People who take care to eat well and use natural health
care techniques are often equally concerned about their pets’ health. And in
most cases, the issues are the same – optimum nutrition, safe and natural
remedies for ailments, and avoidance of harmful chemicals in the environment.
Nutrition
Our pets were not meant to eat the highly processed,
preserved concoctions of questionable origin that the multi-billion dollar
pet food industry tries to pass off as food. Most packaged pet food is made from
inferior meat (sometimes road kill and other dead animals), cheap grains
(including corn and soy), fillers, by-products, pesticides, preservatives and
other toxins. It is also processed at very high temperatures, which destroys
vitamins, amino acids and natural digestive enzymes. Increasingly, veterinarians
are finding that processed pet food is a leading cause of illness and premature
death in the modern dog and cat. In 1995, the British Journal of Small
Animal Practice
published a paper by Dr. Tom Lonsdale, contending that processed pet food
suppresses the immune system and leads to liver, kidney, heart and other
diseases. This research has since been replicated by the Australian Veterinary
Association and proven to be correct.
There are alternatives. If you don’t have the time or inclination to make your
own pet food, you can buy one of the growing number of natural products and
increase the amount of table scraps from your own healthy, low-fat meals in your
pet’s diet. You might also want to investigate vegetarianism for your dog. Dogs
are omnivores, meaning they can eat either a meat-based or vegetarian diet.
Cats, however, are carnivores and require some nutrients from meat that cannot
be obtained in sufficient amounts from plant foods. Cats fed on vegetarian diets
are likely to look elsewhere for their preferred meat diet, and many cats will
hunt and kill small rodents and birds.
The Vegetarian Society recommends providing your vegetarian dog with plenty of
variety, to avoid ...
Wendy Priesnitz is Natural Life's editor.
