Ancestral and Species-Specific Diets are the only BIOLOGICALLY Appropriate Diet for Dogs and Cats.
Ashlie Williamson, Lecturer
Many stereotypes are often heard in the circles of dog and cat owners, with claims from commercial pet food products stating that the digestive tracts of dogs and cats have evolved to digest cooked commercial foods. Even though there have been evolutionary changes to the outer appearance of our domestic dogs and cats, they still retain their original carnivorous digestive features and many behavioural patterns of their wild relatives. They are still to this very day, designed to eat and digest raw foods.
It was only in the aftermath of WW1 that Australia started to see the first commercial dog biscuit, though it was quite expensive to buy, it was not until the 1950’s that the bagged feeds started to become popular. With that, began the slow and insidious decline in health of our modern-day dogs and cats.
The average veterinarian today spends more than half of their working day, treating the epidemic of skin diseases, obesity, IBS, food allergies, arthritis, teeth and gum problems, anal gland impactions, urinary tract diseases and a huge range of degenerative diseases, previously only thought to occur in man, due to inappropriate diets. Animals that are still fortunate to be eating an ancestral diet, like those in zoo’s, are not suffering from the same ailments of IBS or food allergies, because their diets are still remaining species specific, unlike dogs and cats.
Currently on the market there is such a huge reliance on pet processed foods, offering information on the packet/tin that promises the dog will receive all their nutritional requirements, including the dog will run faster, the cat will look better, be more vibrant. These claims are misleading.
The products house SYNTHETIC nutrients that often fall short of the claims made for them. The result is a diseased pet after only a few short years of eating such hollow and partially toxic food.
When we look at modern food processing methods, cooking preserves food, but destroys enzymes and microbial content, which therefore prevents the natural decay. It also destroys natural vitamins, essential fatty acids, and amino acids (building blocks of protein) essentially inhibiting nutrients to be absorbed through the body via in the gut.
Modern pet research is focused on immediate effects of nutrition rather than long term health. Deficiencies that create an immediate problem have been addressed, but nonlife-threatening deficiencies or nutritional deficiencies have not had as much attention. Therefore, the pet’s life span, altered absorptive capabilities of older pets and the accumulation of years of low-grade deficiency have not been addressed by nutritional research.
The natural species-specific canine and feline gut flora and digestive processors are altered, destroying much needed enzymes and bacteria already present in the stomach and digestive tract, the natural breakdown and absorption of nutrients to efficiently supply the pet with all their nutritional qualities are largely void within the modern diet.
For cats and dogs to achieve the long life and health they deserve, they should eat the food that nature intended them to eat; a diet based on the Principles of Evolutionary Nutrition, just as their wild ancestors did.
We at the ANME, along with a growing body of vets, breeders, and every day dog and cat owners, and a wealth of scientific evidence, believe that educating pet owners on why a species-specific diet that dogs and cats are designed to eat is the best way to ensure that our pets live long and healthy lives void of unnecessary health issues.
