BARF diet, yay or nay?

[theunraveler]

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As topic suggest, do you support a BARF diet? I have my own opinions about this but I am interested to hear other veterinarians and vet students opinion about this.

 

[Bill59]

Before this gets rolling, do you want opinions or data?

 

[theunraveler]

Before this gets rolling, do you want opinions or data?

Opinion please

 

[Bill59]

Thanks.

My opinion is nay. There is no health benefit of BARF diets compared to most commercial diets. But there are several risks -- GI disease due to bones, bacterial contamination, and some BARF diets are not well balanced.

By coincidence, that's also what the data show.

 

[libster06]

The diet name itself suggests my opinion.

I think the diet does more for the people feeding it to feel better than the animal. I also know personally of animals who have been slightly malnourished being fed a BARF diet. Not that their owners meant to, but they were advised to alter the diet to help the animal gain weight.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

While I am definitely a fan of more natural nutrition, I think the possible harm outweights the benefits of the raw diet, especially since the vast majority of people that feed it do it incorrectly. The only time I would actually recommend it is for very certain cases such as allergy (although I don't know of an allergy that would be fixed by feeding raw) when no other food type will do. Obviously, real food is better than kibble, but there are just too many issues with this diet.

A properly balanced homecooked diet is far superior and safer, if a dog's nutritional needs warrant it. I very much support homecooked diets when formulated under the guidance of a veterinary nutritionist. And I do dislike the vast majority of commercial processed foods. But raw....thumbsdown. I used to be more supportive of feeding raw, but as I have gone on through my education, I just don't see any properly researched benefits.

 

[turnandburn]

I'm not AGAINST it, but there is no real data to support it either. There are definitely risks associated with feeding raw. Properly balanced cooked diets are probably the best way to go. There seems to be a pretty cultish/religious following among BARFers/raw feeders that's a little weird to me. I'd love to see some well designed, large, long term studies comparing cheap kibble (grocery X), expensive kibble (golden sparkle organic antibiotic-free grass fed unicorn), home cooked and raw diets. But who would fund it??

 

[libster06]

There seems to be a pretty cultish/religious following among BARFers/raw feeders that's a little weird to me.

I wanted to say something like that but I refrained, for fear of being burned at the stake.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

golden sparkle organic antibiotic-free grass fed unicorn

 

[theunraveler]

It seems that we all have some similar experience and I agree that the BARFers treat this whole thing with a cult like fanaticism. Reading the literature, there seems to be no evidence to suggest raw food diet for small animals and on the contrary, raw diets may cause nutritional deficiencies and possible gastroenteritis

 

[turnandburn]

I'm so on the fence about this. Personally, I feed Purina and will most likely always do so (or some similar brand). I realize these diets have been extensively studied and and my personal experience with them has been favorable. However, nutrition in vet med does seem a little backwards to me. Human nutritionists recommend eating a variety of whole, fresh, unprocessed foods for optimal health, and in vet med we recommend... highly processed, "species inappropriate" (seems the be the buzzword) diets- specifically I'm referring to foods for dogs and cats with grains as the primary ingredient. As dogs and cats are carnivores (facultative and obligate) it seems to me that meat should at least be a primary ingredient. The concept that pets need "nutrients not ingredients" seems backwards to me as well... I am not a super healthy eater but I certainly think the ingredients are just as important as the overall nutrient profile! I do think we can be doing better for our pets. And yet, so many animals seem to do well on such a variety of diets. It leaves me feeling very confused. If someone I knew wanted to feed a home prepared diet, I would at least recommend cooking it. Not really sure what the big deal is over "raw."

 

[theunraveler]

I'm so on the fence about this. Personally, I feed Purina and will most likely always do so (or some similar brand). I realize these diets have been extensively studied and and my personal experience with them has been favorable. However, nutrition in vet med does seem a little backwards to me. Human nutritionists recommend eating a variety of whole, fresh, unprocessed foods for optimal health, and in vet med we recommend... highly processed, "species inappropriate" (seems the be the buzzword) diets- specifically I'm referring to foods for dogs and cats with grains as the primary ingredient. As dogs and cats are carnivores (facultative and obligate) it seems to me that meat should at least be a primary ingredient. The concept that pets need "nutrients not ingredients" seems backwards to me as well... I am not a super healthy eater but I certainly think the ingredients are just as important as the overall nutrient profile! I do think we can be doing better for our pets. And yet, so many animals seem to do well on such a variety of diets. It leaves me feeling very confused. If someone I knew wanted to feed a home prepared diet, I would at least recommend cooking it. Not really sure what the big deal is over "raw."

One need not buy commercial pet food but I think the main thing about BARF is the lack of evidence to suggest why one should feed raw food and also the danger with raw food. I would much prefer cooked food for my pets but I get commercial pet food because of the convenience and it provides adequate nutrition.

 

[lostbunny]

Not really sure what the big deal is over "raw."

I would have thought that the idea of raw food came from the extremists' ideas of dogs being related to wolves and wolves eating raw meat- and back in the day before cavemen were packaging Pedigree, they had no choice but to feed their dogs raw meat. I would imagine that its just someone's thought on keeping life as 'natural' as possible for dogs.

My only experience with BARF diets are when animals would come in to the clinic, the techs would advise/joke not to let them lick you. 😛

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

back in the day before cavemen were packaging Pedigree, they had no choice but to feed their dogs raw meat.

Yeah, something like that. However, they (and I mean the extremists, not people just interested in proper nutrition) also conveniently forget that dogs also lived off of (cooked) table scraps and garbage for quite a long time also before commercial food was being produced.

 

[turnandburn]

before cavemen were packaging Pedigree, they had no choice but to feed their dogs raw meat.

Yeah, I'm not really sure I buy that dogs were being fed predominantly raw meat before commercial diets came around. Meat historically has been a huge commodity for most people and I'm highly skeptical people were tossing choice pieces down for their dogs. I think for most, it's more reasonable to believe that dogs were fed leftover bones completely stripped of meat, or completely unusable/highly undesirable parts of kill (cooked or uncooked), along with other parts that may have gone bad, and these dogs supplemented their diet on their own by scavenging and foraging, as they are such opportunists.

 

[sumstorm]

I'm fine with BARF/raw food diets with some contingencies. Need high compliance with regular re-evaluations of the current diet (due to drift) which, to me, includes a nutritional evaluation in a qualified lab, and a strong devotion to appropriate preperation and sanitation. There are some individuals doing BARF/raw that I would question if they are able to feed themselves in a reasonable manner, and there are others that are so skilled and knowledgable that I'd let them design my diet if they had an interest. I think major problems occur when the latter group tries to educate the former group, and the former group picks up the raw message but none of the details.

 

[sergioxl]

Just like the name says: BARF

To diet just on raw food is ludicrous. It has many health problems associated with it. I think that the ones that are for this diet are simply influenced by those from whom they receive money, and whom benefit from selling their stuff. Its pretty much how I feel about some pharmaceutical drugs that make it in the market.

Vote NAY, no support for it at all.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Just like the name says: BARF

To diet just on raw food is ludicrous. It has many health problems associated with it. I think that the ones that are for this diet are simply influenced by those from whom they receive money, and whom benefit from selling their stuff. Its pretty much how I feel about some pharmaceutical drugs that make it in the market.

Vote NAY, no support for it at all.

Uh......no one pays people to promote raw feeding (if someone would pay me to buy meat at the supermarket, sure!), and the only people that benefit from buying raw meat are farmers/feedlots, who are not pushing any sort of diet.

I'm not quite following....it's not like drug pushing because no one has patented meat and is pushing it on dog owners. Unless you were referring specifically only to prepackaged raw diets? In that case, I agree with you.

 

[sergioxl]

Uh......no one pays people to promote raw feeding (if someone would pay me to buy meat at the supermarket, sure!), and the only people that benefit from buying raw meat are farmers/feedlots, who are not pushing any sort of diet.

I'm not quite following....it's not like drug pushing because no one has patented meat and is pushing it on dog owners. Unless you were referring specifically only to prepackaged raw diets? In that case, I agree with you.

I was referring to prepackaged raw diets specifically ... at the time I was writing the post in my mind it seemed clear that it was what I was referring to. Thanks for pointing it out 🙂

 

[Minnerbelle]

I'm fine with BARF/raw food diets with some contingencies. Need high compliance with regular re-evaluations of the current diet (due to drift) which, to me, includes a nutritional evaluation in a qualified lab, and a strong devotion to appropriate preperation and sanitation. There are some individuals doing BARF/raw that I would question if they are able to feed themselves in a reasonable manner, and there are others that are so skilled and knowledgable that I'd let them design my diet if they had an interest. I think major problems occur when the latter group tries to educate the former group, and the former group picks up the raw message but none of the details.

👍👍👍

It's hard enough to have owners comply with the "feed only X amount of food per day" and limit the table scraps thing. And it's hard enough to get owners to pay for things like blood panels, even when the animal's ill. And imagine trying to tell your clients not to let their dogs kiss their children (I mean, would you want to rub raw meat on your face after it's sat in your dog's mouth for a little while?)!

It would take a very special owner to devote themselves to a nutritiously complete and safe BARF diet. And I agree, the work doesn't even end at meticulously preparing and cleaning for each meal. The hard part is submitting and resubmitting your homemade diet every so often to an independent lab for analysis, and re-evaluating for quality assurance. I personally wouldn't recommend the pre-packaged BARF diets because I don't trust their quality control (amongst other things). So I sure as hell wouldn't trust 99% of owners with their ability to quality control. I mean, I wouldn't even trust myself with it!

The amount of effort it takes to even have a safe, nutritiously complete diet with BARF is so high that unless someone had a very compelling reason to do so, I would highly discourage it. For most owners, feeding a commercial kibble diet from a well-established company is probably a much safer bet for their animals IMO.

 

[Nellyakgo]

Hi there.

I'm usually in the medical forum and only just noticed the Vet forum, decided to take a peek and saw this thread. I'm an MD . I have an 18 year old cat (rescued off the street as a kitten) with various health issues. A vet recommended a raw diet about 4 months ago. Not 100% raw. I par boil the big pieces of meat, for a minute or two before I de-bone. It's very very very time CONSUMING. I love my cat and I've been spending the majority of my time and money (I mean thousands of $s) over the last several months on her health care. But I'm burnt out over the food preparation. Each prep, which yields app 10 days worth food, excluding the shopping - takes about 5 hours. Majority of that time is taking the meat off the bone, removing tendons and fascia. I use turkey which has a huge amount of tendons/fascia.

Someone or several wrote on this thread that it's not easy to prepare the raw food properly. Not only is it not easy, it's a huge time expenditure. I have no doubt I'm doing it right and I have no doubt about it's nutritiousness - I add many things. But yes, I would tend to have the same question mark about what others do.

I don't use ground bone. It's impossible to grind it fine enough in a meat grinder (perhaps OK for dogs but definetly not for cats) I use egg shells. I know that's another controversy about the bioavailability of the calcium, I think perhaps mostly by the - what someone called on the thread - "cult" of the barfers.

At this point I would love to switch to a commercial food that is acceptable in ingredients AND that my cat would eat. My main concern is to have a "novel" protein and no grains, no vegetables (except peas), no added fiber, no ground bones. Ideally no fillers either (e.g. guar gum, carageenan) but I'm willing to accept the latter. I've tried (or rather wasted lots of money - because one can only buy them on-line in 24's) several canned foods based on venison or duck only. Hills' Science and Royal Canine. My cat wouldn't eat them at all. And I think they smell and look disgusting too. The commercial frozen ones contain bone which I don't want.

And yes, if you carefully read the ingredient list and analysis for %, of commercial food, it doesn't look that good at all. I've contacted several manufacturers with questions. It's very hard to get a sense of confidence from they. They will not be 100% transparent.

The other thing, which was sort of touched on by someone in this thread : The animal nutrition data or any animal medical data in general is so much lacking in my opinion compared to human data. I apologize if I offend or annoy anyone but this is my opinion after having dealt with numerous Veterinarians, University and private vet hospitals. I write this to say it seems like a lot of decisions we make are judgmental rather than evidence based.

So this is my side of the story.

 

[CurrySpice]

Nellyakgo: Why are you deboning the meat? I thought that part of the reason of these whole-food diets was to have the critters chewing bones. I know raw bones are good for the teeth!

 

[Nellyakgo]

For several reasons:

- I don't think cats would/could chew on the bones of the animals the size of which we use to make food in nature. Birds, small reptiles, mice yes. But only those small animals. Anything else is way too large & also therefore too hard.

-The barfers actually "grind" the bones. At least that's how it's supposed to be for cats. They're not expected to eat or chew on the bones whole. So if I have to grind them, unless there's a distinct advantage to being bone, what's the benefit vs. eggshell? (My point re. the dubious bioavailability argument) There's also an argument re. trace minerals as nutrients in bone. But I believe those are supplied via the blood content.

-The ground bones are still not a powder. They are shards, and could potentially be dangerous for a cat.

-If you read the labels of the commercial frozen raw diets carefully, the meat is from a particular species, but the bone is always ground lamb bone. I think there's something not quite right with this. Obviously the companies do it because it's more feasible/cost effective for them. If it is that particular species whose meat we want to feed the animal, then it seems right that the bone should be from the same animal. I don't have data to back this, it's my gut feeling. The other issue I have with this is regarding allergenicity. Yes, it's the protein that's the main allergen. But if it's assumed that a particular species is allergenic to cats - and lamb is said to be - one can NOT guarantee that the bone won't contain any amounts of the allergenic proteins. To the contrary, I think it's highly likely it will.

-My cat is 18. Two of her teeth fell off several years ago and she had 4 removed by extraction. I would hate for her to lose more by physical trauma.

-And one more thing perhaps also more applicable to dogs too: If you look at nature the "big dogs" e.g. wolves or the "big cats" don't eat the bones of their prey or chew on them. They eat the meat and leave the bones behind on the carcass.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

-And one more thing perhaps also more applicable to dogs too: If you look at nature the "big dogs" e.g. wolves or the "big cats" don't eat the bones of their prey or chew on them. They eat the meat and leave the bones behind on the carcass.

Actually, not really. Wolves will indeed eat everything they can on a carcass, with the exception of the large bones, same as lions, etc. The smaller bones are usually consumed.

 

[theunraveler]

At this point I would love to switch to a commercial food that is acceptable in ingredients AND that my cat would eat. My main concern is to have a "novel" protein and no grains, no vegetables (except peas), no added fiber, no ground bones. Ideally no fillers either (e.g. guar gum, carageenan) but I'm willing to accept the latter. I've tried (or rather wasted lots of money - because one can only buy them on-line in 24's) several canned foods based on venison or duck only. Hills' Science and Royal Canine. My cat wouldn't eat them at all. And I think they smell and look disgusting too. The commercial frozen ones contain bone which I don't want.

And yes, if you carefully read the ingredient list and analysis for %, of commercial food, it doesn't look that good at all. I've contacted several manufacturers with questions. It's very hard to get a sense of confidence from they. They will not be 100% transparent.

The other thing, which was sort of touched on by someone in this thread : The animal nutrition data or any animal medical data in general is so much lacking in my opinion compared to human data. I apologize if I offend or annoy anyone but this is my opinion after having dealt with numerous Veterinarians, University and private vet hospitals. I write this to say it seems like a lot of decisions we make are judgmental rather than evidence based.

So this is my side of the story.

Have you tried heating up the food abit? Cats like food of a certain temperature range. Pet food does smell and taste funny but then again we humans have very sophisticated taste buds so I wont impose an humancentric view of food on them. Cats also do have good sense of smell, so you might want to try different products and see which ones appeal to her sense of smell

Hill's website have a form which you can fill in and they will get back to you, have you used it yet? What sort of question do you have in mind? I know a Hill's representative so I might forward the question to her. With regards to pet food, they must satisfy the AAFCO regulations and whatever FDA regulations imposed in order to have the label "complete and balanced".

 

[Nellyakgo]

Thanks for your thoughts.
Yes, I sometimes do heat foods and sometimes it helps. With these ones she's totally shunned them though.
You mention that our (human) sense of food is highly developed. I wouldn't underestimate that of cats' either 🙂)

The issue is that I've run out of products to try - products that are only a single protein source, duck or rabbit or venison and that don't contain grains or fruit/veg (other than peas) or lamb bones.

As to questions to manufacturers - they do answer with answers they can provide. But having worked in product development R&D myself, I know those answers aren't the full story. For example: the average nutrient contents are given as % minimums. That's OK for protein, vitamins etc. But not for e.g. fat.

As an aside - doesn't it make you wonder what the state of/original source of the protein is that the manufacturers have to turn the product into a complete paste? If the source isn't 3rd grade by-products that are obtained by extrusion etc, or they are so highly preserved that they lose consistency, I don't believe they would need to be made into such a consistency even if they need to be mixed with the vitamins/taurine/essential fatty acids etc., or for the need to be canned. OK, I am still willing to overlook this if I could find a product fitting the above.

 

[theunraveler]

Thanks for your thoughts.
Yes, I sometimes do heat foods and sometimes it helps. With these ones she's totally shunned them though.
You mention that our (human) sense of food is highly developed. I wouldn't underestimate that of cats' either 🙂)

The issue is that I've run out of products to try - products that are only a single protein source, duck or rabbit or venison and that don't contain grains or fruit/veg (other than peas) or lamb bones.

As to questions to manufacturers - they do answer with answers they can provide. But having worked in product development R&D myself, I know those answers aren't the full story. For example: the average nutrient contents are given as % minimums. That's OK for protein, vitamins etc. But not for e.g. fat.

As an aside - doesn't it make you wonder what the state of/original source of the protein is that the manufacturers have to turn the product into a complete paste? If the source isn't 3rd grade by-products that are obtained by extrusion etc, or they are so highly preserved that they lose consistency, I don't believe they would need to be made into such a consistency even if they need to be mixed with the vitamins/taurine/essential fatty acids etc., or for the need to be canned. OK, I am still willing to overlook this if I could find a product fitting the above.

I guess you can try to make your own home cooked meal or speak with your vet to see what sort of products are available in the market that contain single protein source.

From what I know, it really doesnt matter where the protein source come from. One molecule of tryptophan is the same whether it comes from premium scotch fillet or from the bits of the animal that is not normally consumed. It still gets digested and used accordingly in the body

 

[Nellyakgo]

I guess you can try to make your own home cooked meal or speak with your vet to see what sort of products are available in the market that contain single protein source.

From what I know, it really doesnt matter where the protein source come from. One molecule of tryptophan is the same whether it comes from premium scotch fillet or from the bits of the animal that is not normally consumed. It still gets digested and used accordingly in the body

I think you haven't read further up the thread. I've been making meals at home and I was saying how hard and time consuming it is and that I'm burnt out.

For allergenicity reasons, there is a difference of proteins between species. The key point for wanting a single source novel protein.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

For allergenicity reasons, there is a difference of proteins between species. The key point for wanting a single source novel protein.

Agreed.

The difference is between amino acids and proteins (ie, how the amino acids are arranged on a much more complex scale), as far as my biochem knowledge from 4 years ago takes me.

I mean, the proteins in pollen have some of the same amino acids I eat in food every day. But I'm allergic to pollen. I wouldn't be surprised if there is also a great deal of differences between the secondary and tertiary structures of meat protein in various species too.


Interesting paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1398-9995.1998.tb04975.x/abstract

Protein modification by thermal processing

This paper is a review concerning the way in which heat treatment can modify the allergenicity of food proteins. Any food protein may be allergenic if it can be absorbed intact, or as substantial fragments, through the gut mucosa and then evoke an immune (allergic) response. The intrinsic properties of the protein, the overall composition of the food, and the past processing history (especially thermal processing) all have an effect on the allergic potential. When a protein is denatured by heat, most of the original tertiary structure is lost, so that many of the sites recognized by antibodies on the native molecule are destroyed. There are many examples of allergenicity being reduced, but not eliminated, by heating. But heat-denatured proteins can also present new antigenic sites, uncovered by the unfolding process or created by new chemical reactions with other molecules present in the food (e.g., β-lactoglobulin associating with a-lactalbumin in milk). We have found that heat-denatured β-lactoglobulin has at least one new epitope, not found in the native state. Therefore, thermal processing can be part of a procedure for making hypoallergenic food, but will rarely be sufficient on its own. Increased understanding will help in evaluating novel proteins and processes.


So. We could even be contributing to allergy but unfolding new protein sites through processing. Which could be why a cat allergic to chicken-based cat food would not be allergic to lightly cooked or raw chicken. Again, I don't promote raw, but I do have an issue with overprocessed foods.

 

[Nellyakgo]

Wow! Fascinating. Makes me even more frustrated at how little we know.

 

[Minnerbelle]

So. We could even be contributing to allergy but unfolding new protein sites through processing. Which could be why a cat allergic to chicken-based cat food would not be allergic to lightly cooked or raw chicken. Again, I don't promote raw, but I do have an issue with overprocessed foods.

Maybe I'm not understanding exactly what you're trying to say, but I don't see how processing food would increase food allergies. Unless a patient has ONLY ever eaten ONE version of a particular protein (cooked vs. raw) in their lifetime from whatever time in development oral tolerance is built, I don't understand how cooking food sometimes and not other times will make a difference. In terms of the proteins within the meat itself, what's the difference exactly between simply boiling a hunk of steak and "overprocessing" it, allergy wise?

The way I understood it is that food allergy is the result of the body not building appropriate oral tolerance for food epitopes (regardless of whether the protein is in its native conformation or denatured). Maybe I'm wrong, but I was pretty sure that allergies to BOTH cooked chicken and raw chicken would be considered failure of oral tolerance. Having allergies to cooked chicken is just as much a pathology as having allergies to raw chicken. I think it's more like, if an animal is allergic to a protein epitope in cooked chicken, then yes raw chicken (or better yet, a different protein source) might be more beneficial. But you can just as easily say that if an animal is allergic to a protein epitope in RAW chicken, then it would be good to process it. I personally have IgE mediated allergies to some protein component of tree fruit, so I cannot eat raw nuts, cherries, apples, apricots, peaches, etc... but processed fruit is just fine. I do agree that there are things about highly processed foods that bring down food quality (harmful/excessive additives, nutrients not being as available, etc...) but I don't see anything wrong in processing food allergy-wise.

Also, unless things have changed since I took immuno in undergrad (a good possibility), the development of oral tolerance is heavily T-cell mediated in the GALT. It's a lot more complicated than this, but the gist I got was that if you have an inappropriate T cell reaction to food leading to a food allergy, then it doesn't matter whether the protein is denatured or not, since T cells only recognize the primary sequence of peptides.

 

[Nellyakgo]

As I understood the article: The point wasn't about oral tolerance or T cell response or any other internal mechanism of how the allergy develops. It was about protein structure that triggers the allergenic response and how that structure can be different between species as well as different as a result of thermal processing.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Maybe I'm not understanding exactly what you're trying to say, but I don't see how processing food would increase food allergies. Unless a patient has ONLY ever eaten ONE version of a particular protein (cooked vs. raw) in their lifetime from whatever time in development oral tolerance is built, I don't understand how cooking food sometimes and not other times will make a difference. In terms of the proteins within the meat itself, what's the difference exactly between simply boiling a hunk of steak and "overprocessing" it, allergy wise?

It's not about a change in the specific epitope that the original allergy is from (ie in the raw form)

Processing, like the paper says, has the ability to open up new possible antigenic sites on the protein due to refolding.

I didn't say processing food can increase allergies overall - sorry if it came across that way. processing can "close" original allergenic sites just as easily.

In terms of boiling versus more invasive forms of processing, I think it would just basically have to do with the level of protein unfolding and denaturation/reassembly - is more processing causes more change in the original configuration.

I'm saying I found it interesting the *potentially* processing can cause new allergies to new epitopes on foods that were not originally there.

 

[quantized]

Nellyakgo, it might be worth contacting a place that formulates custom diets and seeing if they could help come up with ways to simplify your cat's homemade diet while keeping it balanced and appropriate for her needs. Any of the small animal nutrition services on this list should be able to help you.