- Welcome to the Natural Health for People in Pets podcast, a show that aims to empower you with the knowledge and tools needed to take control of your own health and wellbeing, as well as providing health promoting strategies for the dogs in your life. The world of health and nutrition can be overwhelming. So what better way to understand what works and what doesn't, what's evidence-based and what's not, then to hear it from someone in the know.
So, please welcome your host of the show Accredited naturopath and nutritionist Narelle Cook. - Welcome back to episode five of Natural Health for People and Pets. Can you believe it's episode five already? - I know. Where's the time going? Hmm. It's Covid time. Yeah. - Well, I'm your host, Glen Cook, but to hand you over to person who's all the technical information, I'm gonna introduce you to the real host of the show. Narelle Cook. Hello - Everyone. - How are you? - Good.
- It's kind of weird that I ask that question 'cause we live together. I - Know, but that's okay. - Everyone needs to know. Yep. Mm. What are we talking about - Today? I wanted to talk about the concept of complete and balanced when it comes to pet food. - Oh, that's a big one. - You know, a lot of our listeners who are sort of passionate dog owners may ready be familiar with some of the concepts that I'll be covering today.
Mm. But I think it's really important because a lot of pet owners won't know this information, but it's important that they do because the fear of not feeding a product labeled as complete and balanced. Mm. It's a big reason why many pet owners are too afraid to switch to raw, for example.
Right. One of the main points I wanna get across today is that just because you're feeding a food labeled as complete and balanced, it doesn't actually guarantee that your dog won't develop health problems due to nutritional deficiencies or excesses - Shut the barn door. - Well, that's pretty significant. - No way. There's no way people would lie about what's on labels and marketing. No way. I don't believe you.
- Okay. So - , - What we are not covering today is the topic of whether you should or shouldn't feed kibble. Yep. That's another whole podcast. - Oh, yeah. Yeah. - Today I am just focusing on the phrase, complete and balanced on your dog food label. And whether really can you put as much trust in that term as people tend to do? - So can you, - Let's start with what does complete and balanced really mean? - Yeah. Go on. Tell me. Sorry. I need to know I'm on the edge of my seat now.
I need the answer to this question. Complete - And balanced. When you see that on a dog food label, it means that it should contain a combination of ingredients which provides things like, you know, your protein, fat vitamins and minerals at levels needed to prevent most diseases that are caused by nutritional deficiencies. Mm-Hmm. . So we can think of them like our human, you know, recommended daily intakes, our human guidelines.
Yep. And as I've said on previous podcasts, they're there for the most part to prevent disease. Mm-Hmm. not to promote optimal health. Right. But at the end of the day, they're just guidelines and they may not always address factors that affect two nutrient needs. So, you know, even if we just think about ladybug episode two, if people wanna know what happened to ladybug Mm-Hmm. , you know, a dog that's undergone extreme trauma, especially surgery Yep.
Has, you know, vastly increased nutrient requirement. Yep. Then the average healthy dog - Or even when she had puppies. - Yeah. Well, I mean some, there are foods that are designed for gestation, lactation. Mm-Hmm. , which technically should meet those minimum requirements for that period.
- What I found absolutely mind boggling was when you laid out her diet, when she was having puppies and feeding and, and, uh, lactating and so forth, you were showing me how much she really needs to eat as opposed to what she would be recommended to eat. And it was staggering the amount of food she was putting away. But you said in order for her to sustain all these puppies and maintain good health and pass it on in the milk and so forth Mm.
And be able to maintain her own wellbeing, there was a lot of food - That was phenomenal. I must say - She ate like a rottweiler - For a 13 kilo, or she probably bulked up to about 14 kilos after a pregnancy for a 14 kilo dog. She was consuming more calories per day then I consume on a daily basis. Yep. - But she didn't look, she didn't look fat when she was having it. Well, - She had eight puppies. She had to, you know, - She was, she really needed everything she was getting.
- She needed that energy. So Glen and I were up literally around the clock every three to four hours. We were trying to get food into her. Yep. - Waking her up and feeding her and Yep. - Waking ourselves up. Yep. Not that we slept much for that first little - Bit. No, that was an experience. - Anyway, better get back to the topic. So the guidelines, you know, they should be considered just one piece of the puzzle of what we feed our dogs.
And before I sort of get into the details of how companies can actually go about making that claim on their labels, Mm-Hmm. I thought I'd just touch really briefly on who's behind it. So you've got Afco, they're the Association of American Feed Control Officials. So they're a private US organization that establishes non-binding guidelines for the production of pet foods and animal feeds in general, but in the US Mm-Hmm. that many other countries sort of adopt their guidelines.
But again, a lot of people may not realize that afco, they don't enforce their guidelines, they don't inspect or regulate anything. They don't test and analyze the foods of those companies that claim to sort of meet the afco guidelines. They're just basically aiming to minimize the risk of malnutrition.
Mm-Hmm. in dogs by outlining minimum and some maximum nutrient levels that they know problem is no one, not even afco, like really know what the biologically optimum levels of the different nutrients are. So they admit that the guidelines for the most part are just sort of a collection of educated guesses and opinions. Right. You know, based, I mean, it's based on some research and science Mm-Hmm. . But we don't truly know what our dogs need. Like what's optimal for our dogs. Yep.
The other thing is that in Australia, the pet food industry is self-regulated. So there's a set of voluntary standards for pet food manufacturing and marketing. So while compliance with the Australian standard is sort of encouraged, it's not mandatory. Mm-Hmm. . And if there is a problem with a pet food in Australia, there's no one to enforce the recall. So it's up to the goodwill of the manufacturer to recall a problem food off. - It's in a fact, even now with all the issues
that happened with those dogs. Well, - That's my understanding, at least in the us like the FDA again, you know, I think can enforce recalls. Mm-Hmm. , but I don't think we have that same level of regulation. Mm. Um, I mean, people let me know on, on the Facebook page if I've got it wrong, but that's, I'm pretty sure that's still the case in Australia because - There was a brand of dog food, which I won't name.
It was under a banner of a company and a brand of dog food that led to a lot of dogs having some sort of tracker issue. - Oh, the esophagitis. - Yeah. That's the one. Yeah. That was terrible. And that was linked back to a kibble. - Mm-Hmm. I mean there's many examples of similar things happening like that for recalls. Mm-Hmm. Now that you bring it up, the one that just really gets me is the fact that the FDA acknowledged that there's pentobarbital in pet food.
It's sort of used as a tranquilizer, but also as a euthanasia agent. Right. And it came about, you know, vets were complaining that the drug wasn't as effective as it used to be. So they thought, well maybe dogs are getting exposed to it at very low levels in the food that they're eating.
So the FDA actually did some studies and they came back and they said, yes, there is Penta Barba tool in pet food, dog food, but the levels are so low that it's unlikely to cause, you know, any serious health concerns. I think that's mind blowing. If that was like, we wouldn't accept that as human beings with our children, we wouldn't say, oh yeah. A little bit of pinda bar tool in, you know, in your lunch today. Don't worry about that. It's not gonna hurt you.
But um, for dogs, yeah. Apparently it's fine. I - Remember the big one back in the day was that pet foods were using a product called Aquin in their food. Like the parts per million for humans were so low of what a safe level was considered safe, but in pet food it was like 10 times that amount that they were saying that's safe for pets. Mm-Hmm. So there was concern, I dunno the actual look, I'm not, I'm not a scientist, I've never studied it.
I was basing it on research that people were putting up on the internet at the time, and this was 30 years ago. Mm. But certain dog foods were using a product called Quin as a stabilizer, and they said that, you know, it was for stabilizing things like rubber and all sorts of things like that. So on as listed as a product, it's listed as a flat out poison. So, Mm-Hmm. - Again, there's actually more examples than people would wanna know about of that sort of thing still happening.
Yep. I might have to do a podcast on Yeah. You - Might do a podcast. On - What reason those sort ingredients Yep. That are still actually in pet foods. And I mean, we are sort of gone a bit off topic, but like the melamine recall in 2007 at the, that was found in dog food and human like infant foods. - Infant baby powders. Yeah. And - At the end of it all, it became mandatory to test for it in infant food, but not in pet foods. Mm-Hmm. It's
- Just, it's double standards. Yeah, I was - Gonna say it's double standards, but people will be like, oh, you know, they're dogs but - Not to people who own them. Yeah, - That's right. - Yeah. To people who don't understand pet ownership, they're always ones, what are you worried about? It's just a dog. Mm-Hmm. I - Think we're fine. Most of our listeners will, um, - Understand. Yeah. The people who are listening to the show are dog related.
People they get that're is they're all the ones that are insulted by their family going, I dunno what you're crying about is just a dog. - Yeah. They're the ones that will be as outraged as we are about - Outraged. Completely. - Okay. So back on topic. Mm-Hmm. So there's three primary ways that are pet food can be labeled as complete and balanced. So the first way is if it meets the afco nutrient profiles by formal chemical analysis of the food.
So the label statement for these foods might say something like, you know, it's formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by afco dog food nutrient profiles for maintenance. Mm-Hmm. or for growth or for gestation, whatever life stage it's targeting. So what that means is like the food will meet all the minimums Mm-Hmm. set out by the standards and not exceed the maximums. But the issue I have with that is there's only a few maximum levels set for nutrients in dog foods.
So, you know, the key ones things like, um, you know, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin D, they've got maximum levels. But I could easily create a toxicity for a dog if I put too much iodine or too much zinc, you know? Mm-Hmm. , you know, dog food. But that's not taking into account. I mean, you'd like to think that common sense applies, but technically, as long as they're hitting those minimums and not exceeding those few maximums that are actually set, it's fine.
So it tells us that the nutrients are there, it tells us what level the nutrients are at, but it doesn't tell us if the nutrients are bioavailable. And it doesn't tell us if the food is palatable. Mm-Hmm. or digestible, you know, because that's not what they're actually assessing with that method. It's funny, I actually read online once that, you know, you could create a dog food made of cardboard and shoe leather and sump oil and a bit of like blood and bone fertilizer.
Throw in a bit of a vitamin and mineral premix and it'll probably pass with flying colors. - That's a traumatic thought. - That's the thing. Because afco doesn't regulate the source of the nutrients in terms of what foods they come from. So, you know, the protein could be from meat or it could be from soy, it could be human grade or it could be rotting roadkill. Mm-Hmm. , you know, we just don't know which is what happened with that melamine recall back in 2007.
So melamine was used as sort of a substitute for protein because when they measure protein, they're not actually measuring the protein, they're measuring nitrogen and melamine. - So what is melamine? - It's a nitrogen based compound and it's used to create quite a few products, but, but you know, especially plastic based products. Mm-Hmm. . And it was substituted for things like wheat, gluten and rice, gluten, and a lot of those vegetable proteins to bump up the protein level.
So the food looked like it was, you know, higher quality with more protein, but it was, you know, melamine. So it's just used - For bulking. Yeah. - Just to make the food look better. Wow. And it's probably cheaper. I'd imagine a lot cheaper as well.
Yep. So, you know, we need to question whether a food that just meets the chemical analysis is actually providing our dogs with excellent nutrition, or just really depends on the company that's producing their food and their, their ethics in terms of the quality of, of what they're putting in there. Technically I could eat a synthetically enhanced like meal replacement protein bar three times a day for the rest of my life. Mm-Hmm. and I'll survive.
But that's not my definition of good nutrition. Mm-Hmm. . And it just reminds me, I can't believe I'm gonna say this . So , if we think about that, like this happened, uh, 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago. Mm-Hmm. . I went through a phase, not too dissimilar to that, you know, I went through a phase where I was addicted to protein bars. I was still eating my regular like three meals a day. I was having breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But in between every meal and in the evenings, I don't know why, but I was addicted to these. They weren't even good quality protein bars. Mm-Hmm. . But during that time, I constantly felt like I was nine months pregnant with triplets. Mm-Hmm. , you know, I was constipated. But the worst thing is, and I'm Glen can attest to this. Mm-Hmm. . And I'm so sorry. I'm so happy our marriage survived. Yep. But I had the most toxic gas Mm-Hmm.
, you can imagine. Yep. - I had to come into the room with a canary and a cage and if the canary died, I had to run straight out. And that was often the case. Went through a lot of canaries, . - I wasn't a naturopath back then. I went and saw my naturopath and she's like, you've gotta get off those protein bars. And you know, I did and everything settled down and it's been fine since, but - We'd had to repaint the room and the kids down the road had deformation and everything.
It was terrible. Okay. , - My point is just because something's labeled of food, just because something's labeled as nutritionally sort of complete and balanced for our dogs, it doesn't mean it's good quality. Mm. And if we think, you know, so many dogs have gastrointestinal issues going on and is a lot of their diarrhea and stinky gas Yep. Because of the food they're eating. Hmm.
- Well that makes sense. - The other thing is the NRC, so they're the National Research Council and they're similar in a way to afco, they're a private nonprofit organization and they also establish minimum sort of and maintenance nutrient requirements for dogs.
But they've actually put a caution statement out about the guidelines because they acknowledged that in some cases the requirements have been established on the basis of studies in which the nutrients used were like highly purified single nutrients. And they know that, you know, in real life ingredients and their nutrients are impacted by the interactions of all the different dietary constituents.
So once something goes through processing or you know, interacts with something else in the food, they say it may not actually be meeting the nutritional needs of our dogs. Mm-Hmm. , it's good that they acknowledge that at least batches can vary from one batch to the next. In terms of the exact ingredients used, manufacturers aren't actually required to test every batch and they can even change the ingredients on a label.
Like they can change the ingredients without changing the label for up to six months. So again, we don't always know exactly what our dogs are getting. Mm-Hmm. . So that's the first method of how food can be labeled as complete and balanced. Okay. The next one is bypassing an afco feeding trial. So if a food passes a feeding trial, it will state on the label that it's, you know, an animal feeding trial test.
You know, using afco procedures substantiate that this diet provides complete and balanced nutrition for whatever life stage that the dog's in. If a food passes a feeding trial, it doesn't actually matter whether or not it passes the chemical analysis method. People need to keep that in mind. And it works the other way around too. A food can pass the chemical analysis but fail at a feeding trial and still be nutritionally adequate.
Oh wow. Okay. That'll make a bit more sense when I talk about the feeding trial. So just because of food passes a feeding trial, because it doesn't have to show in black and white that all those minimums are met and the maximums aren't exceeded. It could be deficient or it could be excessive in certain nutrients. Like that's not what they're looking at in the feeding trial. Mm-Hmm. really acute, like serious deficiencies in excesses will generally become apparent.
But that's generally not the problem. You know, over the lifetime of a dog, it's normally those sort of just suboptimal below range or above range, that's going to generally cause more problems over time. To give an example, if we look at an adult maintenance diet, the protocol for that requires a minimum of eight healthy dogs. Mm-Hmm. Over a year of age. So for those who understand statistics or clinical trials, you know, eight dogs isn't really a significant number.
Mm-Hmm. And what's worse is that a maximum of two dogs, so technically 25% of the study population can actually drop out of the trial for a variety of reasons. And it doesn't impact the trial going ahead. So, - So down to six dogs now. Yeah. - So if we think about that, you know, six dogs completing a feeding trial and the maintenance trial goes for 26 weeks. Mm-Hmm. , this is a food that could potentially be fed to millions of dogs around the world for generations.
Mm-Hmm. And only six dogs are required to prove that it's a suitable food. Yep. That concerns me a little bit with the protocol. Mm-Hmm, - Absolutely. Geez. I hope they're not doing that with our covid testing - . And the other thing is, the authorities think that 26 weeks is enough time to see anything major. You know, any major red flags come up with the food. Mm-Hmm. it ensures that it's actually edible, like it's palatable to the dogs, things like that.
Yep. So the dogs obviously only eat that food for the 26 weeks. They have access to water at the beginning and at the end of the trial period they get physical exams by a vet. They have some blood tests taken, but the protocol only requires four blood markers to be assessed and their hemoglobin Paxil volume, alkaline phosphatase and albumin.
Mm-Hmm. . But if our dogs had a health problem or if we were just concerned about our dogs and we wanted to get a checkup at our vets, you know, our vets, most vets would do like a full blood chemistry panel, a complete blood count. They would check the urine, they would check the stools, but none of that's compulsory with a feeding trial. So there's so much information that just isn't looked at.
- So basically what you're saying without saying it, is that the bare minimum is done just to make sure it gets to market. - The bare minimum is done to make sure the dogs don't die. Mm-Hmm. and the food gets to market. Right. Look, companies can choose to go above and beyond the minimum standards set out in the protocol. - And do they - Well, that's the thing.
Looking at the label, there is no way to know whether, because some companies have done, and I can't remember the names to give examples off the top of my head, but some companies have done like 10 year feeding trials, basically. Mm-Hmm. with dogs in homes on their foods to prove their adequacy and their health. - Yep. Well that's substantial. - But if you look at the label, it will say exactly the same wording as for a brand that had six dogs for 26 weeks and did the bare minimum.
Right. So that's a shame that those companies that do go above and beyond on their packet Mm-Hmm. , we can't see the difference. But you know, that's generally where their website will probably be promoting sort of all of the extra stuff they do. And, - And the average pet owner wouldn't be educated to look for any of this either. I mean, all they're looking for is a product that they feel is safe. They're trusting the brand, not the ingredients.
You know, they're trusting what they pick up on the shelf and what looks nice and if the colors are appealing and the puppies on the front look cute. And the reason I know this is because I've asked people, why'd you buy that food? Yeah. I said, oh, it's a brand. You know, like vets sell this. - Yeah. I've read, um, somewhere that companies probably spend more on the labeling and the packaging than the food itself. 'cause that's what draws people in. Of - Course it is.
People love the pretty pictures. Yep. The pictures, the colors. - And that's what my point is about today. Just because as food says, complete imbalance, you know, it doesn't mean it's gonna give your dog what it needs. Mm-Hmm. it could certainly create problems for your dog. The other thing with the feeding trial is because there's so much they don't test at the beginning in terms of blood tests.
You know, a dog might have, let's say a dog's got particularly high stores of vitamin A in its body prior to starting the test. And then it's fed a food that's suboptimal in vitamin A and then it gets to the end of the 26 weeks. But there's no sign of deficiency because it just happened to have like super awesome stores of vitamin A. Mm-Hmm. . So you've got through that period no problem.
But another dog over a five year period or you know, whatever time period might develop signs of vitamin A deficiency because their stores are lower to begin with. You know, so there's all these little bits and pieces that mm, just sort of aren't factored in. So that's the first and the second method. So you've got your chemical analysis. Mm-Hmm. , then you've got your feeding trial. And in an ideal world, a company would do both.
They would do the feeding trial to prove that it's palatable and then they would do the chemical analysis to prove that it meets the minimums and doesn't exceed the maximums. - I guess that was a question I was gonna ask you is if you were in control, if you were the person who got to make the decision on it, what would you do? - Like what would I look for or what would I - Well you are saying that some of these people have minimum standards that are, are quite low.
There's a minimum to their minimum standard. Yeah. What would you do as a expert in health and nutrition? What would you recommend is the minimum standard? Well, - In terms of the guidelines that exist, I think definitely doing both. Like doing the feeding trial and the chemical analysis. But then my whole personal opinion is just to avoid kibble altogether. Okay.
- . So, - And I guess I'm sort of focusing more on kibble today, but there are commercial raw food brands that are starting to do feeding trials to get that complete imbalance claim on their label because it's has such a powerful effect on dog owners because they just don't feel like they're doing the right thing by their dog if the food doesn't have that claim on it. Yeah. Even though I'm highlighting all the holes in the complete and balanced argument.
Mm. Raw food companies have sort of been forced to go in that direction now, just to give people peace of mind. Yep. So the third way is sort of the weakest of the three. And it's a, if a product resembles a product that's passed a feeding trial, so it's called the family designation and Company X might have put product Y through a feeding trial and it passed, and this other product in their range is close enough nutritionally to their lead product that passed the feeding trial.
Mm-Hmm. . So it can sort of - Get Oh, it can get dragged in with it. Yeah. - So it can have that claim. It's worded differently. It's gonna be worded along the lines of Diet X provides complete, I balance nutrition and is comparable in nutritional adequacy to product y, that sort of thing. Mm-Hmm. . So, but it can get that complete I balanced claim without passing a feeding trial and without having a chemical analysis. So - It's almost like a grandfather clause.
- Well if we think about it, we've just said a product that passes the afco feeding trial may not be hitting the minimums. Mm-Hmm. . And it could even potentially be having excessive levels of nutrients. So just because a product is, a product is similar to a product that passes a feeding trial, it could also be deficient and have excesses that we don't want. Right. So we don't really know what we're getting those family designations.
The product needs to be, you know, they've set guidelines of sort of the ballpark values that it needs to be in terms of the lead product. Mm-Hmm. in terms of like energy and protein and calcium and a few things. But it's not identical. So it's gonna vary nutritionally, but we don't know because it hasn't been tested. Okay. So that's a red flag for me too. Okay. Yeah.
So like I mentioned, like the recalls of pet foods due to nutrients, they don't happen a lot, but they do happen and they're sort of the exception to the rule. My concern is more about those suboptimal levels that we, you know, they're so subtle, the symptoms like the signs and symptoms that they develop over years and then we don't realize Mm-Hmm. , you know, that our dogs are suffering.
But in terms of recalls, like just back in 2018, there was a massive recall of pet food due to vitamin D toxicity. Yep. There's been multiple recalls over the years due to thymine deficiency. And thymine is vitamin B one. So this is interesting because there was a paper in 2017 and they actually looked specifically at thymine deficiency and they said that even with the complete I balanced claim, the risk for deficiency still exists because it's such a fragile vitamin Mm-Hmm.
. So it breaks down really easily with processing. Yep. And even in this paper, they acknowledged that a lot of companies will compensate for this by adding in excess levels of thymine before processing. But they, they went on to say that with all their testing and all their sort of analysis, a lot of those foods still didn't contain adequate levels. Wow. So again, we just don't know really what's in the foods that we are giving our dogs.
Mm-Hmm. There was also way back now a case of people being record due to excess methionine. So methionine and amino acid comes from protein and people might think, well, how do you even get a toxicity from, you know, from an amino acid? But this is what happens with commercial pet foods. You know, they isolate nutrients and put them back in.
And so things can easily go wrong when you're just dealing with individual nutrients rather than nutrients in whole foods that sort of balance each other out and sort of have checks and balances. We also need to consider, particularly with kibble, is the effect of storage. So when people buy kibble, more so, you know, for kibble buyers versus raw food feeders, because you know, when I feed raw, I know I've got a very limited window Mm-Hmm.
of, of, you know, number of days within which I need to feed that food before it goes off. Yep. Like it's really obvious, you know, if it goes rank ranted . Yeah. Mm. But with kibble, I don't know most people, and I'm guilty of this in, you know, years gone by too. We have a mindset of the kibble can just sit there in the bag indefinitely. Yep. Um, and we don't think too much about it, but as soon as you open that kibble bag, the nutrients start to break down.
As soon as heat and particularly oxygen, you know, gets to that food, you're gonna start to lose nutrition. So you feel buying bulk bags because it's more economical. The worst thing you can actually do is tip that food out of its pre-packaged bag into like a bin of some form. Mm-Hmm. , a lot of people do that. Yep. A lot of businesses, you know, like kennels will do that. Uh, a lot of private people because it's just easier to scoop out of a bin.
Mm-Hmm. . But the company's actually put a lot of resources into designing the bags and the inside of the bags to prevent oxidation. Yeah. Because, you know, that's the enemy of food and they want it to last on the shelf. Mm-Hmm. for, you know, a few years or a couple of years at least. But as soon as you get home and you open that bag, your food is degrading. And that can lead to all sorts of problems, not just nutrient deficiencies. - Yep. So your best advice is buy a suitable bag of food.
Like if you've got one dog, and rather than buy like an enormous bag of food that's gonna sit there for months, buy a smaller bag of food. Yep. - Go, go through it more quickly. Yep. And I do that, like it sometimes I'm like, oh, I could get this cheaper if I bought - A giant bag. Yeah. - Not that I'm buying kibble, but even some of the air dried, uh, or freeze dried products, I've still got that mentality like, don't buy the biggest bag. Yep. Buy the smaller bags and, and go through it.
And Steve Brown, a lot of people may have heard of him. He's like the, the godfather of raw food feeding. He was like the original man that sort of created the movement. Mm-Hmm. . He actually states quite, - I thought it was Dr. Ian Billinghurst. - Look, I don't know the timeline exactly off the top of my head for when each of them sort of came on the scene, but - Ian Billinghurst started at around about 28 years ago. Well give, give your dog a bone. That was the book that he put out.
- I've got in my head, Steve Ram was about 30 years ago. Okay. So maybe it was similar timeframe. Maybe - We can get them to have a fight. . Okay. , - Any who? - Um, only kidding, just joking. - What I was gonna say is that Steve Brown quite strongly states that once you open a kibble bag, it should be used within two to three weeks max. Mm-Hmm. , how many people could honestly say that they use a bag of kibble within two to three weeks. - Only people who have got multiple
dogs or very hungry dogs. Well then - Those people tend to buy bigger bags. That's right. And they sit there for longer. So, you know, the fats go rancid, everything just, you know, there's chances of increase. People - Wouldn't think of that. It's not a, it's not listed anywhere. Like it doesn't say it on the bag. There's no caution or instruction that that's going to happen. So unless you know, you dunno.
- That's right. And you know, the worst place you could s store kibble if you're feeding it, is in environments that are variable in their temperature. Like, you know, a shed, like an outdoor garage or shed, you know Mm-Hmm.
is a terrible place because it gets really super hot and it gets, you know, the cold's not a problem so much, but you know, that heat is just gonna destroy your food and then it's like an anti health food then because it's actually probably doing more damage to your dog to be feeding at rancid fats, for example. Yep. Anyway, that's sort of a bit off topic to the complete IMB balance.
Mm-Hmm. But even though, look, I'm not greatly impressed by the guidelines, but if I'm creating recipes for my dogs or for clients' dogs, I still do use the guidelines because even though they're not perfect, in my mind, some guidance is better than no guidance at all. And at least if I can meet those guidelines, I can be sort of a little bit confident that no major nutrient deficiency in and disease is gonna come up for that dog.
Yep. And I often hear the argument that, you know, human diets and human recipes aren't formulated to be complete and balanced, you know, for every meal that we eat. And that's true. But you know, we are in control of what we put into our mouths and I don't know anyone who has picked one meal that they're eating Mm-Hmm. for breakfast, lunch and dinner for every day for year after year after year. Yeah. We just don't do that. No, - That's right.
We have variation and we eat three times a day where we're getting dogs to usually eat once - Yeah. Once or twice a day, but often it's the same food over and over. Yep. And you know, my little soap box rant is always that as a population, we are doing terribly nutritionally. And you know, the, the surveys are showing that children as young as two years of age are showing nutritional inadequacies due to poor diets. Yep. - Yeah. Covid nineteen's making me fat , - Sorry.
That's a whole nother issue. So I guess my take home message for today is whatever you're feeding your dog, whether it's kibble, whether it's raw, you need to rotate your food. Mm-Hmm. . So you need to feed variety, you need to change up your brands. Yep. You need to change up the flavors within the brands. Yep. Because most people who feed kibble, they find a kibble that doesn't give their dog diarrhea, doesn't give their dog stinky gas, you know?
Yep. The dog likes to eat it and they just stick with it could be 10 years that that dog gets that food. Yep. Raw feeders, you know, have similar habits. Mm-Hmm. , because we're all creatures of habit. Again, they'll find a set of ingredients, they'll find a couple of recipes perhaps, that agree with their dog doesn't give their dog diarrhea. Yep. The ingredients are easy to buy from their local butcher or supermarket, but anything else is sort of a bit more challenging.
Mm-Hmm. . So they can't be bothered or it's too much effort. But it's really, really important that we give our dogs as much variety as possible to avoid the likelihood of nutritional deficiencies or excesses occurring. Because if you feed one food exclusively year after year and that food happened to have passed a feeding trial, but wasn't meeting the minimum standards for some nutrients Mm-Hmm.
, you know, you're doing your dog and injustice and similarly, that food could be too high in things, which is gonna cause problems as well. So take home message, rotate your foods. - Okay. That's food for thought. - Food for thought. So I think we'll leave it there for today, but if anyone's got any questions, they can post them on my Facebook page. So natural health for people and pets. Mm-Hmm. . You can also check out my website, natural health and nutrition.com au.
Mm-Hmm. . But yeah, I'd love to hear back from you about complete and balanced dog food. Yep. - Powerful topic. - Food for thought.