rendering plants in the U.S. today that recycle about 40 billion pounds of slaughter house waste such as blood, bone, viscera, noses, beaks, hooves, hair, feathers, cartilage, fats, diseased and decaying tissue, intestines, eyeballs, brains, spinal cords (BSE; Mad cow disease resides in central nervous system tissue). In recent times rendering plants have expanded their repertoire of resources to include restaurant grease, spoiled supermarket meats, road kill, euthanized zoo and domesticated animals.

Because of the rendering process some of these animal parts are used in the multi billion dollar make-up industry. In looking for other options it made sense to the food manufacturers to use some of the “unfit for human consumption” parts to feed animals, who don’t care what they eat as long as they get to eat. Hard to believe the 16 billion dollar pet food industry grew out of the need to recycle animal carcasses!
It is a process by which heat is used to extract or make something usable. Rendering is the opposite of “cold pressed” in terms of the process used to expel a by-product. The use of high temperatures of heat kills off bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other organisms. That sounds like a good thing, right? And it is if you want to sterilize something. This process of using high temperatures sterilizes, denatures, and destroys natural enzymes and proteins in the food making it unsuitable and empty of nutrients. It kills everything; good and bad. So the mandatory use of high temperatures to cure these dead carcasses allows the rendering plants to use human grade animal leftovers, as well as dead, dying, diseased, disabled animals and anything else unfit for human consumption. Once rendered this by product is considered safe to use for make-up, fertilizer, animal feed, industrial lubricants, soap, rubber, and other products.
Another important rendering description to know is “meal”, which is the name given to some of the animal by-products from rendering plants used in pet food. “Meal” consists mainly of leftover scraps: bones, beaks, heads, feet, blood, and much more!!! “Meal” is another name for materials that have been rendered or not used fresh. It can also be called beef-and-bone-meal or pork-and-bone-meal or chicken-and-bone-meal etc. These terms conjure up images of wholesome animal parts when a more appropriate term would be, cooked by products devoid of nutrients.
In the past there have been accusations that the pet food companies use rendered pets and road- kill in their pet foods. Claims the industry denies. Tests have been conducted looking for dog and cat DNA in pet food. No feline or canine DNA was found. There is still no regulation banning the use of these materials. What the FDA did find though, is pentobarbital, the most common euthanasia drug used to "put down" animals. The ingredients commonly associated with the presence of pentobarbital were meat-and-bone-meal and animal fat.

Tail of the Mill

Now that we’ve talked about the "animal" proteins used for pet foods it’s time to talk about gluten, which is another inadequate protein for dogs and cats. It is one of the main ingredients in kibble or dry food. Pet food companies want you to believe that they use nothing but the most wholesome ingredients. They conjure up images of high-quality whole grains in their foods, when in fact they use what is commonly called “tail of the mill”. This is really left behind residuals of the grains used in the production of human foods. A more accurate list of components would be hulls, chaff, straw, dust, dirt, and sand swept from the mill floor. Dogs and Cats will not thrive on whole or partial grains. Dry foods contain large amounts of grain parts as fillers. We all know that cereals, simple-carbohydrates, turn to sugar during digestion. Pet food manufactures boost protein levels in pet food by adding in extra gluten found in grain fragments, after the carbohydrates are removed. This is simply debris to fill up our companions and is impossible to assimilate as well as inappropriate for their species (see Kymythy Shultze). Cats and dogs do not manufacture amylase, the digestive enzyme needed to assimilate cereals or simple carbohydrates. This is not the diet for a carnivore. Our animals need animal protein in order to thrive and be healthy. Gluten (grain protein) is not a viable replacement.

In closing, the proteins in commercial pet food are not accessible because of the high temperatures required by the FDA in the rendering process. Much of the protein in kibble is unsuitable because it is the wrong kind of protein. Commercial pet foods can have denatured animal proteins and large amounts of cereal grains that turn to sugar. How healthy could that be? It sounds like “junk food”. Doesn’t it? What the pet food industry does have is great advertising, veterinary endorsements, “RECALLS”, and high profit margins. What is not revealed between the ingredients list is chemicals, harsh preservatives, fillers like melamine, poisons, etc.(see BARF WORLD) It makes sense to feed companions foods that help them thrive and maintain their health. We recommend feeding only human grade products because the regulations are stricter in this category than in the “animal feed” category.
We also recommend feeding a species appropriate diet (LINK). What do you recommend feeding your companions now that you know where the ingredients in pet foods come from?

LITA CAESAR, CHM: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Lita Caesar is a Certified Homeopathic Practitioner with years of experience. Her practice encompasses both people and animals. She is a proponent of natural, organic, non-invasive solutions and remedies for her human, canine, and feline patients. Her basic education as a practitioner took place during her attendance at the American University of Complementary Medicine. She is continually attending workshops and seminars to stay abreast of and add to her knowledge of various advances and breakthroughs in natural healing techniques, animal communication, essence therapy, intuitive training, and nutrition.

As a mother, Lita embarked on a search for the best way to provide optimal health for herself, her four children, and her pets. That search led her to the realization that natural unprocessed and raw foods are the key to longevity and health in both man and beast. Lita was particularly impressed when she came to learn that animals (carnivores) in their natural habitat who eat a raw food diet rarely die from cancers and degenerative diseases.

Lita is available for consultations via both telephone and e-mail thus making her homeopathic and nutritional counseling available no matter what the geographical location of her clients. Contact her today in order to provide a more active and vibrant life for you and your animal companions.

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Email: fourpawsandpeopletoo@yahoo.com