Dog Food!

Dr. Michael Kent speaks with Dr. Jenn Larsen on Dog Nutrition, Trends (Home-Cooked Meals and Grain Free Offerings), Industry standards and Pit falls. 

Transcript

The Vetrospective Podcast Season 01 Episode 02 - Dog Food
Dr. Michael Kent with Dr. Jenn Larsen
Dr. Kent:
Should I just buy the really expensive one because it's going to be the best?
Dr. Larsen:
No, food costs do not correlate with quality necessarily.
Dr. Kent:
Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Vetrospective. This is Dr. Michael Kent, a
professor from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and your host. Dog
food. Dog food and nutrition. What at first seemed so simple can actually be a
pretty complex topic. In my mind, what it boils down to, though, is what should I
feed my dog? Yes, and I do have a dog. So this is so fundamental to your dog's life.
Dog food and treats is also a huge industry. A quick Google search I did the other
day showed me that the US market alone is valued at $65 billion a year. That's a
huge number.
This combined with a lot of misinformation floating around out there, a lot coming
from really well-meaning people and places, means how do we sort this all out?
Should I feed kibble or wet, commercial or home-cooked? What about diet trends?
Should I feed grain-free diets or raw or low-carbohydrate foods? It can get
overwhelming.
So to try to help us sort all this out, I have asked, Dr. Jennifer Larsen to join us here
today.
Dr. Larsen earned her PhD in nutritional biology and her DVM from UC Davis. She
is a board-certified veterinary specialist in nutrition, and she's also service chief of
the nutrition service here at the hospital. She provides clinical nutritional consulting
and is director of an amino acid laboratory, mentors residents and students, and
teaches in our veterinary curriculum as well as for a graduate group.
Before we dive into these questions, I'm going to ask you something I ask a lot of
our guests. Why did you become a veterinarian and why nutrition?
Dr. Larsen:
Those are great questions. Thank you, Dr. Kent. I'm so happy to be here.
Dr. Kent:
Thank you.
Dr. Larsen:
I became a veterinarian essentially to do exactly what I'm doing now. I was not one
of those people that wanted to be a veterinarian for a long period of time because I
was pretty ignorant about what that meant. So I thought veterinarians essentially
gave vaccines and did spays and neuters. And that was pretty much the extent of
my knowledge of what that involved.
Dr. Kent:
Fair.
Dr. Larsen:
And so once I came to UC Davis as an undergraduate and then went on to do
graduate work and master's and started my PhD. I was working as a work study
student, which is one of the financial support mechanisms we have on main
campus. And that gave me the opportunity to work in some research labs alongside
veterinarians that were training to be specialists and that were doing research to
support their advanced training. And that really sparked my interest in the field and
opened my eyes to what was possible. And I thought, this is more like what I want
to do. So I actually didn't even apply to veterinary school until I was partly through
my PhD program and then ended up doing those concurrently and ultimately went
to college for 18 years.
Dr. Kent:
18 years. I don't even want to count how long I went to college. And I joke that I've
never left. You stay at the university. I go to school. I don't go to work, you know.
But so really, you kind of came to clinical medicine starting at research. So that
gives you an interesting perspective,
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, I like being curious about things. I like learning things. And I feel that the
more that I know and the further along I get in my career, not only am I hyper
specialized, like a lot of us here at the university, but we have the ability to just text
somebody or walk down the hallway and ask a question about something and being
around emerging knowledge and people that know a lot about something else is
great. It's the environment that I think a lot of us thrive in.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah. So this is pretty interesting, but I, and We could maybe do a podcast on that.
But I'm going to go back to feeding your dog. this is something that, like I said, is so
fundamental. So the simplest way that I think about it is I go buy a bag of dog food
either at the grocery store or box store or off the internet. But how do I tell if it's
good? Like there's thousands of different brands. Like we said, this is a multi-billion
dollar industry. So where do I even start?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, that's a big question. And we get that question all the time. There's so many
different marketing categories. And then within those marketing categories, different
forms of food.
Dr. Kent:
So marketing, marketing. So just explain that to me also, marketing versus nutrition.
We're talking about nutrition, not marketing.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, I mean, dog food, dog treats, pet supplies, it's a huge marketing category.
And there's a lot of purchasing power in the consumers that own dogs and cats and
a lot of people increasingly want to treat them like family. And so marketing is a
strategy that's used to essentially sell you an idea or a product, separate you from
your money in one way or another. And it's an entire discipline unto itself. But it's
pretty well established that the same sorts of marketing strategies and techniques
that are used to sell parents things for their children are used to sell pet supplies,
pet food, pet treats to pet owners.
Dr. Kent:
So how do I make sure I'm not giving them the high sugar? breakfast cereal, and
I'm giving them good nutrition, because that's important, obviously.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, nutrition is fundamental to maintaining health, prevention and treatment of
disease, and that's what we do every day. And I love talking about food, but it is
really more than food.
Dr. Kent:
I love eating it.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, it's the experience of eating it is very important too for us and for our pets.
But the nutrients themselves also have an important role here, and how we deliver
those nutrients can differ from food to food and from individual to individual. And so
I think that a lot of people try to take some of the ideas from human nutrition and
apply it to animal nutrition. And some of those are transferable, and that's
reasonable. And in other cases, it doesn't really work, like the schemes that we use
in human nutrition don't really work for pet nutrition. A lot of times when we're
feeding our pets, we're feeding complete and balanced diets, which we really only
employ for ourselves when it really matters, right? Like that's what baby formula is,
milk replacers. When we send people to space or in the ICU or there soldiers out in
harsh environments, that's when we use complete and balanced diets. But
otherwise, if you're just a normal, healthy human or even managing a chronic
disease, we sort of rely on people to make those choices for themselves every day.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, because sometimes I don't have veggies in the fridge and I might make a
less balanced meal, but then the next one I'll make up for it. Is that that's what you
kind of mean?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, and I think people feel like they're pretty good at balancing out their diets and
eating a wide variety, but from a population perspective, we're actually not that
good at that. And that's why so much of our food is enriched or fortified. So rice is
fortified, lots of cereals, certain dairy products that are lower in fat have to have
vitamins A&D, et cetera.
Dr. Kent:
Or why we put iodine in our salt.
Dr. Larsen:
Right, So those are sort of population-based approaches to solve common gaps in
what we're getting nutritionally.
Dr. Kent:
So I'm still wondering, Dr. Larsen, where we fit this in. Why can't I just go and get
some salmon, get some rice, maybe throw in a tablespoon of corn oil, because I
know we need some fatty acids, and cut up some broccoli. And that should be
enough for the dog, right? And if I feed that, isn't that going to be sufficient to really
maintain their life and give them good quality of food?
Dr. Larsen:
Well, we have to consider that dogs require about 40 essential nutrients.
Dr. Kent:
40.
Dr. Larsen:
And they all have to be present in very precise amounts and ratios to each other
and in a form that their body can actually use. And so in my opinion, the best use
and the biggest advantage of a home cooked diet is our ability to customize it. And
so as I'm sure all of your listeners are aware, dogs are the most diverse species in
terms of size. We have everything from Chihuahuas to Great Danes and extremes
on both of those ends. That is a huge difference in body size. And so making sure
that they're eating enough calories from each of the different components in their
diet, that we are supplementing their diet appropriately so that we're making sure
that all of the essential vitamins and minerals and amino acids and so forth are all
added are really important.
Dr. Kent:
Those are those 40 nutritional items you're talking about.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, there's fatty acids, there's amino acids, vitamins, minerals, there's some
vitamin-like substances ,as we refer to them. It's really important that they're all
present in appropriate amounts.
Dr. Kent:
Now, I'm going to fess up here. I don't feed my dog anything home cooked, but if
we wanted to put that in, we could think about that. 10% is a topper thing, right?
That might be a nice way to supplement it.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, I think a lot of people like to do that. And that's a fine way to offer variety. A
lot of dogs like fruits and vegetables, and they especially like things like meat and
peanut butter.
Dr. Kent:
Oh, anything that hits the floor, my dog eats. And you know, that's what s
Dr. Larsen:
Retrievers aren't known for their pickiness necessarily.
Dr. Kent:
So that's another thing. I feed my dog a Labrador retriever food. Why is there a
Labrador retriever food? Now he likes it and I'm like, great. But he also likes
anything. So I've obviously following for marketing or is there something that's
different than the golden retriever food from the, and I know there is because once
there wasn't Labrador retriever food and I bought golden retriever food.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, there's lots of different breed specific diets for different breeds of dogs and
cats. Some of that is marketing and some of it is based in science and actual like
firm foundations for doing that. So for example, the diets that are designed for the
animals that have sort of more of a round skull, those brachycephalic dogs and
cats, so bulldogs and Persians.
Dr. Kent:
The smushed face dogs we love so much.
Dr. Larsen:
Short muzzled dogs and cats.
Dr. Kent:
I used to have a pug.
Dr. Larsen:
Those kibbles are designed to be a specific shape and texture that makes it easier
for them to pick up so that they can get the food into their mouth and chew it more
appropriately. The diet that you feed your dog is meant to not have a lot of calories
for its weight to be a little bit more diluted out to prevent the weight gain. As you
know, retrievers tend to never believe that they're full and they love to overeat and
overweight is a big problem for them.
Dr. Kent:
I've timed my dog eating 47 seconds. That's his average. So he eats his food in 47
seconds.
Dr. Larsen:
And sometimes shorter.
Dr. Kent:
Sometimes shorter if we let him. But yeah, no, I get it. I get it. So I've done it again
and gone down a rabbit hole with you, but I want to bring us back to the grocery
store. I picked up a bag. I'm looking at the label. I'm going to ignore the marketing
because you warned me about that already, right?
Dr. Larsen:
That's hard to do.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, I know. I'm a sucker for it.
Dr. Larsen:
Everybody is.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, I'm looking at the label. What's on the label and what should I be looking for?
Dr. Larsen:
So the most important part of the label can actually be a very difficult thing to find,
and it's referred to as the nutritional adequacy statement.
Dr. Kent:
So is this kind of what's on my food when I go and buy something there? Is there
anything like that on the human food? Are we looking for something different?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, we're looking for something different. So human food is not meant to be the
sole source of nutrition for people. But complete and balanced pet foods are
intended to be the sole source of nutrition, or they can be fed that way. Treats are
an exception, and there are some unbalanced foods that aren't intended to be fed
every single day as the sole source of nutrition. So the nutritional adequacy
statement is required to be on pet foods that are not specifically labeled as a snack
or a treat. And it tells you three really important pieces of information. It tells you
whether the product has a complete and balanced claim, and that is a legal
definition. It's a claim. Secondly, it tells you how that claim was substantiated. And
I'll get back to that in a second.
Dr. Kent:
Perfect, because I need to know that.
Dr. Larsen:
The third thing that it tells you is the species and the life stage for which the diet is
intended. And so the life stage categories for dog and cat food are during growth,
so for puppies or kittens. Adults, and then reproduction. There's also an
overarching category called all life stages that can be fed to animals in all life
stages. So whether you're growing, adult, et cetera. But there isn't a separate
category for things like seniors, disease management, et cetera. So any claims for
those uses are going to essentially fall under marketing and they might differ
depending on the company's philosophy.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, so you were going to come back to something.
Dr. Larsen:
The substantiation.
Dr. Kent:
Big word. So, how do we substantiate this?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, so what that essentially just means is that the company is making a
statement that their food is complete and balanced for growth of kittens or
maintenance of adult dogs or something like that. So it's a species and life stage
specific claim. That claim has to be based on the food being formulated to meet a
specific nutrient profile, which is a regulatory guideline.
Dr. Kent:
Okay.
Dr. Larsen:
Or the food can go through a feeding test being fed to animals that are in that
specific life stage. And then there's certain testing done to make sure that the diet is
supporting them adequately.
Dr. Kent:
So which is better? Like if it says that it's formulated, is that good enough or should
it have gone through the trial you talked about?
Dr. Larsen:
Like so much in nutrition, the answer is going to be it depends. So there are pros
and cons to both of those methods. But ideally, a company would be formulating a
diet to meet some nutritional standard to have a target profile and then they would
be doing some sort of testing in an animal to make sure that the nutrients are
bioavailable, et cetera. Because just because it looks good on paper doesn't mean
that it's going to perform well.
Dr. Kent:
Bioavailable. Now, what do you mean in terms of nutrition? I know what meaning
bioavailable means your body can actually absorb it and use it, but why is that an
issue?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, that's an issue because if you analyze a specific food for specific nutrient
profile in a laboratory, you're essentially figuring out how much of that nutrient is
present in that food.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, how much calcium is located in a cup of dog food?
Dr. Larsen:
Right, right exactly. So you could do a chemical analysis, you could figure out that
value, how many grams of calcium are in this cup of dog food. But how much your
dog is actually absorbing and using is a different number because it's not going to
be 100%. And calcium actually isn't that available depending on the form. Maybe
you're absorbing 30% of it. And so those numbers are pretty well defined, but
understanding how that specific food performs in a specific animal is really, really
important.
Dr. Kent:
And do you think we know what the nutritional requirements of dogs are? Is that
pretty well established now over time?
Dr. Larsen:
It's pretty well established for the typical foods that we are using in dogs. Now,
there is some caution to that statement because we are often using data from
specific situations and applying it to other situations.
Dr. Kent:
That's what we do with everything in life.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, of course. Yep. And so we're learning more and more about other compounds
that might be considered essential under certain circumstances, or maybe there's
an interaction between nutrients or maybe under a disease state. So there's always
more to learn, but we have the basics down pretty well.
Dr. Kent:
So I'm going to bring you back to the grocery store again. I'm standing with this bag
here and I'm finding the nutritional adequacy statement. And what is, what am I
looking for exactly? What's going to be written there to tell me I should, it's okay to
buy this bag of dog food?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, so you want to think about the pet that you have at home. So do you have a
growing puppy? Do you have an adult dog that doesn't have any health problems?
Or maybe your vet has sent you to the store to look for a specific kind or type of
food. And so you're keeping those things in mind. If you have a healthy adult dog,
as you mentioned already, there are thousands of different appropriate options. So
you're essentially looking for a dog food that has a complete and balanced claim to
cover the needs of adult dogs.
Dr. Kent:
Okay. And is there a specific wording I should be looking for?
Dr. Larsen:
It'll say something like, this diet is formulated to meet the dog nutrient profiles or
animal feeding tests substantiate that this product supports this life stage.
Dr. Kent:
Okay. And I'm now thinking like, I see this bag and it costs $70. This bag costs $90.
This bag costs $110. Should I just buy the 110? Because you actually, full
disclosure, Dr. Larsen knows me quite well. Jen is my good friend. She knows my
dog. So should I just buy the really expensive one because it's going to be the
best?
Dr. Larsen:
No, food costs do not correlate with quality necessarily. There's so much that goes
into how much a food costs. Some of it is the volume that the company is selling,
what kind of outlets they're selling it through. Is it only online? Is it only through
specialty stores? Are they selling it through grocery stores, et cetera? And then the
size of the bag, so a bigger bag is going to cost less per pound than a smaller bag.
There's also factors like is it a diet that needs to be refrigerated or frozen? Is it a
canned diet? Those are way more expensive. So in general, if we want to think
about the kinds of diets that are available out there, a kibble diet is by far the most
popular, it's the most commonly used, and it's the most cost effective. Partly that's
because it's dry, so you're not paying for water and for shipping.
Dr. Kent:
And you're not shipping water or preserving water.
Dr. Larsen:
And the packaging is much less expensive as well.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah. That makes sense. So should I be feeding any of these refrigerated foods
then if they're better? Are they necessarily any better or they look fresher? I see
them, I see people bring them in.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, people really like the idea of having a quote unquote fresh diet. And there's
lots of these homemade style commercial diets out there, and they're very
aggressively marketed. I think all of us that are on social media have gotten ads for
those. We don't have any proof that they're better, and they're certainly going to be
way more expensive. There are also concerns about nutritional sustainability in
terms of the types of ingredients that we put in those foods. A lot of them are
claiming to be human grade, which has a definition that essentially just describes a
process. It doesn't differentiate nutritional value or quality.
Dr. Kent:
So human grade, meaning it's what I go and buy at the grocery store.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, it's essentially a food that is competing with the human food chain for those
same things. And that sounds good. Like people like that. That word definitely has a
health halo, but it's meaningless in terms of quality and nutritional value. And that's
because it's just a regulation term about who is in charge of regulating those
specific ingredients. If you consider animals, where we're getting a lot of our
nutrients from, for ourselves and for our pets, there are plenty of parts of an animal
that humans can't or won't eat, right.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, we either decide that it's not socially acceptable to eat this part of it, or we're
vegetarians, so we don't eat any of it, but yes.
Dr. Larsen:
Right. Yeah, and I mean, to be fair, the difference is in what we consider food
among the things that are edible is arbitrary. There are generational differences.
There are cultural differences. There are economic differences. And so a lot of
people don't eat organs the way that we used to. Like our grandparents all ate
organs, right? And lots of cultures, organs are very popular still. But there's a-
Dr. Kent:
Chopped liver.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, right. Liver and onions for Sunday dinner.
Dr. Kent:
We didn't have liver and onions, but I loved chopped liver growing up. Sorry.
Anyway.
Dr. Larsen:
And those organs are very palatable for dogs and cats too. And they have a A lot
more nutritional value than muscle meat.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, so let's say I go into the store and I go, you know what? This is confusing. I'm
just gonna cook for my dog. I'm just gonna feed my dog what I eat at every meal. Is
that... an acceptable way to feed your dog.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, a lot of people are very interested in home cooking for their pets. And
formulating homemade diets is something that I spend a lot of my professional
career doing. Most of the time, that's because there's a medical need for that,
meaning that the patients that we're managing have a combination of diseases
where there isn't a suitable therapeutic diet, or the pet has decided that the
available therapeutic diets are a no.
Dr. Kent:
I.e. they don't taste good to them.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, either because of the underlying disease or the medications that we're giving.
We do a lot of things in the treatment and management of disease that affect
appetite and sensory aspects of liking and choosing to consume food.
Dr. Kent:
Taste.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, of course.
Dr. Kent:
Or smell with dogs also, right? Absolutely. Smell is going to be really important for
dogs.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah.
Dr. Kent:
Sometimes the worst smell, the better.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes. We're not always aligned with what smells and tastes good.
Dr. Kent:
So let's say I want to feed my dog and I have my oatmeal or toast for breakfast and
then for lunch I had some of last night's dinner and then I just split my meal with
him. Is that an okay way to go?
Dr. Larsen:
Well, small amounts of table foods are fine.
Dr. Kent:
No, I mean, if we're just going to feed him like that.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, so that wouldn't be a balanced diet. So our general guideline is that we don't
want more than 10% of the calories to be coming from an unbalanced source. Now,
that could be table foods that you're sharing. That could be dog treats. toppers that
you're adding to the diet. There's even a lot of calorie-containing supplements like
fish oil, for example.
Dr. Kent:
I was going to ask you about that later, so we'll get there.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, I mean, oils are fat and they provide a lot of calories, but they don't provide
the full complement of the 40-ish essential nutrients that dogs require. And so it's
really important that we're feeding a balanced diet. So when I'm formulating a
home-cooked diet that is balanced, I'm making sure that I'm providing supplements
to sort of fill in the gaps between what's coming from the base ingredients of the
protein and the fiber source, the fat source, et cetera, and what the animal needs.
So that's going to require, if I'm using human supplement products, between 4 and
8 different products. You can't just chuck in a multivitamin and consider it balanced.
So there's a lot to consider. And as you know, we've done some work looking at
homemade diet recipes. And a lot of that has been supported by the school's
Center for Companion Animal Health. And so we've done quite a few studies
looking at the recipes that our clients have access to, because we were seeing so
many people use them and we were pretty concerned about that.
Dr. Kent:
So why were you concerned about them? What, like, you know, they're coming
from reputable sources, I suppose, either veterinarians or, you know, you find them
on the internet. Aren't they good at supporting life? I mean, can't you just formulate
a recipe?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, I think that a lot of people think it's pretty easy. You just mix foods or you can
just use a ratio.
Dr. Kent:
I'll just go get hamburger at the store and I am seriously. So enlighten me, Dr.
Larsen, please.
Dr. Larsen:
A lot of those recipes are pretty vague. So maybe they say, Two cups of chicken.
Okay, is that light meat? Is that dark meat? Is it thigh, breast? Does it include the
bone in the skin? Does it not include the bone in the skin? Is that the raw amount?
Is that the cooked amount? How are you cooking it? If you cook it, are you including
the drippings or are you discarding the drippings? So as you can imagine, once you
start thinking through all those details, there's a lot of different factors that can
change what ultimately ends up in the bowl. So the vague parts of recipes were
pretty concerning to us. They were also clearly missing sources of important
essential nutrients, like there wasn't a source of calcium. And so we looked at this
in pretty systematically in a few studies. We looked at 200 dog study, dog recipes in
one study. We looked at almost 100 cat recipes in another study. And we found by
far very, very few of the recipes that are available online or in books, even if they're
written by veterinarians or are in veterinary textbooks, have enough problems that
we don't recommend sort of those general or generic recipes.
Dr. Kent:
So you mean that they're missing a key nutrient, a key enzyme, a key something
that's not going to support life on its own.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, at least one.
Dr. Kent:
At least one.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, so the study that we did when we looked at 200 dog recipes, we found that
about 83% of those were missing more than one essential nutrient.
Dr. Kent:
Wow, that's pretty impactful.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah.
Dr. Kent:
All right, you've convinced me I shouldn't be cooking for my dog. I should really
stick with dog food that's available, commercial dog food, just me. I mean, some
people want to do that and that's okay. But it sounds like they should speak to a
veterinary nutritionist before they do. So call for help, right?
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, that's what we're here for. We're happy to help guide people that want to or
considering cooking for their pets.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, so maybe we'll put the link in the summary for this episode so they can figure
out how they can either talk to you or have their veterinarians request counsel. All
right, I'm back in the dog food aisle. I'm reading this. I see there's a nutritional
summary statement and I'm happy with it. I see an ingredient list. Who's controlling
all this? Who regulates it? Again, I'm a little skeptical because this is, like I said, this
is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Dr. Larsen:
Pet food is actually pretty highly regulated, especially compared to human food. I
think people really don't appreciate the levels of regulation that are going on. So
there is some regulation going on at the federal level from the FDA.
Dr. Kent:
Oh, so the Food and Drug Administration, who controls everything from drugs to
meat and everything, well, that's agriculture, but still, it covers a lot of the food we
eat, also covers pet food.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, absolutely. There are lots of veterinarians that work for the FDA. And as far
as pet food goes, their main interests are making sure that pet food is truthfully
labeled. So consumer protection in terms of understanding what they're buying, that
it's not contaminated with harmful substances. And so the FDA does have the
power to pressure companies to do a voluntary recall. They also have the power to
do a mandatory recall. So they will respond to complaints. They do have a
laboratory network to sort of investigate contaminants and consumer complaints.
There's a portal where you can report problems. And then they also have rules
related to processing, safe processing, temperature of canning and those kinds of
things. The majority of the regulation, though, is going on at the state level. And
that's where AFCO comes into play. So some people may have heard the term
AFCO.
Dr. Kent:
AFCO, can you tell me what that means?
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, that stands for the Association of American Feed Control Officials. Now, AFCO
is not a regulatory body themselves. They are an advisory body, but their members
are made-up of a lot of the state feed control officials. So every state has their own
feed control unit at the level of the state government. So in California with the
CDFA, the California Department of Food and Ag.
Dr. Kent:
And that would cover everything from dogs, cats, to horses, to cattle, to even, you
know, all the food production animals.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, all of all the animal foods. And as you can imagine, there is a lot more focus
on livestock in terms of it being a food supply for people and making sure that there
aren't drug residues and those kinds, or infectious diseases and those kinds of
problems. But so pet food is still regulated at the state level. And so the state feed
control officials then will look at what AAFCO is presenting in terms of model feed
laws. And so what that means is that every year, AAFCO publishes a book called
The Official Publication, and that book has model feed laws in it. And those laws
include everything from the nutritional profiles that the diets have to meet in order to
say that they're okay for growth or for adults or reproducing animals. They have
ingredient definitions, so if a food doesn't have an ingredient definition, you can't put
it into an animal diet.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, so that helps ensure that it's safe at least.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, there are definitely definitions for what's allowed to be in pet food and what's
not allowed to be in pet food.
Dr. Kent:
So you're not like putting melamine in there or something like that as a filler to look
like there's more protein than there is.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, and there's a big focus on avoiding drug residues, of course, either
antibiotics or euthanasia drugs and those kinds of things. There's a zero tolerance
policy for those contaminants.
Dr. Kent:
And obviously for pet foods, that's really essential too.
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah. So we think they're pretty safe and we think they're fairly well regulated. You
know, it's ,It's really down to then preferences if you want to feed a wet or a dry, if
you want to feed one of these refrigerated foods, as long as they've got the
nutritional labels on there saying, you know, and it sounds to me like you're going to
go pretty well as long as the food's labeled correctly. Are the labels enforced? Do
people check them?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, so that's a good question. A lot of the regulation which is done at the federal
and state level is then sort of left up to like the local officials to monitor and enforce.
However, so much of the responsibility and that onus to make sure that companies
are making safe and healthful pet foods and that they're meeting their claims comes
down to the manufacturers themselves. So they have a huge responsibility. It's
really important that they have the expertise and the money to engage in a lot of
involved quality control, research and development, and all of those other aspects
of having a pet food that is safe. So that's why we recommend buying pet food that
is made by a large experienced manufacturers, just like when you buy a car or a
dishwasher or anything else.
Dr. Kent:
So it sounds like it's a lot of self-regulation too.
Dr. Larsen:
And they're testing each other's foods all the time.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, so that's why you're suggesting that maybe one of the more established
companies may be safer than a small boutique one, which may not either have the
expertise or may not do the testing they're supposed to.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, they might not even know what's important. So that the level of expertise is
really important. You want to have formulation experts, legal experts, toxicology
experts, processing experts on your team, and they should be employees of your
company so that you know that you're making a safe and nutritious pet food.
Dr. Kent:
So it's all very interesting. And again, it makes it a little bit more complex, right?
This is a lot to think about when you're making a diet that's going to be 100% of
their nutrition.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, and unfortunately, there isn't a lot of transparency in the pet food industry
because it's so competitive. Companies are pretty secretive about some of the
palatants they use to make their food taste good. they want to have that competitive
advantage and those kinds of things.
Dr. Kent:
I mean, that happens in human food too, right?
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, the secret formula for a drink or something.
Dr. Larsen:
Right, or the 11 herbs and spices or, you know, all those things. And so I think that
consumers can get sort of lost and they don't understand, how do I look at
information and decide, is this just marketing or is this something that's actually
useful information? And you're really relying on the reputation of the company. And
that's why marketing and the way that marketing interacts with the way our brains
work psychologically is such an important part of making decisions about pet food
purchasing.
Dr. Kent:
I know we're going to run out of time, but over the years, I've seen a number of fads
and pet food diets, dog food particular, and people too also, right? Okay, first, raw. I
know it's controversial. I've heard the argument that this is what wild dogs and
wolves eat. So is it safe? Is it better nutritionally? But enlighten me, Dr. Larsen,
enlighten me.
Dr. Larsen:
There are a lot of aspects to that. So the fact of the matter is, that dogs did not
evolve as hunters. They evolved as scavengers. So dogs have lived alongside
people for thousands and thousands of years. The vast majority of the dogs in the
world today still live the way dogs evolved, where they're sort of loosely associated
with human settlements. They live off our handouts, our garbage dumps, et cetera.
They are very good at fulfilling that niche. In fact, they are out-competing some wild
canids in some areas, like the Ethiopian wolf is endangered. Dogs are doing very
well in that specific setting. And so I think people have this naturalistic appeal to
that idea that it is natural, but we don't actually want natural when it comes to our
lives or our pets' lives.
Dr. Kent:
Why? You know, like, isn't a wolf going to be very similar to my dog? This is my
softball question to you.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, wolves and dogs are pretty similar and we share a lot of the same DNA, just
like we do with bonobos and chimpanzees, right? But our goals for our pets are
longevity. We want them to live well into their late teens and beyond if possible,
right? And lifespans for people and for dogs have been lengthening and
lengthening over time because of preventative medicine, infectious disease control,
better nutrition, et cetera. From an evolutionary perspective, what would be natural
would be to reproduce as early as possible and then make offspring that are better
than you for the environment that you're in. And then ideally you would die and get
out of the way and stop competing for resources.
Dr. Kent:
I don't want my dog going away anytime soon.
Dr. Larsen:
That's not what we want for our pets. A lot of people don't want their pets to
reproduce. which is probably a good thing. We want them to live a long period of
time. We want them to be healthy. So our goals are decidedly not natural for our
pets. And that's okay.
Dr. Kent:
So natural raw food, where's the problem with this?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, so the other thing about raw diets is, are they beneficial? Right? So I think
that if we thought about it critically, we could agree that they're not natural in a lot of
ways. But in terms of them being beneficial, there is no evidence that raw diets are
of any benefit. And any benefit that somebody sees when they're using a raw diet is
not related to the fact that the meat is raw. It's often...
Dr. Kent:
It's not a better coat. It's not these things that people attribute it to them.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, those are related to the diet is higher in fat probably. So that's why the coat
looks so great, right? The diet doesn't have a lot of fiber. That's why the stools are
smaller. A lot of owners like that they can identify what's in the diet. And that's just
because they're afraid of ingredients because of fear mongering type marketing.
Dr. Kent:
So it looks like meat, it looks like carrots are in there.
Dr. Larsen:
Correct, yeah. And so the fact that we don't have any specific benefits related to the
rawness of the diet per se, we contrast that with the flip side of that coin, which is
that we do have some concerns. So a lot of raw diets are not balanced, and that
goes for home-prepared raw diets as well as some commercial diets. There are
some balanced commercial raw diets, but there are also lots of companies that
make raw diets without a complete and balanced claim, and they're sort of aiming
for a rotational strategy or not making any claim about how to achieve a raw diet
whatsoever. So that's a concern, but that's something that's easy to fix. Balancing
the diet is not hard.
Dr. Kent:
We just need a veterinary nutritionist.
Dr. Larsen:
Right. You need somebody on your commercial team or that's formulating a home
prepared diet to balance it. It's not that hard. The harder part is pathogen control.
So there's a reason why we don't eat raw meat, right? Sushi accepted, but there
are.
Dr. Kent:
Steak tatar if you fall into that category, right?
Dr. Larsen:
But there's still, you know, for sushi grade fish, it has to be frozen at a certain
temperature to control pathogens. Like there's still processes. And so for raw pet
foods and for raw meat that's sold in the grocery store that people are feeding at
home, we have a lot of concerns about the pathogenic bacteria that are present.
And the four that we're mostly concerned about, of course, are salmonella, E. coli,
listeria, and campylobacter. Those are the four baddies. Those are the ones that
cause a lot of sickness, food poisoning in ourselves. A lot of us have experienced
that. You might not know exactly what bug that was that made you sick, but we're
all very familiar with that.
Dr. Kent:
How often does that happen, though? Is that common? That happens in raw diets
or.
Dr. Larsen:
It's common in people. There is data on the USDA website that has information for
all of those different bacteria and the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths every
year that happen from those food poisoning events. And as far as pets go and their
exposure to those pathogens, there are recalls regularly for commercial raw diets.
There are lots of reports of illnesses. Lots of veterinarians have treated those
illnesses. We also know that those dogs, even if they don't become sick
themselves, they're passing those pathogens and their feces. And there's a growing
body of literature documenting that those pathogens are increasingly antibiotic
resistant. And that's a huge concern for us as veterinarians and in terms of our
interaction with public health and the fact that we need to have antibiotics as an
important tool for human illness.
Dr. Kent:
So if you have someone who's immunocompromised at home and they're feeding a
raw diet to their dog, they could actually wind up giving themselves a resistant
bacterial infection.
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely. And there have been lots of documented illnesses and even death in
people that have been exposed to raw diets or the pets that are eating those raw
diets.
Dr. Kent:
Now let's say, now obviously I am somewhat aware of this and I know that our
hospital will not feed raw in the hospital because we're concerned about getting a
bacterial, you know, contamination in our hospital that's permanent. So we cannot
hospitalize a dog who's got a raw diet now because of the risk. But where do we,
draw the line? What if we freeze dry it? I know some places will freeze dry raw, or
I've had a client tell me that they buy the raw diet and then they cook it.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, there are lots of mechanisms that people are trying to establish to make raw
diets safer. So freeze drying is one way to do that. And freeze drying is a way to
preserve some types of bacteria. And it will stop the active reproduction of the
bacteria that are there, but it's not going to result in a sterile diet. We still don't have
a pathogen kill step necessarily. And there have been recalls of freeze-dried raw
diets. And a lot of treats are actually raw, freeze-dried treats, and owners don't
realize that they're raw. And it can be difficult to find that information. I have spent a
lot of time calling manufacturers to try and find that out. There's also a method
called HPP, which can stand for high pressure pasteurization or high pressure
processing. That's the same process that human food undergoes. Like if you buy
the cooked pulled pork that are in those like sealed plastic containers or sliced
cheese that's on a tray covered in plastic, that same process is subjected to our
food. And so that's been used for raw diets as well. But there are some pressure-
resistant Salmonella species. Some diets that have been subjected to that
processing method still have been recalled for pathogenic bacteria contamination.
So does that mean that they're getting contaminated after that step? Does that
mean that pet food is not a great matrix for that technology? Are there pressure-
resistant organisms? There's still a lot to be worked out. There is some progress in
that area, though. So hopefully we can increase the safety of those foods going
forward. I don't see that segment of pet food going away.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, what about the grain-free craze, another fad that we've seen? I know that I've
seen a lot of over the last few years, especially as an oncologist, there's this idea
that a low carbohydrate diet may be better for cancer. So enlighten me again,
please.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, grain-free is a marketing category that's been quite popular in pet foods. And
we've been feeding grain-free diets for decades.
Dr. Kent:
Wait, so you're calling it a marketing category?
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely.
Dr. Kent:
Okay.
Dr. Larsen:
There is no nutritional or medical indication for a grain-free diet.
Dr. Kent:
Okay.
Dr. Larsen:
And so what I mean by that is we have used those diets for a long, time. They
happen to be grain-free. So for example, there are veterinary therapeutic diets that
maybe use potato or pea or something like that with an uncommon protein source
like duck, venison, rabbit, et cetera.
Dr. Kent:
I had to feed one to one of my previous dogs who is no longer with us. I had to feed
her fish a potato because she had a really bad skin allergy.
Dr. Larsen:
Right. And the reason why those diets were developed was because The goal was
to try to find a limited combination of ingredients that wasn't very common in the
over-the-counter categories that people could just buy at pet stores or grocery
stores.
Dr. Kent:
Something they hadn't seen before that they're not going to be allergic to.
Dr. Larsen:
Right, So it was supposed to be for GI allergies or skin allergies. Okay.
Dr. Kent:
Now, I bring you back to grain-free. Okay.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah. So we have all of those ingredients available over the counter now. Grain-
free became very popular about 15 or 20 years ago, probably. And again, it's just a
marketing category. And so essentially what they did was they replaced the grains
in the diet. And grains are just cereal plants, right? So wheat, corn, rice, barley,
oats, et cetera. They eliminated all of those and essentially replaced that ingredient
with tubers. So sweet or white potatoes usually, or with legumes, pulses. So lentils,
chickpeas, green peas, those those kinds of ingredients. And so those diets are not
necessarily lower in carbohydrate. They just replace grains with something else.
Dr. Kent:
So it's not carbohydrate free. It's just grain free.
Dr. Larsen:
Correct.
Dr. Kent:
So why did we get this idea that grains were bad?
Dr. Larsen:
It's very easy for marketing to demonize certain ingredients. In fact, you don't even
have to say that an ingredient is bad. All you have to say is no potato. And then of
course, a consumer's response is, well, potatoes might be, must be bad then. It's
not that hard. So you're trying to differentiate your product from somebody else's
product. And corn was the first scapegoat. So everybody wanted to avoid corn,
even though corn provides lots of important nutrients. It's very uncommon to have
an allergy to corn, et cetera. The sort of agricultural economics aspect of that is a
whole other thing. But from a nutritional perspective, there's nothing wrong with
grains.
Dr. Kent:
So I know these all formulated out fine. They went through feeding trials fine. Some
of them were made by big manufacturers for a while. What was the problem with
grain-free? What's the cautionary tale here?
Dr. Larsen:
So I think that the problem was that we were suddenly using novel ingredients that
weren't very common in the marketplace. So except for soy, most of the beans,
peas, other legumes hadn't been really used in pet food that commonly. And then
not only did we introduce them to the marketplace, we introduced them in high
amounts. Now, some legumes, so lentils, peas, et cetera, soy, they-.
Dr. Kent:
All the things I love to eat.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes. They have anti-nutritional factors as just part of their natural composition.
Plants make 99.9% of the pesticides on Earth, and they are protection from being
eaten by herbivores, right? That's what plants do.
Dr. Kent:
That makes sense.
Dr. Larsen:
It's natural. And so anti-nutritional factors are part of the natural defense system of
the plant or the natural sort of structure of the plant cells. And those things can bind
up certain nutrients to make them not available. We've known this for a really long
time. But what that means is that those ingredients have to undergo processing
steps to destroy those anti-nutritional factors and make sure that they are available
to whatever animal you happen to be feeding. And so a lot of the diets that were
grain-free, we started linking them to a specific type of heart disease in dogs,
referred to as DCM or dilated cardiomyopathy.
Dr. Kent:
Pretty serious. Could be. that's a life-threatening disease.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, it's very difficult to find that disease early. And so a lot of these dogs weren't
diagnosed until they were critically ill or some of them dropped dead. And then it
was found, you know, post-mortem that that's the disease that they had. And this is
not a new disease for dogs. It is a genetic disease in certain breeds. And it's a very
well-defined clinical entity that our cardiology colleagues have been dealing with for
a long period of time. Now, the kind of DCM that we were seeing in these dogs, we
think was related to sulfur amino acid status. Now, amino acids, of course, are the
building blocks of proteins. There are certain sulfur amino acids that are really
important for normal cardiac function.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, I've heard of these before. I'm sure a lot of people have. So yes.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, and legumes tend to be low in those. Legumes tend to be low in those. So
not only do they have these anti-nutritional factors, they also are low in those
specific building blocks.
Dr. Kent:
So like taurine is the name of one of them, right? And so you're not only are you low
in taurine for a good portion of your ingredients.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, so taurine is made from the compounds that are in the legumes. So a dog can
make enough, they just have to be able to make enough to meet their needs. And
so if there's a limited amount of the precursors and we have a lot of fiber coming
from those ingredients as well, then eventually the dog's going to become depleted
in those. So this is a problem that we have been trying to figure out what exactly is
going on mechanistically. It's probably multifactorial. There have been some people
that have doubted it's related to food at all. But one of the important factors about
this disease when its diet associated is that it can be reversible. That is not what we
see with genetic DCM. It is not reversible.
Dr. Kent:
So now I know as a clinician that I test a dog who's on a grain-free diet for taurine
and I sent it to your lab actually.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes. And not all dogs that have DCM now are deficient in taurine. And partly that's
because a lot of the diets have been supplemented with taurine. And so it really
masks our ability to assess the dog's ability to make taurine if you're giving the sort
of end compound in that pathway. So still a bit of a mystery, but since grain-free
diets are not medically or nutritionally indicated, I think that it may be there's no
reason to choose that kind of diet.
Dr. Kent:
So now we were talking about who regulates this stuff. So this is FDA. So did the
FDA get involved? Did they pull these dog foods off the shelves?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, the FDA was getting a lot of reports through the portal, the pet food complaint
reporting portal. And they investigated it and they released a couple of different
reports a few different times describing the different diets, the features of the diets
and so forth. But because this is such a complex phenomenon and so many
different diets were involved, And that said, a lot of the diets that were involved in
most of the cases were fed to a very small number of dogs in general. And so
compared to their market share, the number of cases that they were seeing was
fairly suspicious that it was diet related. But we were never able to identify exactly
what the problem was. And so there's never going to be a recall for a diet or a
category of diets when we can't identify exactly what the problem is, because we're
unable to say these ones are safe and these ones are not.
Dr. Kent:
So we didn't test this batch and find there was contamination with a bacteria like
salmonella or E. coli. We kind of said, this is associated, but we can't prove it, so
the government wouldn't step in.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes, correct. So we're still working on this. There are some groups that are looking
at potential toxins that are present in some of these ingredients. My lab is working
on markers other than taurine to try to identify early if there might be a problem. So
I'm hopeful that we'll identify what exactly is going on so that we can have improved
formulation of these products. But we still see this disease with some regularity, not
as commonly as we were five years ago, but we still see it occasionally.
Dr. Kent:
So now this has been amazing and I've now gone 20 minutes over past where I
was going to talk to you, but I have a couple more questions. Can we go on?
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely. Love talking about food?
Dr. Kent:
I'm actually going to step away from food, but I wanted to ask you about
supplements and toppers. So first, supplements, mostly fish oil I was curious about.
I mean, I know that fish oil is good for many things, so should I be giving my dog
fish oils?
Dr. Larsen:
Fish oil is so popular as a supplement now. And the reason why we use fish oil is
because we want to enrich the diet with omega-3 fatty acids. So those are the fatty
acids that are present in the fatty tissues, mostly of cold water fish. But we do have
some really good sources now that come from algae, which is a much better source
in terms of environmental sustainability, it's acceptable to vegans, et cetera. So
those are really good options.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, it makes your dog's coat shiny. It's what the, you know, the, at least the lure
is.
Dr. Larsen:
And if you don't mind your dog having a little bit of fishy breath, that's okay too.
Dr. Kent:
Fishy breath and maybe some other smells coming out on occasion too. But the, so
what are the downsides? What do we have to watch for? How do I choose a fish
oil?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, fish oil dosing is based on what you're trying to achieve. So the nutrients that
are coming from fish oil, those omega-3 fatty acids, those are not considered
nutritionally essential in adult dogs. They are considered nutritionally essential
probably during growth and development because they're really important for
neurological tissue development. Once you become adult, though, they're not
strictly considered essential, which is arguable. The fatty acid scientists like to fight
about this a lot. But we also use them therapeutically. So we give even higher
doses sort of for their anti-inflammatory effects. And so many diseases have an
inflammatory component that we're often using fish oils for everything from kidney
disease, to cancer, to arthritis ,to heart disease. And we do have some good data to
show that administering fish oil in some of those circumstances and the earlier the
better does have some benefits therapeutically.
Dr. Kent:
Interesting. So now I know if you go into the grocery store, you can get warning on
some of your fish that say, pregnant women shouldn't eat this. And we're worried
about things like mercury, heavy metals, and the like, how do I know that I'm not
just concentrating it in a bottle and giving them the fish oils I need, but at the same
time poisoning my dog with mercury?
Dr. Larsen:
That's a huge concern, of course.
Dr. Kent:
Yeah, I'd be concerned. I am concerned. So.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, it's the processing and purification processes that fish oil undergo are highly
variable, but it's a really important part of the manufacturing process. So we
typically recommend choosing fish oil products from companies that have a firm like
distillation process to make sure that it's purified. We want to make sure that they're
testing for things like PCBs, dioxins, mercury, arsenic, et cetera. I have done a
couple of different studies looking at fish oil for pets and have identified at least low
levels of things like arsenic, selenium, which can be become toxic at high levels.
We have found some dioxins and some fish oil as well.
Dr. Kent:
So how do I, do they publish this on the label? Is that required or do I have to go to
their website to see if they have tested for these? And do you have to test each
batch? How do I, again, getting back to the, I'm looking, how do I do it?
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, fish oil companies, or manufacturers that make fish oil are using a natural
product. So from batch to batch, there might be some variation. Maybe they're
using different species of fish in every batch or it's a mixed species of fish.
Dr. Kent:
Depending on the seasonality of what's available.
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely, right. The algal sources, so the algae, those are grown in big tanks. We
don't have to worry about the contamination.
Dr. Kent:
There's no mercury sitting in the bay where they're growing it because they're not
growing it in the bay.
Dr. Larsen:
Correct. Yes, it's clean and sustainable.
Dr. Kent:
Yes.
Dr. Larsen:
The labeling isn't necessarily going to tell you about testing and those kinds of
things. Some companies do provide links to a certificate of analysis, that's a toxin
screening sort of mechanism where they're looking for the common toxins, they're
verifying the omega-3 fatty acid concentrations and so forth. So again, just like for
pet food, you have to have a lot of trust in your manufacturer. It's important that
they're experienced and that they have a good R&D and quality control processes
in place.
Dr. Kent:
So I should, actually, if I'm going to go buy one at the grocery store, I should go
look up that company and make sure that they have an independent lab checking
their work because, trust but verify or, using an old term, right?
Dr. Larsen:
And talking to your veterinarian about what they recommend as well.
Dr. Kent:
Okay, that sounds really important. So you mentioned the word toppers earlier.
That's, you know, a term I'm not terribly familiar with, even as a veterinarian. What
is a topper and what is it used for? What? What do you mean?
Dr. Larsen:
A lot of owners and their pets love toppers. This is a way that we can add some
interest and variety to the daily diet.
Dr. Kent:
So what's a topper?
Dr. Larsen:
Well, just like we were talking about before, we can use things like table foods or
treats. Some companies make kibble gravy or other kinds of liquids that you can put
on top of your dog's balanced diet.
Dr. Kent:
So these are like flavor enhancers or make it more interesting?
Dr. Larsen:
Anything that you add to the main diet. So that could be applesauce, that could be
canned pumpkin. We use things like honey and syrup quite regularly when we
especially need to restrict fat or protein. Then we can leverage sort of the sweet
tooth that some dogs have. But like I said, there's also specific products that are
marketed as toppers that you can use. I'm always a big fan of using table foods
instead of commercial treats as snacks, though.
Dr. Kent:
So this is where if I wanted to give my dog some of my dinner, I could actually cut it
up, put it on his bowl of food, and make his food more interesting and make me feel
better that I'm not home cooking for him.
Dr. Larsen:
Yeah, and they love it, right? And we'd like to see our pets enjoying their diet.
Dr. Kent:
Food does equal love sometimes, right? It does, it does. Or we at least express it
that way.
Dr. Larsen:
It's very culturally important to us, and it's important to our pets too. And so the
important rule for that, again, we talked about the treat allowance and our 10% rule.
Dr. Kent:
Is that calories or volume?
Dr. Larsen:
That is percent of calories. So that's a little difficult to quantify. But it's much easier
to stay below that 10% rule if you're using things like vegetables and fruits versus
using things like cream cheese, peanut butter, meat that adds up really fast
because they have more calories.
Dr. Kent:
That makes sense. And as we think about calories, I know one of the problems we
had, especially in our older dogs, when they may slow down a little bit, same as
people, it's hard to keep that weight off. And you're actually even losing your muscle
mass as you get older and you're adding weight. It's harder on your joints. It's
harder for orthopedics, other diseases, metabolic disease. How do we keep track of
this? And we get the older dog who's starting to put on pounds. How do we think
about this? How do we approach this?
Dr. Larsen:
Prevention is much better than trying to reverse an overweight condition once it
occurs. And so having an owner proactively assess their pet on some kind of
regular basis. And sometimes I recommend that people maybe that are giving a
monthly heartworm preventative or something like that. They sort of use that as
their trigger in their brain, I should assess my dog's body weight and body
condition. Because changes happen slowly, day by day, and we don't notice them.
And then one day you look at your dog and you're like, oh my God, your head is so
small. It's actually that they gained weight, right?
Dr. Kent:
And it didn't shrink. Right.
Dr. Larsen:
And so just sort of doing that proactively and reminding yourself to assess them and
then make adjustments as needed. If there haven't been any changes in the diet
and you don't think that there's sabotaging their own diet by stealing things or
somebody's not feeding them extra things, it might be worth talking to your
veterinarian about any significant changes that you notice. If your pet suddenly
develops a big belly or suddenly loses a lot of muscle mass or becomes less active
pretty abruptly or something like that. It's important to get that checked out.
Dr. Kent:
Those are all signs of disease too, right? You know, rapid changes.
Dr. Larsen:
Yes.
Dr. Kent:
So I now totally blown talking to you for 1/2 hour because we're gonna have to split
this one in two now because we're past an hour. So, but something I've noticed and
something that, you know, is we get some training in veterinary school about
nutrition, but probably nowhere near enough. And I know owners come to their vets
to ask them about nutritional questions where, where do you think the state of
nutritional education is so that our veterinarians who are helping everyone out in the
real world, not just in the ivory tower of the university here, have access to it? I have
access to you. I ask you all the time for questions about my patients. So I'm having
trouble formulating this question right, but what are the resources out there for
people? How do they find out more information and how do we do a better job of
educating the public?
Dr. Larsen:
I think that's an excellent question. One of my favorite parts of my job is working
with veterinarians that are out in the trenches. And I do that through formal
consulting, through online websites with other veterinarians. We get phone calls
and emails from veterinarians all the time. And sometimes they have a really
complex diseased patient that needs pretty high-level interventions. And other times
they have questions about a specific brand or a specific marketing strategy. And
one thing I'm almost always reminding them of is more than you think you do. I
think that veterinarians, and veterinarians are people, and they're just as confused
about some of the pet food marketing as pet owners are. And so I'm always
reminding them that's just marketing. That doesn't mean anything nutritionally. And
I think that's very reassuring to them. And even if they did not get formal, separate
courses specifically in nutrition in veterinary school. Nutrition is so fundamental to
the management of so many diseases that it's integrated into medicine courses,
oncology courses, dermatology courses, et cetera. So they actually get a lot of
nutrition. It's just not taught in some schools as a separate discipline. Rather, it's
more integrated.
Dr. Kent:
So you feel like going to your veterinarian? you should be able to ask your
veterinarian about nutrition. And if you ask a question they don't know, they should
be able to reach out to a colleague who does.
Dr. Larsen:
Absolutely. And I really hope that veterinarians are asking about diet history, that
they are looking at body condition and body weights and recording that in records.
Dr. Kent:
Body condition. What do you mean by body condition?
Dr. Larsen:
That's an assessment of how much fat tissue a pet has. So fat tissue is normal and
healthy. You should have a certain amount. But if you start accumulating too much,
then we start giving you a higher numerical score on our body condition score
system. So it's just a way of us sort of assessing whether a dog is overweight,
perfect, or underweight for their individual frame. And I really want veterinarians to
feel confident making those assessments and putting those in the record. But a lot
of times we sort of I think probably getting away with is not the right answer, but
because we have so many good commercial options that supply nutritional needs of
pets, we're not seeing diseases that we used to see that often anymore. So things
like rickets, other kinds of deficiencies, we still see those with some regularity, but
not like we used to. And so we've done such a good job in meeting the nutritional
needs of most of the pets that are out there that now it's sort of the pendulums are
swinging the other way where we've sort of almost forgotten about it.
Dr. Kent:
Wow, this is, you know, obviously this is such a big topic that we're talking about
and so important and fundamental for our dog's health. And I realized I've now
spoken to you for an hour and I haven't started asking about cats. I'm going to have
to ask you to come back and we could do a cat episode.
Dr. Larsen:
I would love to come back and talk about cats.
Dr. Kent:
Good, because I have two cats and now I'm going to tell you I'm standing in the
grocery store aisle looking for a cat food and what do we do? So Dr. Larsen, I
appreciate you taking the time today and sharing your knowledge and expertise.
with me and with everyone who's listening to us.
Dr. Larsen:
Thank you for having me. I can't wait to come back.
Dr. Kent:
Thank you. Okay, bye.
The Vetrospective, as with life, takes a village. I want to thank those who suggested
I start this project and everyone who has encouraged and supported me along the
way. Particularly, I want to thank our producer and director, Danae Blythe-Unti,
Nancy Bei, who is our program coordinator, our sound mixer, Andy Cowitt, and
theme music was composed and produced by Tim Gahagan. Thank you all, and
we'll see you next time.