In honor of my new book launched this month concerning pets,
“For the Love of Willy,
Dealing with Sadness After Losing a Beloved Pet”,
I thought I would address pets and their diet today, so they can live the longest healthiest lives possible.
Coming home and being welcomed with unconditional love and kisses from our pet brings incredible happiness to our day. Animals are wonderful companions and add so much joy and comfort to our lives. We want them to live long, healthy, happy lives as part of our family. They need a balanced diet, fresh clean water, a comfortable place to sleep, fresh air, exercise, and love, just like we do. In this article, I will explain what a healing diet for pets looks like, and give you some great guidelines for creating the best pet diet possible.
When I was growing up, it was common for us to give our pets the leftovers from our table. They got broccoli, carrots, potatoes, some greens, and some fruits. Our animals lived very long, healthy lives and thrived on our fresh food. It was not uncommon for our pets to live well into their 20’s. These days, most pets are getting diabetes and/or cancer as young as 6 years old, and I believe it is a direct result of their diet.
As large companies began making manufactured pet foods,
both advertising and our veterinarians started recommending that we should not feed our table scraps to our pets. Now there were designated dog food and cat food specifically created to “maintain and promote health” in our pets.
When people started feeding their pets the manufactured pet food, pet illness went up. Was cheap meat and filler in processed food making our pets ill?
In 2006, at least 76 dogs died as a result of eating aflatoxin-contaminated pet foods. Aflatoxins come from a fungus that is found on corn and grains. Aflatoxins are toxins that primarily affect the liver. They are in a wide variety of pet foods. Dogs who consume 0.5 to 1 mg aflatoxin per kg body weight can die within days.
“Aflatoxins are also carcinogenic. They bind with DNA and cause cell mutations. Newberne and Wogan (1968) were able to produce malignant tumors in rats with less than 1 mg of aflatoxin per kg of feed.” A “Consumer Council study also found that three of the US brands tested (Purina, Iams and Solid Gold) also contained melamine or cyanuric acid. These are the substances that poisoned thousands of pets in 2007.”
I recommend avoiding foods containing corn or grains (especially genetically modified, and non-certified organic) for you or your pets. I also suggest avoiding foods manufactured in China. False claims and marketing can make buying pet food confusing because recently, Rachel Ray’s Dog Food, Nutrish, was marketed as being free of “[No] artificial flavors or artificial preservatives” and being a “natural food for dogs”. The company Nutrish, was created by Ainsworth Pet Nutrition but was purchased by J.M. Smucker Company for about $2 billion. Markeith Parks (A New York resident, per Court documents), claims that Rachel Ray’s ‘natural’ food is false, deceptive, and misleading.
In addition to that, be aware that there are other harmful ingredients including heterocyclic amines, acrylamides, and PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers – a chemical used as a flame retardant) that are still included in many processed pet foods. Due to this increase in processed food in pet diets, pet diseases are starting to look more similar to human diseases.
About 50 years ago, people in the US and the world started eating more and more processed foods with additives, fillers, artificial colors, cheap or artificial sugars, genetically modified (GMO) ingredients, refined ingredients, etc. The rise in diabetes is 700% higher over the last 50 years, and now 50% of the people in the US have a chronic disease.
Cancer is prevalent, affecting at least half the men and one-third of the women in the US. I believe it is directly affected by the quality of the food, toxins in the environment, air and water quality, as well as less exercise and sunshine. I see a correlation with our animal friends that we keep as pets. I understand that pet disease has risen at about the same rate. I had a pet yellow Labrador live to be 17, and I’ve had other pets thrive well into old age. I also saw allergies disappear quickly when they began eating a healthier diet.
I received my International Wildlife Rehabilitation license and certification in 2001, and I learned a great deal working with wild animal diets. I even had a blind opossum (which I had rehabilitated) that lived to be 6 years of age. Their life span is usually only 4 years, maybe only 1 year in the wild. The blind opossum, Samantha, thrived on an organic, fresh, healthy food and mineral-rich, pure water diet.
Being a raw food chef, nutrition and health specialist, and an animal diet expert, I started seeing similarities between my animals’ diets and the diets I was recommending to my cancer, diabetes, and heart disease clients. The animals on my high-quality, fresh, mostly raw food diet were thriving and getting well, as they nourished their body with fresh, whole, real, organic food.
It seems sad to say the word “whole or real” food, but over the last 50 years, it is quite startling at what the food manufacturers and the government have allowed to be added to our food and our pet food, as if it is real food. An example of this is wood pulp, which is a cheap filler used in foods. It is not nutritious, but it is added to make the product cheaper. They have also used it in many processed and cheap foods like genetically modified corn or soy, cottonseed oil, high fructose corn syrup, white refined ingredients, artificial dyes and flavorings, and synthetic vitamins. They are cheap (because our tax dollars support those unsustainable GMO seeds and chemical farming methods, instead of the healthier methods), and are used as a cheap filler in many processed foods.
Most of the corn and soy in the US is genetically modified with a Bt toxin built into it. Studies show this Bt toxin can eat holes in the stomach of whoever is consuming it.
Cottonseed oil isn’t food and should not be used in food, in my opinion, but it’s put in vegetable oil and other processed foods regularly. I feed my pets the same foods that I am eating for my meals.
There are some foods you should definitely AVOID giving to your pets. because they are toxic to them. Be aware of this and make sure you give them foods free from these foods: onions, scallions, shallots, garlic, avocado, pitted fruit, grapes, raisins, cacao, chocolate, walnuts, macadamia nuts, and xylitol.
Contrary to what you may have heard, feeding “people food” to pets isn’t always such a bad thing, especially if you’re giving them healthy options. In fact, you may be surprised at what you can safely, and nutritiously, feed your pet from the table.
- Sweet Potatoes: One of nature’s nearly perfect foods, sweet potatoes are so nutritious, they should be fed to your dog frequently. Sweet Potatoes are high in antioxidants and have been studied on how they can prevent cancer and the effects of aging. They are high in vitamins, including A, C, and B 6. They are also high in the minerals manganese, copper, and iron, and the dietary fiber to help with bowel movements. I slice my sweet potatoes in half and dehydrate them. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can also bake them on the lowest heat in your oven for about 40-60 minutes. This turns them into wonderful leathery strips that make healthy chew treats for dogs
- Fish: Fish is very good for dogs. Salmon, sardines, and anchovies are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids (DHA/EPA). Omega-3 fatty acids help prevent skin problems, allergies, arthritis, and heart disease. These oils are anti-inflammatory. I give mine to my animals raw and uncooked. Quality is important.
- Carrots: Carrots are high in powerful phytonutrients. A great source of Vitamins A, K, and C, carrots provide powerful antioxidants. With these nutrients, they can help a dog’s vision, heart, and blood sugar levels. Raw baby carrots are one of my favorite treats for dogs. In the hot summer months, you can make little “carrot popsicle treats” by freezing the little carrots in popsicle molds or in ice cube trays, and placing them in their water bowl as a cool surprise. Lightly steamed or cooked carrots can also be added to your dog’s regular food, or they can be used as part of a healthy home-prepared meal.
- Broccoli: Broccoli is packed with nutrients. It has been shown to have anti-cancer effects, aid in fighting infections, treat skin and heart problems, help metabolize drugs, and excrete toxins. Broccoli is so helpful, and every dog should eat it regularly. Broccoli can be fed to dogs both raw and cooked. I recommend combining steamed or cooked broccoli with other high-quality foods and fish for a healthy meal, whenever a pet is ill.
You can order the raw, organic, non-GMO broccoli sprout powder to put in their food from the Indoor Organic Gardens of Poughkeepsie. They are fantastic for people and pets! Tell them “Nancy ” (code) and they’ll give you a 50% discount on your orders. I love it and think it is one of the best foods we can add to our diet to improve our and our pet’s health.
- Leafy Greens: It’s hard to beat leafy greens in terms of maximum nutrition for minimal calories. Leafy greens are a proven cancer-risk preventative, abundant source of fiber, calcium, Vitamin A, E, and C. All of these nutrients help prevent heart disease, and contain numerous antioxidants. Most dogs enjoy greens thinly chopped and sautéed or cooked and mixed with their food. I combine mine in a food processor with the other ingredients and make a raw food recipe for animals.
- Sprouted Beans: Sprouted and cooked black beans, kidney beans, and garbanzo beans are all super-foods for dogs. Cooked, sprouted beans can help provide natural fibers that help regulate blood sugar levels. This can really help with dogs who are struggling with diabetes. Cutting out anything with high fructose corn syrup is a key, but also adding more cooked sprouted beans high in natural fiber can help with animal diabetes. In addition, these rich sources of proteins and minerals boost your pet’s immune system and help burn fat.
- Quinoa: Quinoa is a seed that was known as “the gold of the Incas.” Quinoa is a complete protein. Being a seed, it needs to be soaked overnight to remove the phytic acid before cooking. This will remove the enzyme inhibitors, make it more digestible and help prevent acid indigestion. Quinoa is easy to prepare. After sprouting it, just boil it in water for about 15 minutes. (The recipe for cooked sprouted quinoa is in my “How To Be A Healthy Vegetarian” and my “Raising Healthy Children” cookbooks).
I use quinoa in a variety of recipes for dogs, combining the cooked quinoa in a food processor with fish, or raw, high-quality meat, plus two to three vegetables (like carrots, broccoli or leafy greens), and some blueberries or watermelon. This creates a quick and easy mixture of healthy food for your pets.
- Spirulina: Spirulina is a blue-green algae that is incredibly high in protein, nutrients, and antioxidants. Spirulina is often found in a powdered form that can be sprinkled over a dog’s normal food or added to a food processor mixture.
In addition to adding those types of foods to a pet’s diet, there is something important you should know and add to your pet’s diet daily. That one ingredient is Bone Meal.
Bone meal is critical for a dog’s or cat’s diet. If you feed an animal (dog or cat) an all-meat diet without calcium, he would pull all of the calcium from his bones to get enough to move his muscles. So, we need to add bone meal to the diet. (This is especially critical for puppies or kittens, so they don’t get metabolic bone disease. It’s painful and can cause weak bones and it looks like rickets.)
A dog in the wild, like a wolf, would eat whole animals raw, along with some bone. Around 10% to 15% of a dog or cat’s total diet needs to be bone.
Puppies and kittens need at least 12% and up to 15% bone to help them develop their skeletal growth and the development of adult teeth.
I recommend that you add this to the raw recipes, or if you are cooking any of the food, add the bone meal after it is cooked. You don’t want to add this to a recipe before it’s cooked. You don’t want to cook the bone meal with the food. You can also use Four Leaf’s Rover’s, Better Bones, as a substitute for adding ground up bone to the food.
If you weigh your dog’s or cat’s food, and then add this for a total of 10% by weight, then you should be in good shape. I recommend making your own. There are directions to do this in the pet food cookbooks: “Dr. Becker’s Real Food For Dogs And Cats” or “The Forever Dog Life: 120+ Recipes, Longevity Tips, and New Science for Better Bowls and Healthier Homes”
Some doctors don’t believe in the power of foods and nutrition. Their focus is on treatment, not prevention. But I believe if we eat the right foods, we have the power to reverse and prevent disease. I use food as medicine, and I’ve seen it work on people, and also on my pets and the wildlife that I rehabilitate.
A friend of mine has a small dog, and she called me in a panic one day. She said her dog had been diagnosed with cancer. The oncologist recommended that chemo should be started right away. She had been told her dog’s chances were slim, maybe 3 to 6 months to live. She was feeling panicky and pressured to do the treatment. She was calling me to ask my opinion. I told her she needed to change her dog’s diet, and maybe she could turn this around.
I gave her some detailed recipes and ingredient recommendations. I explained to her the concept of feeding your pet raw food and why. Animals in the wild are not consuming cooked or processed food, and they thrive on a raw meat, whole-food-based diet. Cooking the food destroys the enzymes. I believe the animals require these enzymes in raw food in order to stay healthy.
A healthy, raw food diet includes high quality, humanely raised or wild-caught creature meats (beef, fowl, fish), including organ meats, raw egg yolks, organic vegetables (like steamed broccoli, carrots, baby leafy greens, microgreens,) and fruits (like watermelon, berries, apples, pears, mango), as well as sprouted, organic pumpkin and sunflower seeds and nuts.
In addition to this, I add a tiny bit of unrefined, mineral-rich salt for the electrolytes. (The word electrolyte is simply a fancy medical term for the word salt). I also recommend changing up the mixture regularly, for variety.
My friend really took this to heart and decided to do the healthy food program and wait on the chemo. She stuck to it, and after about two years, she called me to tell me that her dog was still alive and thriving, with no sign of cancer. (Now it’s another 2 years later and her dog is still doing well on this new diet.) I was thrilled. She told me her dog hadn’t had any issues with digestion or elimination since being on the new, healthier, natural diet.
This is a diet that can not only give your pet more energy, but also help reduce food allergies from the processed and genetically modified ingredients like wheat, corn, and soy found in many of the processed dog foods.
If you want the best raw food recipes, I would buy the cookbook/information book: “Dr. Becker’s Real Food For Healthy Dogs And Cats.” It’s excellent.
You can also order Dr. Geoffrey Broderick’s pet food. It is called Cornucopia Pet Foods. It is all human-grade, organic ingredients. He makes it himself by hand. He has not had a single case of cancer or diabetes with the pets that eat his pet food in over 20 years. It is cooked food, but he also has raw supplements you can order.
Here is the link to his website: https://www.cornucopiapetfoods.com/ It is worth a try, even if you only use this a few times a week. I know this veterinarian personally. He is brilliant.
Something new and different, which I personally am using for myself, is a new frequency technology and I’ve had some really good results and so have my clients who have tried them. No supplements, no swallowing, no negative side effects, and extremely powerful for animals! Approved for Olympic athletes and Navy Seals (who this technology was originally designed for because they can’t even take an aspirin.)
They work on the infrared energy in our body and work like acupuncture does on meridians. The patches have crystals in them, that reflect our infrared energy and activate our own stem cells.
I have been using them on animals with incredible results, wound healing, infected eyes healing…
I have been astounded at the quickness of the effect.
Here is a link to a video that explains how it works. (It’s short.)
https://lifewave.com/organichealthylife/home/company
If you wish to try them, My I D Number is 1439757 and my link will say “Organic Healthy Life “
https://Lifewave.com/organichealthylife
My human clients are having wonderful results using them also. Let me know if you have any questions.
https://Lifewave.com/organichealthylife
Text me at 214-202-9243.
I’ll call you back.
If you order as a preferred customer, ( save almost $100) make sure you order an order for today, and don’t simply set up an auto-ship. It’s a bit tricky to tell, but the auto-ship will say auto-ship in the gray line above the order in the cart. You have to also order with your order if you want it to come now and not in a month.
(The silver package order is best, in my opinion, because you get the most for your money.)
They have done conducted studies with animals,
but I have personally had wonderful results using them with dogs, cats, cows, and horses.
This photo is from a Veterinarian using them on horses and other animals.
I also take a supplement called Liquid Biocell for my joints, which has a pet version.
My link is https://www.modere.com/?referralCode=j220555 and it will give you a $10 discount on your first order.
New customers, click on “Shop” in the toolbar under “collagen sciences.”
My mother’s cat was on this “pet” supplement. We started him on it when he was 16, because he had terrible joint pain. It worked quickly, and he lived healthy and happy for another 4 years!
I hope this information helps you and I wish you healthy, happy pets!
copyright@nancyaddison2018
Sources:
- Toxic pet food may have killed dozens of dogs, com news 5/10/2006 [11:08:00] AM ET, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/10771943/ns/health-pet_health/t/toxic-pet-food-may-have-killed-dozens-dogs/#.WX4-YIqQy8U
- Cancer-Causing Aflatoxins Found In Dog Foods, Cancer In Dogs , By Dana Scott, Dogs Naturally Magazine, http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/cancer-causing-aflatoxins-found-in-dog-foods/
- US Food Safety, Looking For The Safest, Healthiest Pet Food? Good Luck With That. Posted on August 14, 2015 by Zach Carter, Senior Political Economy Reporter, Huffington Post, https://blog.usfoodsafety.com/2015/08/14/looking-for-the-safest-healthiest-pet-food-good-luck-with-that/
- Cancer-Causing Aflatoxins Found In Dog Foods, Cancer In Dogs , By Dana Scott, Dogs Naturally Magazine, http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/cancer-causing-aflatoxins-found-in-dog-foods/
- Prediabetes: Could It Be You. CDC National Diabetes Statistics Report. 2014, Online. (Accessed December 2014)
- CDC, Chronic Disease Overview, 2012, 2014, National Statistics, https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/overview/index.htm
- Melamine Pet Food Recall – Frequently Asked Questions https://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/safetyhealth/recallswithdrawals/ucm129932.htm – https://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/safetyhealth/recallswithdrawals/ucm129932.htm
Please leave a comment and join the conversation!
The information from Nancy Addison and Organic Healthy Lifestyle LLC is not offered for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disease or disorder nor have any statements herein been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We strongly encourage you to discuss topics of concern with your health care provider.
Medical Disclaimer: Information provided in this article, book, podcast, website, email, etc. is for informational purposes only. The information is a result of years of practice and experience by Nancy Addison CHC, AADP. However, this information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional, or any information contained on or in any product label or packaging.
