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Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
- Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
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RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
Tikismom > 09-13-2019, 06:41 PM
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RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
admin > 09-23-2019, 07:46 PM
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RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
Tikismom > 09-30-2019, 01:53 PM
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RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
Tikismom > 10-20-2019, 06:58 PM
"Yet, a new study suggests that could be a risky proposition, as the majority of commercially produced raw foods a research team examined contained high levels of harmful bacteria—including strains that could transmit diseases to pets and their owners alike.
Because dogs’ and cats’ wild ancestors ate raw meat almost exclusively, pet owners often believe their animals will benefit from such a diet, explains the study’s lead author, Magdalena Nüesch-Inderbinen, a microbiologist at the University of Zurich’s Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene in Switzerland.
Although some pet owners prepare their own raw meals with store-bought meat, the pet food industry has jumped wholeheartedly into the market, offering dozens of meal options. These foods usually contain uncooked muscle and organ byproducts of animals slaughtered for human consumption. Several cases of bacterial diseases in pets have been linked to such raw meat diets, but few studies have examined how widespread potentially harmful pathogens are in such commercial products.
To address that lack of data, Nüesch-Inderbinen and colleagues bought 51 different raw meat pet meals produced by eight different suppliers. (The authors declined to name the specific brands they tested.) The meat—including beef, chicken, horse, or lamb—came from either Switzerland or Germany. The scientists analyzed samples from each for the presence of enterobacteria, a family of bacteria that includes such harmful pathogens as Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and Shigella, as well as numerous harmless strains.
Nearly three-quarters (72.5%) of the samples had enterobacteria levels that exceeded regulations set by the European Union for pet food safety, the researchers report this week in Royal Society Open Science. Antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria were identified in 63% of the samples. Salmonella, a highly transmissible pathogen that is one of the most common sources of food poisoning in both humans and pets, was found in 4% of the samples.
Together, the results suggest raw meat pet foods are far riskier than thought, Nüesch-Inderbinen says. She advises pet owners who buy these products to be extra thorough in washing their hands after handling the food and its packaging, and to be aware of the heightened risk of bacterial disease in their pets.
Scott Weese, a microbiologist at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College in Canada, says the findings about antibiotic-resistant bacteria are especially concerning. “With Salmonella, the expectation is that if you get exposed, you either get sick or don’t in a short period of time,” he says. “With resistant bacteria that can live in the GI [gastrointestinal] tract for months or more, a pet or person could … potentially get a disease much later” if an initial course of antibiotics fails to kill the bug."
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/...it-and-you -
RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
Tikismom > 11-26-2019, 12:27 AM
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RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
Tikismom > 12-23-2019, 07:42 PM
"Book excerpt: Why no one should be feeding pets raw meat
A new title from veterinarian Dr. Ernie Ward and co-authors argues for a future of plant-derived pet food—and spends a little time looking at the marketing machine that makes raw meat sound like a good idea.
![[Image: dvm360_src_new.jpg]](http://files.alfresco.mjh.group/alfresco_images/DVM360//2018/10/22/d40d6590-8548-4c44-9426-0c29ca417fed/dvm360_src_new.jpg)
Nov 25, 2019
By Ernie Ward, Alice Oven, Ryan Bethencourt
dvm360.com
Co-written by well-known veterinarian Dr. Ernie Ward, The Clean Pet Food Revolution: How Better Pet Food Will Change the World (coming December 2019 from Lantern Books) argues that meat-based pet food is bad for the environment, for animals raised as meat and for the health of pets themselves. The book’s challenge is controversial and world-changing in its potential scope, but in this excerpt from chapter 5 (edited for space), the writers examine the use of raw meat in pet food today.Animal meat is the hot trend in pet food, and raw meat blazes the brightest. Magazines, social media, and advertisers may celebrate pets as princes and princesses, but equally strong is the marketing of dogs and cats as wolves and tigers. To manufacture this myth, advertisers use sales terms such as “ancestral,” “biologically appropriate,” and “raw.” An extension of this trend is “fresh,” encompassing the “natural,” “human-grade,” and “raw meat” trends. But raw animal meat has risks. According to the FDA, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), American Veterinary Medical Association, British Small Animal Veterinary Association, Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, World Small Animal Veterinary Association, and a host of other organizations, raw meat pet food is the diet most likely to introduce disease-causing bacteria into our pets and our homes. One study found that in a group of 200 therapy dogs, the incidence of Salmonella in raw-animal-meat-fed dogs was 0.61 cases/dog per year, compared with 0.08 cases/dog per year in dogs that were not fed raw meat.1Despite these risks, raw animal meat is touted by many as the “premium” of all pet diets. Fortune reported that the growing number of commercial raw-meat-based pet foods has been accompanied by an increase in recalls,2 and an FDA study found significantly higher levels of Salmonella and E. coli in raw pet food samples than in other types of pet foods.3 At the end of January 2019, 33 days into a U.S. government shutdown (when the FDA was only in operation for “imminent threats”), the FDA issued an urgent caution to pet owners not to feed their pets a specific brand of raw food “due to Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes.” This proves that, despite being officially closed, the FDA was still worried about the public health risk of raw meat pet foods.Does this mean the FDA is anti-“raw meat pet food”? No, they’re pro-“human health.” Contaminated raw animal meats pose a serious health risk to pet owners who handle the foods, packaging, and wastes. Secondary transmission is especially dangerous to children, older persons, and immunocompromised individuals.4 That’s why so many medical organizations discourage feeding pets raw animal meats. So why are raw meat diets such a hot trend? A lot of it has to do with astonishingly clever marketing.Early each day, Alice watches her dog JD chase the pigeons that invade his garden. She knows he has as much chance of catching a soaring bird as he does the squirrels he joyfully pursues in his daydreams. In fact, when JD once found a dead squirrel, he had no idea what it was or what to do with it. JD’s instinct wasn’t to gnash and devour this “prey,” but to cautiously sniff and retreat. JD’s hunting drive might cause him to chase other animals, but he apparently has little desire to kill them. We’d argue that JD and most pet dogs are not killing, carnivorous canine commandos. Yet somehow the assumption that dogs are prehistoric predators lusting to kill other animals persists, and this perception is used as a key marketing message for high-animal protein, raw, and “pure-meat” pet foods. These “ancestral diets” claim that how and what a dog ate millions of years ago is best: natural is healthier.This cognitive bias is well documented by psychologists as the “appeal to nature” fallacy. It relies on the argument that because something is “natural,” it must somehow be better. That’s not necessarily true. Ecology and evolutionary biology professor Marc Bekoff told the authors, “People are swayed by ridiculously misleading advertisements for dog food that go something like “Feed the wolf in your dog.” Dogs aren’t wolves, and if they ate like wolves there would be more of an obesity crisis because most dogs don’t get near enough exercise.”
Modern animal meats potentially contain many contaminants, toxins, pathogenic bacteria, and added antibiotics and hormones. They’re not very “natural.” The “raw meat” fed to a dog or cat today has little relation to the prey a wolf or tiger killed tens of thousands of years ago (or even hundreds). For starters, in the “real wild,” not the “biologically appropriate” or “ancestral” pet food fairyland created by marketers, a wolf or tiger would consume their kill immediately.
This means the fresh meat would have little chance to become contaminated by pathogenic bacteria. There would also be no added antibiotics, hormones, or growth-boosting vitamin and mineral injections. And forget about cows, pigs, chickens, or tuna and salmon. Ancient wolves and dogs had virtually no chance of eating these animals, making them a poor choice as “biologically appropriate.”The animals that dogs and cats would naturally eat if they had to kill them themselves would primarily be rabbits, squirrels, mice, and whatever dead carcass they lucked across; for cats, it would be small rodents, birds, reptiles, and insects. The species of animal meat we feed our pets today is far from “ancestral” or even “species appropriate.” To compare the fresh kill or scavenging find of a wild cat or coyote with a modern grocery-store-bought “ancestral raw diet” or chicken necks from the butcher is just plain ridiculous. Our domestic dogs and cats no longer hunt for survival, nor are they wild. They are creatures of our creation: mild-mannered, cuddly versions of once proud predators and scavengers. Tens of thousands of years of careful breeding and codependence have made our dogs and cats more similar to us, and completely different from their ancestors.Raw animal-meat pet food isn’t just hurting the environment and farmed animals; it’s potentially hurting our pets and our human family, too. In modern domestic society, there are many opportunities for pathogens to contaminate meat between the time an animal is slaughtered and when it reaches the pet bowl. New research5 shows the surprising degree to which germs and parasites can be found in commercial raw-meat products, posing potential health risks to both pets and their owners. Despite denials by raw pet food advocates, raw meat and raw eggs are known to contain harmful bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella, and feeding excess raw egg whites can cause biotin deficiency in pets. Many proponents of raw food diets boast of their pet’s more frequent poops and shinier coats, but the constant pooping is more likely due to lower fiber intake rather than the magical “enzymes” and mysterious “co-factors” purportedly in raw animal flesh. The shiny coat probably is because of high levels of dietary fat, which also has risks such as obesity.Pet food and feeding has become increasingly integrated into the human kitchen. We no longer store dog food out in the garage next to the toolbox; we keep it in the pantry next to the peanut butter. Few pet owners feed their dogs and cats in their yards anymore; we lovingly place their meals in our dining rooms and kitchens. If you’re preparing raw animal meats, this humanization trend inadvertently puts your human family at risk."
http://www.dvm360.com/book-excerpt-why-n...t?pageID=2 -
RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
JanH > 12-23-2019, 09:42 PM
Cats are obligate carnivores. It is very difficult to get enough taurine in them (and avoid heart disease) without feeding (cooked) meat. Cats are not wolves and are not vegans. -
RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
Tikismom > 02-05-2020, 12:48 PM
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RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
MissViv > 01-29-2021, 11:52 AM
Most Vets warn against feeding raw meat to your cats. -
RE: Raw Meat: Fact From Fiction
admin > 01-29-2021, 12:59 PM
Good ones do but there are many who now not only promote it but sell it as well. Irresponsible and cause to find a better vet!