A quiz – directed at veterinarians – was sent to me by a well known and trusted holistic veterinarian. I won’t share the name of this veterinarian because the quiz is only accessible to veterinarian members of Clinicians Brief – a publication for small animal veterinarians. (And because I was able to access the veterinarian only quiz…I don’t want to get anyone into any trouble.)
The problem with the quiz is the biased information it presents to our veterinarians as uniform facts. Such as…
The quiz tells veterinarians that home prepared pet foods made from 100% human grade ingredients is no healthier than a feed grade commercial diet. Of course they neglect to disclose to veterinarian quiz takers that feed grade pet foods are allowed by FDA to source ingredients from diseased or non-slaughtered animal material.
The quiz also discussed the nutritional benefits of by-products – again with no mention of inferior (and potentially dangerous) quality feed grade by-products.
The quiz tells veterinarians that carbohydrates are a quality source of nutrition for cats – although they did disclose more research is needed.
No great surprise, the quiz reports that prescription/therapeutic diets are more effective than ‘over the counter’ pet diets. The quiz neglects to tell veterinarians that therapeutic pet diets are allowed by FDA to make drug claims (to cure, treat, or mitigate disease) without being held to any drug safety requirements. Further the quiz neglected to tell veterinarians that therapeutic diets can be made with inferior (and potentially dangerous) feed grade ingredients.
This quiz was little more than pet feed marketing in quiz form. The veterinarian that shared the quiz with me so correctly pointed out that the quiz neglected to mention significant points and it will unfortunately give practicing veterinarians biased information that will unfortunately be preached to pet owners.
Until more veterinarians are educated to the dramatic differences between feed and food, pet owners will continue to face challenging discussions with them. If you experience a challenging conversation with your vet – please feel free to use the resources on this website. What might be helpful are the educational documents linked under ‘Learn More’ in the sidebar of any post on this website. Those are:
Human Grade & Feed Grade
Do you know what the differences are between Feed Grade and Human Grade pet food? Click Here.
The Regulations
Pet Food is regulated by federal and state authorities. Unfortunately, authorities ignore many safety laws. Click Here to learn more about the failures of the U.S. pet food regulatory system.
The Many Styles of Pet Food
An overview of the categories, styles, legal requirements and recall data of commercial pet food in the U.S. Click Here.
The Ingredients
Did you know that all pet food ingredients have a separate definition than the same ingredient in human food? Click Here.
We know that the pet feed industry isn’t going to be fully transparent with veterinarians about feed grade products…but we can be.
Wishing you and your pet the best –
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food
Become a member of our pet food consumer Association. Association for Truth in Pet Food is a a stakeholder organization representing the voice of pet food consumers at AAFCO and with FDA. Your membership helps representatives attend meetings and voice consumer concerns with regulatory authorities. Click Here to learn more.
What’s in Your Pet’s Food?
Is your dog or cat eating risk ingredients? Chinese imports? Petsumer Report tells the ‘rest of the story’ on over 5,000 cat foods, dog foods, and pet treats. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Click Here to preview Petsumer Report. www.PetsumerReport.com
Find Healthy Pet Foods in Your Area Click Here
The 2022 List
Susan’s List of trusted pet foods. Click Here to learn more.
Anne
March 22, 2022 at 4:28 pm
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for talking about this!
I have a couple rescue kitties who developed allergies to the horrible food I was unwittingly feeding them (before I found you and got myself educated) and when I reached out to my vet she told me that purina and science diet were wonderful companies and were concerned only for the animals, blah, blah and I said really because even then I knew that stuff was junk, she said oh yes… I asked her what she fed her animals and she hemmed and hawed, coughed, looked around and then said she fed them purina. Clearly she lied. Right to my face! I was stunned a veterinarian would lie to me! Now I know better. Never went back. Please talk more about this, people trust their vets…
Thank you so, so much for what you do
Jane Eagle
March 22, 2022 at 9:39 pm
I am reminded of several years ago, my dog was poisoned and in liver failure. My vet prescribed Hill’s prescription liver diet. I paid for everything, got home, and read the ingredients: most were GMO, which research was already showing caused LIVER and kidney failure in test animals. I returned it and told her why; she switched to some other brand, but by then I had researched it myself online, and fed him a proper diet to heal his liver. He survived.
T Allen
March 23, 2022 at 11:47 am
Thank you Susan! This is so sad. Well meaning vets are being intentionally misled by institutions they have no reason to distrust. What happens to Tufts reputation when this all falls apart? They have lost credibility in the human medicine sphere as well. I sure hope vets get their collective acts together and form an organization they can trust!
Donna DeBonis
April 8, 2022 at 7:55 pm
Thank you Susan, for the informative article.
I have a podcast called PET FOOD VET, where I discuss pet food recalls during Season 1. For Season 2, I am interviewing veterinarians about safe pet food and about pet food recalls. https://anchor.fm/petfoodvet I would like to interview any veterinarians who have treated any pets involved in a pet food recall. My hope is to spread the word amongst pet owners and veterinarians that they should be considering pet food contamination among the possible diagnosis for a sick pet. I can be reached at drdebonis@gmail.com
Alexis
March 23, 2022 at 12:33 pm
It isn’t just small animal vets who lie it is equine vets who also lie. They lie to support the slaughter industry (horse slaughter on US soil is not financially supported though technically still legal it’s just not “funded” so horses get shipped to Canada or Mexico for $$ on the hoof). The biggest horse feed manufacturer REFUSES POINT BLANK to reveal its various feed ingredients in its online presence; one has to go to a feed store and actually read bag tags required by law. But even those are not fully revealing – just like small animal pet food labels are absolutely NOT fully revealing – because state laws do not always mandate full disclosure of every ingredient or the source of the ingredients. My former dog vet (I fired her) pressured me very hard to buy a dog food I already KNEW was crap from the reading I’d done including on Truth About Pet Food (thank you Susan). This was a food stocked by the clinic at double the cost of what I would have to pay online though there was no way I would spend one penny on such garbage. When I pushed back she threatened to “turn me in for animal abuse for failing to follow veterinary instructions” so I not only fired her, I reported her to the Veterinary Board in my state (actually pretty useless,like doctors, it’s vets overseeing vets and that oversight is almost always against the pet parent). But I delivered my refusal by telling her that both husband and my brother were lawyers and she was welcome to bring it on. I since have found a holistic vet to work with.