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I frequently get questions about raw diets, and I’ve often had my open-mindedness challenged by good questions and valid observations from veterinarians (trusted, thoughtful veterinarians, often holistic) that give me cause to constantly apply new information and reasoning to the premise behind raw (especially raw meat) diets.

Now, allow me please to remind you that I have been known to be a staunch proponent of raw diets for dogs — until just recently, that is.

What changed my mind?  Nothing.  I haven’t exactly changed my mind.  I think I’ve just become more willing to challenge some of the almost fanatical early thinking and, yes, excitement that engulfed many of us when we first started to see raw diets become better understood, and more commonly fed to deserving dogs.

So, without having changed my mind, here’s my best articulation of the new place in which I find myself:

Some of the place I find myself rests upon an assumption that we cast vested interest, self-interest, and ulterior motive aside when choosing food for our companion dogs.  This means that I assume people generally want to feed the best nutrition to their companions, and that assumption becomes a major premise upon which dependent decisions are judged.

That being said, it’s understandable that the complexity of the question of canine nutrition (compounded by the realities that different breeds have clearly different nutritional needs) would cause great consternation and confusion as it’s being deconstructed in an effort to educate oneself.  So, it follows that frustration leads to one clever proclivity to minimalism.

A minimalist tendency attempts to simplify things, to get to their heart or root.  Then, we reason, we might be able to understand the most basic things and address them.  We beleive that in doing so, more complex dependencies will self-address, so we won’t have to worry about them — much.

I think that this tendency to minimalism and simplification has made raw feeding attractive.   When Ian Billinghurst cleverly spun BARF into a memorable, understandable, and logical story about wolves and dogs, it had resonance.  And, it fed a need to be able to understand before we act.

Sixteen years later, we have had the opportunity to examine Dr. Billinghurst’s ideas, and to glean the benefit from the risk.  When I set out to judge the risk/value ratio in feeding raw meat vs. cooked meat, I wanted to find empirical evidence that showed that feeding raw meat provided better nutrition than feeding cooked meat provided.  After all, if I’m going to risk parasites and bacterial infection for dogs, there had better be a good reason for doing so.

Breaking down meat nutrition boils down to knowing about the amino acid content in the meat under scrutiny.  Amino acids, the building blocks of protein, are the product of meat digestion.  The digested meat transitions from polypeptide (proteins) into peptides (amino acid chains) and finally, into amino acids.  This, simplified, is the process of digestion.

So, it helps to see a laboratory analysis of the amino acids present in meat.  And it would help even more to compare amino acids present in a specific raw meat, with the amino acids present in the same meat after it’s cooked!  Now THAT would tell us something about how cooking changes the value of meat proteins, right?

So, let’s compare.  These images show the amino acid profiles of RAW meat (it’s Beef Top Round, trimmed to 1/8″ fat), and the same meat after cooking. 

What you’ll find is that the profile of the amino acids are VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL.  What’s interesting, though, is that the consumed mass required to meet the same caloric value (in this example, 1000 kcal) is higher in the RAW meat than in the cooked meat.  So, the density of the amino acid value is GREATER in the cooked version than the raw, when feeding to satisfy caloric requirements (which, don’t we all do?!). 

So, why all the rage over RAW?  So many people can’t be influenced by what appears to be mass hysteria, can they?  Well, no.  I don’t think so.  Instead, I think that a lot of very conscientious people simply noticed that real meat (and real food) provides better nutrition than any of the commerical foods have for years and years.  I think of it as I would for myself.  If all I ate was fast food, with no vegetables (except french fries!), and lots of really horrible ingredients like trans-fats, my body would certainly do better if I started eating raw meat, vegetables, and grains.  But, how wise would that be?

Now chimes in the chorus of “dogs have digestive tracts that are designed to eat raw foods” singers.  I know.  I know.  But there are still tons of veterinarians warning that raw food isn’t the best choice for domesticated dogs.  Some of them even have to tell us to take a look at our dogs and ask ourselves “does my dog look like a wolf?”  And these, are good, caring, often holistic veterinarians, with no commercial corporate asset tag attached.

It’s something to ask ourselves.  Are we getting smarter about RAW?

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