Intro 00:00
We have so much information packed into the next hour for you. You're going to learn what's the most important thing to supplement. What does AAFCO allow that is just not appropriate for our pets? How can you make your pets' bowl better? Stay tuned.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Judy Morgan, and oh my gosh, are you in for a surprise today? Because I have the famous Dr. Karen Becker with me today.
Dr. Karen Becker 00:31
Wow! Thanks for the invite. It's fun to be sharing a couch, sister.
Dr. Judy Morgan 00:35
Yeah, we haven't been on a couch together for a while.
Dr. Karen Becker 00:37
It has. It's been a been a minute, but it's nice to be here.
Dr. Judy Morgan 00:40
It's been a minute. So I think the last time we spent a lot of time together was probably at an AAFCO meeting a while back.
Dr. Karen Becker 00:45
I think so. Let's just block that out.
Dr. Judy Morgan 00:47
Yeah, why don't we? That oh man, yeah. Have you been to one lately?
Dr. Karen Becker 00:52
I haven't.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yeah, I haven't. Susan invites me to all of them, and she always sends me the email. Are you coming? And I've been to quite a few, and I just well, one, I can't. It's hard to justify the price,
Dr. Karen Becker
and it went up. I don't know if you know this. My best girlfriend, Susan Recker, signed up, and she signed up for her employer, Animal Diet Formulator, and then they they emailed her and said, "You're not going to be able to come under a business. You have to come as an individual. It's $1,100 to get in the door. And she said. I'm never going again. Right, but that's also unfortunate because, of course, that's cost prohibitive to everyone. But is that the point? I think it is, which I'm sure is also pretty frustrating.
Dr. Judy Morgan 01:31
Yeah, and you know, at at one point, Susan and we were trying really hard to get more consumers to go, with with the caveat that just come prepared to be bored to death because we're going to spend an hour and a half talking about commas and semicolons. Yes, but you know if we could get more consumer representation there,
Dr. Karen Becker 01:51
If we could have a whole row of people that actually were there because we cared about ingredients and sourcing and quality and legislation, but they're making it literally cost prohibitive for anyone to go.
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:02
I mean, the last one I went, it was $500 But then you still have your hotel, your airfare, your meals. Oh my gosh!
Dr. Karen Becker 02:08
Yeah, frustrating.
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:09
Yeah, that just doubled.
Dr. Karen Becker 02:10
Yeah, and it's almost like if you, you know, if your big big pet food can afford to probably send their entire team there.
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:18
Exactly.
Dr. Karen Becker 02:19
If you're little pet food and or an individual or someone just interested in wanting to see where the industry is going. It literally has they've made it impossible. It's like um it's like an old boys club, a rich old boys club,
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:30
a rich old boys club. But you know, which is kind of funny because they got a lot of power taken away from them with the new changes, and now somebody else is doing the ingredient definition. So I'm actually not even sure what their role is
Dr. Karen Becker 02:44
I think that they're wondering what their role is will be as well. Like things are changing fast enough that there may not be an AAFCO, right? We just don't know.
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:52
I don't know if that's good or bad.
Dr. Karen Becker 02:53
Me either. And and if there is an AAFCO, then like who is going to trying to do something? And I don't know.
Dr. Karen Becker 02:59
I don't know where this is going. But I do think it's scary. I think that that's that is part of the reason why helping other veterinarians and pet parents understand what they need to be looking for and what they need to be thinking about is even extra important at such a time as this.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yeah, no kidding, because if they throw it into the individual states, and it's already so hard for the small manufacturers because you have to register every recipe, every treat, every product has to be registered individually.
Dr. Karen Becker
So expensive in every state you do, and you have to have basically a full-time compliance person doing all the things, submitting all the forms, paying all the fees. So on top of being just expensive to do to produce food, you have to have a dedicated person to do that. And for small ethical companies, that's hard.
Dr. Judy Morgan 03:47
It's really hard. So I had a guy who wanted to make a human grade small batch food, and so he called me and was kind. We were kind of walking through what he was going to be looking at what he's in for. Yeah, and so he wanted it to be a human grade, and I can't even remember if he was doing raw or gently cooked or whatever. But he was in one state, and he wanted to sell it locally. But then he wanted to be able to ship it, and I said, "Well, wherever you're shipping it, you do realize you're going to have to be in every single state. And he wanted to have multiple recipes, and I'm like, okay, well, every one of those has to be registered in every state, and I felt really bad because he just had the best of intentions, and he was being really breed specific. And then I finally said, you might not want to make it that breed specific, maybe small dog specific, because he was like really honing in, and I was like, there are a lot of that breed of dog. However, if you're going to go to all the trouble to get all these recipes designed and then register them in every single state, you don't really want to limit your market. You want to be able to sell enough to pay for all that.
Dr. Karen Becker 04:54
Yeah, you do.
Dr. Judy Morgan 04:54
And I feel bad. I think I talked him out of it.
Dr. Karen Becker 04:56
Well, I think what happens. I think you watch people want powerfully. Probably out of his own personal experience, want to powerfully make a difference, and then they realize this is just like daunting and overwhelm. It's a lot of like bureaucratic red tape, yeah. And I think rules and regulations are really important, and certainly when it comes to like food ingredient definitions, all important stuff. Yeah, but it makes it cost prohibitive enough for people. Good people try to do good things; they just give up.
Dr. Judy Morgan 05:22
Yeah, and some of the small companies, like they they get started, and then they realize, oh, pooh, yeah, like I'm gonna have to do all this.
Dr. Karen Becker 05:30
Yes,
Dr. Judy Morgan 05:31
and you know, then we get like you'll have an outlier state that just has some weird rule.
Dr. Karen Becker 05:38
Yes,
Dr. Judy Morgan 05:38
and so then they're like, you know, you go to their website and say, "Cannot ship to Idaho. Yeah, you know,
Dr. Karen Becker 05:43
won't ship to Texas.
Dr. Judy Morgan 05:45
Yeah,
Dr. Karen Becker 05:45
it's like, where did that come from? Yeah,
Dr. Judy Morgan 05:47
yeah. Well, we know where it goes. That's right. It comes from those state regulators who are too big for their britches and decide they're just
Dr. Karen Becker 05:53
impossible. There are some impossible states that just it's too painful, and then those people go without better quality foods. Yep.
Dr. Judy Morgan 06:00
Somebody just told me yesterday because I live in North Carolina now, and they're like, "I would never open a pet food plant in North Carolina. They are so hard to deal with. And I'm like, "Oh, that stinks.
Dr. Karen Becker 06:11
It does stink. It does. Does. Yep.
Dr. Judy Morgan 06:13
So you know, people have said to me for years, "Oh, you should have your own pet food company. I'm like, "Really? Like, I do not want that headache.
Dr. Karen Becker 06:21
Just a complete labor of love, and then and then after you get undone, I mean, because you you would have the your you know I kind of classify personalities like raccoon or possum. I'm a possum. I just try once, give up, and just take a nap. There's no like go. There's no raccoon. I'm gonna just do this thing. But you're probably gonna you would get the thing done. But then human grade, free range, ethically sourced, ethically soldered. You do the whole thing, and then people say, "Oh, like they get it, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, the price! Well, that's that's what good quality food costs. It's expensive, and instead of asking why is ethically sourced food so expensive, I think we should say, "Why is the rest of the pet food so cheap?
Dr. Judy Morgan 07:00
No kidding,
Dr. Karen Becker 07:01
and it's still all expensive. You know, I mean, just everything is expensive.
Dr. Judy Morgan 07:05
Well, I mean, but looking comparatively, yeah. But I mean, I I've done these videos where I go in the grocery store and I go. I'm not. My husband won't let me in the pet food aisle anymore because I, you know, I start just ranting.
Dr. Karen Becker 07:17
You know, at our age, we have to think about blood pressure, Judy.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, you know what it is? He's like, you're gonna get us kicked out. We're not gonna be able to buy groceries anywhere. You have an escort out of the store, especially when I'm filming what I'm screaming about.
Dr. Judy Morgan 07:30
But you know, I do price comparisons, and it's like, okay, there's not one good ingredient in here. This is really all wheat, gluten, and synthetic vitamins, and it's these little tiny cans that are $1.39 a can. So when you multiply that out and get your 16 ounces, it's like you're paying $18 a pound.
Dr. Karen Becker 07:51
Yes,
Dr. Judy Morgan 07:51
I mean I'm sorry, I can go get filet mignon for that.
Dr. Karen Becker 07:53
And I think that that's that's part of why I think we are both into empowering people to make homemade food because you can make it for far cheaper, right? And it's you're in control, and you can see it, and you can see the quality, and and it's fresh. There's all those good reasons why we encourage people to learn enough to make homemade food.
Dr. Judy Morgan 08:11
Exactly, and you know what? It may not be perfect every single time, but you get better as you go.
Dr. Karen Becker 08:15
Absolutely, absolutely.
Dr. Judy Morgan 08:19
And I mean, I look back at some of my original recipes and what I was making for my dogs, and I'm like, y'all survived. Y'all did, and you know what? They did well because it was fresh food. You know, and all my kids are watching synthetics, right? So yeah, and all my kids were coming from really bad backgrounds with a lot of issues, and all you do is take away all that ultra processed synthetic stuff, and it's like, look, they got better. Oh my gosh!
Dr. Karen Becker 08:42
Yeah, and it's and then about the time you start realizing, oh, there isn't a source of vitamin D in there, like we all did early, you know, 30 years ago. I look at some of the recipes, I'm like, ooh,
Dr. Judy Morgan 08:52
yeah. What was I thinking?
Dr. Karen Becker 08:52
Yeah, but it was the absence of all of the unnecessary tag-alongs that caused this dramatic shift in health. It's everything that wasn't in the food that caused the body to do its miraculous healing exchange. You know, and
Dr. Judy Morgan 09:06
it's one of those where so many. So I've got this little dog, Myra, and when I adopted Myra, and who's this one? That's Pookie.
Dr. Judy Morgan 09:15
So when I adopted Myra, she came with alligator skin that was bright red and smelly. She had bladder stones, ear infections, eye infection-you name it-and she was being fed a really poor quality kibble. And then the owner couldn't afford her antibiotics every time her skin got really smelly, so she'd go get some, and then she'd give a couple days worth, and then save some for you know six months later, and she'd use a few, and then six months later, and so of course, the dog develops bladder stones and elephant skin, and and
Dr. Karen Becker 09:44
and MRSA,
Dr. Judy Morgan 09:47
And so I get the dog, and I'm and she was supposed to be a foster, haha, like all my foster failures, and I'm like, all I have to do is make real food for this dog, and okay, I'll avoid chicken, I'll avoid grains, I'll avoid you know this is very early and. All this, and I said I'm just going to avoid all those things that usually are triggers.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:05
And so I started with a rabbit diet, and then I switched to a pork diet, and it was gently cooked, real food. And then six months in, after everything looked beautiful, and she was this fluffy little thing, I said, you know what? I'm going to feed her chicken. I'm going to see what happens. And I fed her homemade beautiful chicken. Nothing happened.
Dr. Karen Becker 10:23
She's fine.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:23
She's fine. Not allergic to chicken. And so I think so many people claim that no, it's a true allergy to all these things, and it really isn't. It's an intolerance to crap.
Dr. Karen Becker 10:35
It is, and you know, my thought is, I think about how meals have. Just this morning, we interviewed a mycologist who kind of specializes in mycotoxins and how to identify how to identify and treat mycotoxicosis in pets, and so I said, "We're you know we all think about especially living like Florida. I think about are there how many water damaged buildings are here? How many people in this state have black mold? She said, "Environmental molds one thing, but she said, "Do you know the richest source of mycotoxins in pet foods? And I said, "Well, I'm from Iowa. It's corn. She goes, "Right, but if you eliminate just if you take corn off the table, what's the next richest source of mycotoxins? She said, "Meat meals, meal because it's highly processed, and then it has to sit. And as the meat chicken meal sits and just waits for you know one year, two years, they're building mycotoxins within the stored meat meals, so I'm wondering when you bring up chicken and allergies, it's probably a mic. You know, you're dealing with massive mycotoxin reactions in the body, causing significant, massive inflammation, and it's no allergy at all. It's just all the stuff in the food, all the tagalongs, and then high heat processed. So there's all these advanced glycation end products from ultra processing, along with the wads of preservatives and colors, and then we wonder why they're itchy and miserable. When really the chicken was just a chicken's easy to blame,
Dr. Karen Becker 11:53
Right. It gets sometimes a bad rap.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:55
Yeah. Well, and you know that speaks to these people who say my dog's allergic to all proteins.
Dr. Karen Becker 12:02
Yeah,
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:03
I love those emails. What can I feed my dog? He's allergic to all protein. I'm like, well, then he can't survive.
Dr. Karen Becker 12:07
Well, and and and then a backtrack. You know, there's a brand new study that just dropped this morning, and it's human allergy and asthma. Journal as allergy and asthma. Rodney sent it to me and said, "How cool and interesting is this? It's kids. It's a massive study, a derm study done on kids who've had sunburns and skin like eczema, and that if they're provided new proteins when they're having a massive skin inflammatory response, that the kids sensitize because of the gut skin. They're basically the gut skin microbiome talking to each other, and that the kids, because of their massive external inflammatory response on this on the skin, they end up with this leaky gut dysbiotic issue, and then they sensitize to the foods that they're eating. So the take home message from human mom and dad is: when your kid like has a massive inflammation thing that you can see going on, don't try a bunch of brand new foods. Like just give their GI tracts a little bit of time, give the body a chance to quiet down with inflammation. But if you think about that, I said, Rodney, this is that's what we do in veterinary medicine. Like the second, the second we get an itchy dog, we're like, hey, try rabbit, chicken, beef, turkey, porky, venison, rabbit. Just try them all, and just switch every day. And then we wonder, like, when when we do, you know, a NutraScan, they could have a little elevated, you know, IgG or IgM.
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:20
we set them up for that because they had all this inflammation and leaky gut. Now we just sensitize them,
Dr. Karen Becker 13:25
and then we did. So I mean, what my my mo in those situations is: let's just everyone just stop. Let's get the let's get the gut sealed up. Let's heal up that gut. Let's figure out the one protein that they can eat that you know, and let's just keep them on. Let's not rotate. Let's find one protein and let's let's work on a gut protocol. And but I think as veterinarians we all learned that the hard way because that whole switching proteins early on is something that we all jumped on and did. And they were like, "Oops, sorry, let's not do that.
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:56
You know. And the the thing is, I don't think I even heard the term leaky gut till maybe the last 10 years, if even that. we just weren't talking about it.
Dr. Karen Becker 14:09
Well and it's certainly we didn't learn anything in school. I ask even new grads now. I'm like, hey, what are you learning about microbiome? And they're like, what? It's sad to me.
Dr. Judy Morgan 14:17
Wow, I can't. But you know, so my mom was in the hospital a few years ago with a bowel obstruction, and so I'm talking with Michele Allen from Monkey's House. She's a retired nurse, nurse of the year, and so in the middle of the night, I'm talking to her. I'm like, okay, this is what's going on with my mom now, and so as she was getting better, I'm like, so Michele, shouldn't we be working on her microbiome because it's literally been destroyed with all these, you know. She had metroditasol and she had surgery and she had this and she had that. And I'm like, I really think we should be working on her microbiome. You know, should I ask like, what's the preferred probiotic and you know how we're gonna replace this? And she said, Oh my god, if you want to see the surgeon's head spin, literally,
Dr. Karen Becker 14:58
you'll see just like a third. Come out here.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:00
Yeah, well, that's basically the response that I got. So I said, "I'm going to ask anyway. She's like, "Don't do it. Don't don't do it. And I'm like, "Okay, I'll let you know how it goes. And so when he came in the next morning, I'm like, "So I think we need to restore the microbiome. And he was just like, you know, gave me the sideways look. And he knew I was a veterinarian, so he knew as a pain in the butt, and I said, you know, I I really think we're going to have to restore the microbiome, and he's like, well, you know, there is a little bit of stuff in the literature about that now, but we really don't know anything. And I'm like, really,
Dr. Karen Becker
you know, those 20,000 studies that you it's they're hard to miss. Yeah, yeah,
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:36
So I don't know. Veterinarians are talking about it, but humans aren't.
Dr. Karen Becker 15:39
Yeah, it's true. So there is a ton to learn when it comes to microbiome, but I'm just finding, like, with the whole pet food thing. Back to AAFCO, you probably know about this on the table. The whole maybe too much copper in pet food. I kind of want to poke my eye out because I think that the meeting that I we were all kind of scheduled to go to two years ago, they had a little copper working group where they were trying to like bring up that maybe potentially European pet food standards have a cap for copper. Actually, and you know most minerals they have a safe upper limits, but AAFCO still is like just dump it in.
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:10
Yeah, just dump it in there.
Dr. Karen Becker 16:11
Dump it in. It is a little frustrating because we're finally also another topic in veterinary medicine. Veterinarians are just starting to talk about the whole could we be over supplying metals in pet foods that could, I don't know, contribute to recurrent elevated ALT liver enzymes. You know, month after month, year after year, and tracing it back to pet food, and yet you talk about potentially minimizing or looking at the amount of heavy metals in pet foods. No, no one wants to really talk about that, and it just goes back to time to make our own homemade food,
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:41
exactly. I, you know, the the body knows what it needs, so you give it real food, and it says, "I'll take this much of this and this much of this, and I'll just throw away the extra stuff.
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:53
But when you throw the synthetics in there, it's like, what do I do with that?
Dr. Karen Becker 16:57
Yeah, exactly. And when you throw four to six times the amount of synthetics in there that the body needs, then it's like I'll just start shoving it. I'll just start storing it wherever I can, and then yeah, you end up with really sad situations that are preventable. Probably the biggest issue I have is this all life stages feeding all life stages foods to older animals. The phosphorus, like the the leading cause of kidney disease, of progressive. You know, we're watching phosphorus as veterinarians and kitties, blessed kitties, where that's really the marker that we're watching to look to see if kidney disease is coming about. We are giving mature aging and senior geriatric dogs and cats incredible levels of phosphorus for no reason because all life stages food is easy. So that's the big bandwagon kick I'm on now: is that we should not be feeding all life stages foods to older animals, because why do they just don't need that much phosphorus? They don't need to be fed as a growing puppy when they're 14 years old.
Dr. Judy Morgan 17:51
So I want to talk more about the all life stages food and talk about some of the differences between growing adult and senior. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. We need to take a quick break.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #1 18:03
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PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #2
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Dr. Judy Morgan
Welcome back to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast today, I'm here with my good friend Dr. Karen Becker, and we're talking all things pet food because that's kind of what we do.
Dr. Karen Becker 20:48
We like food.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:48
We like food.
Dr. Karen Becker 20:49
I like to eat. I like to eat. I like. I like to buy food. I like to make food. I like to feed good food. I like to identify. I really like to identify crap. So do you? We also like to identify food. You know, yeah. It's it's sort,
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:03
yeah. It's it's sort of a hobby, unfortunately. But I think that all pet parents should know how to read a label. Yes, should understand what's on the label. And so we said we were going to talk about this this all life stages, and there are a lot of foods out there that are labeled for all life stages. AAFCO did finally figure out, hey, those large breed dogs grow a little bit differently, and maybe we need to do something different. So they actually, but you still can feed all life stages to those. There is a separate category, and one of one of the things I really love about the animal diet formulator is like, and we have the category for large breed growing puppies. I hate formulating for puppies. Yes, I hate formulating for cats.
Dr. Karen Becker 21:48
I know, I know, and I love the fact that like European standards, like they've done it so well. Like, why can't I always use European? Why can't we just use FEDIAF? Right? Yeah,
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:57
I always use FEDIAF. So do I. So do I.
Dr. Karen Becker 21:59
So much better. So they so for people that don't know the European equivalent of AAFCO, there's they have early growth for puppies and then they have late growth. So they so AAFCO has two categories. We have growth and reproduction, and we have adult. And then you can have the option to label growth foods as all life stages, which means you're basically feeding food that was formulated for puppies to everything. And you think, well, what's the problem with that? Well, the phosphorus and other nutrients that growing animals need that adult animals don't. Geriatrics are-they don't have the same nutritional and metabolic needs that puppies do. They're just different animals, and they require different nutrients and different calories. Yeah. So European standards have accounted for that. So they have as a senior, you know, they have an older animal option. They have adult, they have puppy, and then they have lactation reproduction. So that's that's those are wise choices. AAFCO doesn't have those wise choices. So
Dr. Karen Becker 22:56
And all life stages is so easy for most companies that they're like, we'll just do that because it basically dragnets everything,
Dr. Karen Becker 23:02
But it's not ideal for anything, so I'm right there with you.
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:07
Yeah, so particularly if you have, you know, a lot of seniors have a hard time maintaining their weight.
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:13
lot of seniors have zinc deficiencies, vitamin D deficiencies, because things aren't absorbing and working as well as they used to, and unfortunately, a lot of them have excess copper stored in their livers by that point. And you know, one of the things that used to make me really crazy in practice, and you brought it up earlier, is these animals with these chronically elevated liver enzymes. And I love you know hearing about the mycotoxins in the meat meals because I've always blamed it on the grains and the legumes that are in there, and now it's like, oh, maybe the meat meals were responsible for that, right?
Dr. Karen Becker 23:53
And also, as you brought up, animals reacting to all proteins; those protein is probably not true IgE. It's probably not a true allergy or food allergy. It's probably the body saying back off on all the unwanted tagalongs, right? That are causing massive systemic inflammation.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:11
Yeah, these poor animals. It
Dr. Karen Becker 24:13
It's it's a sad it's a sad gig. But so many people don't know, and the industry is not about to cough up any of this information. So you're kind of left on your own figuring it out. You brought up a great point about older animals not maintaining their weight. Here's the most recent thing that I figured out that if you feed less than, so you have all life stages food, and you have a dog that is not getting quite the exercise that they used to, metabolism slowing down, animal's probably been spayed and neutered, so kind of like menopause. Things go even slower after that. You just look at food, gain weight, just happens. So we're at that stage where we need fewer calories, but we don't need fewer nutrients, right? So same with our animals. We don't unless you're going to, you know, marathon be out there. You're sporting breed. You're hunting in the field with Dad, and you need a lot of calories. You're going to run, you know, a sled race across Alaska. Need those calories. 60% of dogs in North America don't need extra calories, but they still need minimum nutrient requirements. They still need still need the vitamins and minerals. If you feed less than what's on the bag, your animal is probably going to be protein and nutrient deficient. And if you feed more, then your copper toxicosis just your liver just glows from a distance. Yep. So what a humdinger to be in. So you try and manage the weight issue by cutting back, and you make your animal nutrient deficient.
Dr. Judy Morgan 25:31
That used to be one of my biggest pet peeves. You know, you see all this stuff on social media. Oh, my dog's overweight. Okay, cut back the amount you're putting in the bowl by 50% It's like, okay, but you also just cut every single nutrient by 50%. And what is the recommended feeding allowance is based on the nutrients that they need. And now we're not getting those nutrients. And then you know, and it's just like people. If you starve the body enough of calories, the metabolism just keeps getting slower and slower, and slower, and they never lose the weight. It's like I've been cutting back and cutting back. I'm only giving them three pieces of kibble, and they're still fat.
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:17
So when I was in vet school, this is a really horrible thing, but the school did it. We were not responsible. This older couple came in with this little dog named Bebe, and she was a terrier, and she weighed 40 pounds, and should have weighed 10. Oh, she's a big girl, a big girl, and she was referred to the university for breathing issues. Well, when they did the workup, they basically said she has so much fat.
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:44
Her lungs couldn't even expand because everything was just compressed by so much fat. So all this dog needed really was weight loss. So you know we just need to figure out. But it was an older couple, and you know it wasn't going to go well. So the dog was donated to the university. Oh God! And so the university decided they were going to try an experiment, the pet tab a day diet. So the dog was given water and a pet tab, which, for those of you who are not familiar, a pet tab is a multivitamin, but it's not even like a complete multivitamin. It's a multivitamin that you would add on top of a diet that is supposedly already complete. Yeah, so it was pretty heinous. The dog ended up got got stolen by some classmates, and they threatened to not let any of us graduate unless we coughed up the dog.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:32
This is a soap opera, and the to make it better, the dog sent postcards from all over.
Dr. Karen Becker 27:39
I'm just glad to know the dog's still alive at this point. This is super intense.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:42
So the the dog was being hidden, okay, and by a senior vet student. But any student who went on an externship anywhere sent a postcard from the dog. So the university is so angry because they don't have the dog, and they're getting postcards, and they've got all these senior students, and they had the police. They've called us all in the auditorium. They had the police come in and give us all this lecture about thievery, and so nobody was talking, nobody was coughing up any information. They threatened to not let any of us graduate, and I was like, I don't know anything about it. So if I don't graduate, it's not my fault. I mean, I I just don't know. The dog never did surface to the university anyway.
Dr. Karen Becker 28:25
And does anyone know if the blessed dog lost some weight?
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:27
the The dog went to being a normal dog and had a great life. Yeah, but it only stayed on the pet tab a day diet for you know a little while, and it actually was working. But it really, guys, it's not the way to.
Dr. Karen Becker 28:43
You remember back when I went to vet school, they just called the green bean diet. Like, just feed feed every obese retriever a cup of food, and then feed them three cups of green beans. Yeah, and it's the same premise. You just basically fill them up, fill their bellies up with acorn food. She didn't even get green beans. Yeah, that's that's really bad. But even the green bean diet, you know, I remember graduating early on. I told my own clients, like in 1997, I remember telling people, just feed them more green beans. It's just no salt canned green beans.
Dr. Judy Morgan 29:10
Exactly, the no salt canned green beans. We all are guilty of that.
Dr. Karen Becker 29:12
I just so I think back to some of my recommendations, I'm like, boy, I am so glad like that wasn't on film, right? but I think I do think one of our important things that both of us do is to talk about the mistakes that we have made, and I've made a lot of them. But rather than hide, I do think talking about him is most important because a we can help other people out. I don't think
Dr. Judy Morgan 29:35
Well now people out there are going, oh crap! My vet told me to feed green beans to my dog. Yeah,
Dr. Karen Becker 29:40
it's true. That that is still out there circulating, especially with old timer vets, for sure.
Dr. Karen Becker 29:45
But the quandary is, what what do you do then to help your dog lose weight, but not nutrient deprive them? So AAFCO requires that all pet food companies formulate their foods. It's called an activity factor. In our terminology, it's called a K factor. They demand they, like the olden days, they formulate to a K factor of 132 which means a really highly a dog that gets a lot of exercise. The downside is most dogs in the U.S. are not getting a ton of exercise.
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:12
I formulate almost everything to the less active dog. because I would say 90% unless you're doing agility or you know barn hunt or some big time activity,
Dr. Karen Becker 30:22
or you have an outdoor dog on a farm in North Dakota, and it's winter, and they're freezing, or you have barn cats in cold climates, a lot of calories. Yeah, just keep them coming because they're going to burn them. But most of us, that is not our scenario. Exactly. So then you do need to. I mean, that's one of the reasons that we wrote the cookbook with all these like really really low activity factors. Is you need to do a homemade recipe that it has been specifically formulated for low energy, all the nutrients.
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:48
So we get exactly we're getting all the nutrients. Yes, without having to you know cut their food in half.
Dr. Karen Becker 30:54
Exactly because that's the other thing is that starving animals, starving things, is not an ethical way to help them lose weight. It's just a, it's just unpleasant for everything.
Dr. Judy Morgan 31:02
Yeah, no kidding.
Dr. Karen Becker 31:02
So yeah, eating the appropriate number of calories with the appropriate amount of vitamins and minerals-that's the ideal way to go about doing this. But that does mean choosing a homemade diet that's been specifically formulated for lower activity levels.
Dr. Judy Morgan 31:15
Yeah, I had a-he's in my first book, a client with a seeing eye dog, this big black Labrador. When he got the dog, the dog you know finished his training. He gets the dog. Dog 65 pounds, beautiful dog. Within a couple years, the dog was 130 pounds. and he was like, "Oh, it's not me feeding the dog. Like when I take him on walks around my apartment complex, he finds like you know thrown away cheeseburgers and all. And I'm like, "Really? Okay. Like I don't want to live in your neighborhood. So supposedly, the dog was scavenging on everything, and so the unfortunately, the Seeing Eye group that did the training for the dog was very specific about what the dog had to eat.
Dr. Judy Morgan 31:55
So they were very specific that the dog had to eat a certain brand of kibble.
Dr. Judy Morgan 32:00
And I said, "Oh, I don't think you know. Again, we're taking the 130 pound dog. Yes, we can feed him for a 60-five pound dog, but he's still not losing weight on this. And so then we tried one of those weight loss liquid supplements. Well, all that did was give the dog horrible gas and diarrhea. Didn't change the way, so we played with this for like four weeks because we were being told what we were allowed to do, what we were allowed to feed, and silly me, you know, the guy's in for like the fourth week of bringing the dog in and getting him weighed, and it's just not going anywhere, and he can't stand the gas, and he can't stand the diarrhea.
Dr. Karen Becker 32:38
Just think about the poor dog's belly, miserable, miserable. Maybe you just had diarrhea. Maybe it's called the diarrhea diet. You just poo everything out.
Dr. Judy Morgan 32:45
Well, it wasn't working, and he didn't fit in his harness, so he couldn't work. So and and the seeing eye group was threatening to take the dog back. because they're like, you know, this is this is a problem.
Dr. Judy Morgan 32:57
It's a problem. So you know, I walked in after like week four, and I was so frustrated. And I said, you know, if I had this dog for a short period of time, this dog would start losing weight. I guarantee I can make this dog lose weight. And he's like, "Would you do that, doc? Would you take him home? And I'm like,
Dr. Judy Morgan 33:17
Got myself a dog. So I'm at work in my little two-seater convertible that I can't fit the dog in, so I have to call my husband and go, "Hey, honey, can you bring the bigger car? Yeah, we're we have a house guest for a little while. So the dog ended up living with us for the whole summer, and I said, "You know what? Nobody can see when I'm feeding this dog. And I put the dog on a raw food diet, yeah, and I fed him for a 60-five pound dog. First week he loses two pounds. Yeah, I'm like just feeding the dog appropriate, and we started walking. And at the beginning, he couldn't even get to the end of my driveway, which was 100 feet.
Dr. Judy Morgan 33:52
couldn't get to the end of the driveway. By the end of the summer, we had him down to about 90 pounds. and he was eating appropriately, and he was walking about 30 miles a week
Dr. Karen Becker 34:03
So, what a beautiful gift you gave to this love lovely man. Honestly, like that is a that is a beautiful gift. You you you saved that dog's joints, but you also saved that man's best friend.
Dr. Judy Morgan 34:14
His best friend and his ability to work. Yes, yes. And then the funny thing was, we had a hurricane, so our house got wiped out. Our shore house was a problem. So I'm like, you have to take your dog back because I've got other things I have to deal with.
Dr. Judy Morgan 34:30
And he was like, okay, fine. And I said, okay, well here's the deal. I he couldn't afford the food that I was feeding the dog, and I said, if you come in once a week to have the dog weighed, yep, and and if the dog has not gained weight or if he's lost weight, I will give you a one week supply of food and one bag of very low calorie treats. and that is what you will feed him for the week. Yep, but if you come in and he gained weight, you have to pay me for the food. Yep, guy didn't have a lot of money. Dog Lost weight every single week
Dr. Karen Becker 35:01
See, and that's that. That to me at my practice, we call it the Jenny Craig weigh-in, which is you accountability with coaching, like just yelling at people. Your your animals, it doesn't work. And also, we already know what that feels like, and they're trying. But there has to be a reason. If your animal's not losing weight, there is a reason, and we want to help you find out what that is.
Dr. Judy Morgan 35:20
This dog could not metabolize those carbohydrates. Exactly, it just was not going to happen.
Dr. Karen Becker 35:24
And even on raw foods, that's the other thing. AAFCO, there is no fat maximum you can put in foods. You there, you can put as much fat in any bag of dog food as you want. There's no fat maximum. It's craziness to me. But with raw food diets, a lot of people don't know the difference between 80% lean ground beef and 95% lean. They they don't know, except one is cheaper, right? So there's a lot of pet parents, brand new pet parents, who aren't really savvy, and they go in the grocery store and they're like, "Okay, the recipe says ground beef, and one is way cheaper than the other. Buying the cheaper, I'm going to buy the cheap, and they don't realize what they're buying is fat, and the fat has a ton of calories, right? So there's all those reasons that a lot of people have not knitted together, or treats, or lack of movement, or who else in the house are you know the dog eats his bowl and then his buddy's bowl
Dr. Judy Morgan 36:05
and the grandmas and the grandchildren and I have both of those at my house, which is a big issue. We need to take a break. We'll be right back to continue this fascinating conversation. Stay tuned.
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Dr. Judy Morgan
Welcome back to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. So during the break, we were having a conversation about taking care of parents and older people, and also taking care of the farm. And so Karen just asked me how many chickens we have. So the chicken saga has, you know, when we lived in New Jersey. We had six chickens, and I originally got six chickens because I wanted fresh eggs for my dogs, not for the people. Yep, I wanted fresh eggs for the dogs. Think priorities. So when we moved to North Carolina and we bought 23 acres, I told my husband when he designed the barn, design it for 40 chickens. Give me a big coop because I'm gonna crank out eggs, because at that point everybody's eating eggs, and so the coop is. We've been there four years. The coop now has 60, and we have a horse stall plus two outside other free coops. We just ordered a chicken tractor. I have chicks in containers in the garage under lights, and we have eggs in an incubator in the laundry room. So the answer to how many questions, how many chickens do we have? I have no clue.
Dr. Karen Becker 38:32
Many. You have many chickens. Many. The answer is a lot.
Dr. Judy Morgan 38:36
But we have also started breeding meat chickens. And breeding our laying chickens, and we're processing our own meat chickens.
Dr. Karen Becker 38:46
That's amazing. I just would have to.
Dr. Judy Morgan 38:49
It's so my daughter started this. She was like, "We're gonna do this. My husband said, "I'm not. I'm not gonna be part of that. My mom said, "I'm not gonna be part of that. And I'm like, "That's fine. You don't have to be. Yeah. But after the first round, my husband's like, "Okay, I'm in. My mom is never going to be in. So now that we're getting more and more self sufficient, and a lot of this is brought about by our our dogs and our cats, like you know.
Dr. Karen Becker 39:15
Well, think about you're. It's it's the perfect. They're happy, happy, happy, happy dead. Like that's the goal for all of us, right? That's how we want to live. That's how we want to die. Happy and then dead. Dead, and it's a beautiful gift. And it's it's someone just has to do it
Dr. Karen Becker 39:28
But you know what? Your your daughter's in. You got the whole system set up.
Dr. Judy Morgan 39:32
She's in. She learned how to do it, and she just said, "No, this is what we need to do. And you know what? Part of it brought was brought on by the fact that you know FDA cleared Exalt to be used in chickens, and I'm like, oh, and it only has like a 10 to 12 day withhold period, so that's brevecto, and we know that it lasts in dogs for minimum of three months. It's probably closer to a year. So how long is it lasting in those meat birds, and then we're eating it.
Dr. Karen Becker 40:00
Yeah, for sure. Listen, you are so wise to raise your own food. I mean, as much as you should raise rabbits.
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:06
Well, we're raising. We have cows now.
Dr. Karen Becker 40:08
Okay, and you and and but not just pet cows. I mean, eventually cows.
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:12
No these are A2 a two dairy cows. Okay, so we we bought a pregnant cow and a baby cow.
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:21
Well, she'll have the baby in a few months, and then we actually have a six-way share. So it's four different family members and two employees.
Dr. Karen Becker 40:31
Okay, so you've got the whole thing set up. Yeah. So this is beautiful. Are you going to have some beef cows?
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:39
That's up for debate, and the pigs are up for debate. Yeah. Right now, we buy locally already processed, and it's a lot easier when it just comes and goes in the freezer. The big problem we have is, you know, you buy the dairy cow, you have to breed the dairy cow every year if you want to have milk from the dairy cow and ice cream and butter and all that stuff. So when she has the baby, if it's a boy,
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:02
Well, that's not going to give us butter and milk, and so my daughter's just like, well, then we eat it, and like, you better talk to your grandmother about that. True, because she's out there like petting them
Dr. Karen Becker 41:16
That that's probably that's why I'm vegetarian, veterinarian. It's I'm not opposed. I am all about happy, happy, happy, dead. But it's just the dead, like me having to do it because I would name them and then they have a bell and I brush them.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:26
Well the cows get brushed every day.
Dr. Karen Becker 41:29
Totally! I would do all the things and then it's like I can't eat it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:32
All my dogs and all my cats are meatasaureses
Dr. Karen Becker 41:34
of course, and they also like it'd be the cleanest, best meat.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:37
Exactly. So the jury is out on whether if we have a boy cow.
Dr. Karen Becker 41:43
I love everything you're doing, and it's also such a beautiful way to nourish your entire family. It's so beautiful. Yes, it really is.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1 41:48
So then we put in all these organic gardens. I put in all these raised beds. My freezer is full for the winter, and filled a few other freezers.
Dr. Karen Becker 41:55
And are you doing some fruit trees?
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:57
We have an orchard.
Dr. Karen Becker 2 41:58
That's so good.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:59
Which hasn't produced anything, but they're baby trees. Yeah. So yeah, we're doing this whole homesteading farm crazy.
Dr. Karen Becker 42:08
Ok so when the rug falls out, I'm just coming to your place.
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:10
That's and I went. So not only did I tell my husband when he designed the house because he's an architect, I said I need this 40 bird chicken coop, which now I need like six more, but whatever. I also said I want a walk-in pantry that literally is as big as our bedroom.
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:26
And part of it was I didn't want all the coffee makers and everything on the kitchen counters. I wanted them to hide somewhere. Yep. Which is great because it's right next to our guest room. So when people come stay, it's like, yeah, just help yourself make your own coffee and tea.
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:39
Billy Hoekman comes, and I'll find him standing in the pantry, just staring at the shelves, going, "I'm just deciding what I want to eat.
Dr. Karen Becker 42:46
that's that's a lovely thing. So, can it? Does it will function as a like a root cellar? You have some cool. Is it cool enough that you can do like a?
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:53
I do not know how to can, and I'm afraid of like I'm gonna I'm gonna poisonous. I'm gonna explode something. Yeah. Um. So I am really into freezing. I have more freezers than most most people would just laugh.
Dr. Karen Becker 43:06
So Rodney and I bought a freeze dryer, but it doesn't fit anywhere. So we're gonna listen. We will we're gonna donate our brand new freeze dryer to you, and then we'll just reap the fruits. Like I will swap you. Like after you freeze dry some stuff and you're overloaded, you just you know we'll come pick it up. Just send it out.
Dr. Judy Morgan 43:22
I've been looking at that. Okay. So we we actually were going through the gyrations of where it was going to go. Okay. Um. So, but I have we have a whole house generator with 1000 gallon propane tank. So the freezers are going to run for a long time if the poop hits the fan. Yep. And then we also just investigated putting a hand pump on our well in case we don't have electric.
Dr. Karen Becker 43:43
That's also really smart.
Dr. Judy Morgan 43:44
So all these like, I feel like I'm this crazy prepper. All of a sudden.
Dr. Karen Becker 43:49
I think you're just wise, and I think most importantly, you're growing nourishing food that you have produced yourself, and the nutrients value is off the scale, and it's chemical free. So I mean, this is a win-win-win. And if you do happen to lose power, it'll just ferment. And Billy Hoekman would come and make you a bunch of fermented amazing things, and everything will still be fine.
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:03
He'll just come take it all.
Dr. Karen Becker 2 44:05
do a fermentation class at your place when there's no power.
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:08
There you go. He'll make poop cheese in my kitchen. Have you heard his poop cheese story?
Dr. Karen Becker 44:11
When in doubt, you can just ferment everything.
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:14
Ferment everything. So yeah. So you know, this I admit I'm a little over the top, crazy, but you know, if you really want to feed your animals the absolute best,
Dr. Karen Becker 44:25
you have the ideal situation going on. You really do, and you have the space to do it, and you have a beautiful community of family members that will help you. So it's really ideal.
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:33
It's it's a little bit crazy. So when we got the cows, I'm like, okay.
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:37
We have two right now. Well, two and a half. Okay, there's one in the oven.
Dr. Karen Becker 44:41
and and how many for the chickens? How many roosters?
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:44
right now, we have 5
Dr. Karen Becker 44:47
roosters. Okay, okay, five. So
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:49
they may not all stay. It's as long as they're nice, and if they're making nice babies, they stay. When they get mean, dinner,
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:58
You know that's the great thing about them. When they get, it's funny. My five-year-old granddaughter, she really liked Leghorn. He's a huge chicken or rooster, and he was friendly. And all of a sudden, he started to chase her, and he's almost as big as her. And she said, "Mommy, next time we process chickens, we're processing Leghorn because he chased me. And I'm like, "All right, good to go. There's no problem.
Dr. Karen Becker 45:21
Well then, then, so then we'll be down to four roosters. Okay, so four roosters, two and a half cows.
Dr. Judy Morgan 45:24
I think the the the rooster named Fluffy Pecky is probably not going to be dinner. Well, that's good. And well, as long as Fluffy Pecky stays Fluffy Pecky, nice. Yeah, we're fine. So far, and he's beautiful. So we'll see. So yeah, pigs. I we went to a farm the other day, and we were looking at pigs. They have these Idaho pasture pigs.
Dr. Karen Becker 45:45
I know, I know nothing about.
Dr. Judy Morgan 45:47
It's a brand new breed, Idaho pasture pigs, and they're breeding them. And they said they make really good meat, and you know, nice pigs, and blah blah blah. And I'm walking around the farm, and I'm like, pigs really smell more than everything else. But and they make mud.
Dr. Karen Becker 46:00
I was, I was gonna say I just I've heard that they're just like they aerate the we could we could be positive they aerate the soil yeah and or they just root up everything in your whole place like everything is aerated like you have no more bushes and landscaping
Dr. Judy Morgan 46:14
So they had them in a lot of different fields and every field had a big mud pit and she's like yeah they didn't start that way they make them. I, I well, then we were out picking up some veggies the other day, and they had baby piglets running around. You know, like little itty bitty, like three pound. Oh my god, they're so cute, and I'm taking video of them. I'm like, we're not getting pigs. They're way too cute.
Dr. Karen Becker 46:36
So cute, and they're so flippin' smart. Apparently,
Dr. Karen Becker 46:39
I don't. I mean, I've never had a personal relationship with a pig, but people say they are really smart. k
Dr. Judy Morgan 46:42
I'll just get them ready for the freezer already. So you know, we're a little nuts, and you know, this is the level of food that I want for our family, and I would love to have that exact same level for our animals. It's obviously not everybody can do that.
Dr. Karen Becker 46:56
No, they can't. But we're glad that you are. We're all coming to your place.
Dr. Judy Morgan 47:00
But you know, there's there's different levels, and what I always say to people is like, do the best you can with what you have, what you can afford. I mean, there are people who live in food deserts. I don't know about you, but when we fly across the country, I look down out of the plane and I'm like, there's that one house that is like 50 miles from everything. Yes, if they're not raising all their own stuff, where are they getting their food?
Dr. Karen Becker 47:23
I just drove to get here. I just drove from the west side of Florida all the way over to the east side. It took like three and a half hours. As I was driving through the middle of nowhere, there were so homesteads and Dollar Generals.
Dr. Judy Morgan 47:37
Yeah, we have a Dollar General in every corner,
Dr. Karen Becker 47:40
those people I know, I that is where they are buying their food. Exactly Dollar General. That
Dr. Judy Morgan 47:44
that is it's around us. It's in North Carolina. It's Dollar General and Walmart. Yeah, and not the best quality food.
Dr. Judy Morgan 47:53
So it makes it really difficult. So you know, yes, we would love people to make their own food, but you got to be able to.
Dr. Karen Becker 48:00
But even if you are on a shoestring budget in the middle of nowhere, you can quadruple your nutrient value by growing sunflower sprouts. You can grow broccoli sprouts in a jar on your counter in in an apartment in a one bedroom efficiency apartment in downtown New York. You can grow fresh sprouts for your animals and your dogs, and even I give sprouts to my cat. You can sneak a teaspoon of sprouts. They get all that sulforaphane. It goes right up the food chain. It's going to participate in powerful autophagy, the killing off of cancer cells, and the recycling of these cellular components that allow our bodies to clear out the unwanted cells and prevent zombie cells, reduce inflammation, and give the body this incredible antioxidant bump with a tablespoon of sprouts that are pennies a day. We can improve the nutrient value of our pets and our bodies with a little bit of effort and a little bit of knowledge to be able to have a windowsill garden or grow sprouts out of a mason jar,
Dr. Judy Morgan 48:53
which is so cool.
Dr. Karen Becker 48:54
We can. It's just easy, but we just have to be able to have the knowledge to do it
Dr. Judy Morgan 48:59
exactly. But that's what your books talk about doing this simple stuff
Dr. Karen Becker 49:02
Little things, really little things. Yeah, and you go out to eat, and there's always that like token piece of like parsley that no one eats. Pack that up, bring it home, and feed it to put it as a use it as a topper. If you are in a food desert, you can recycle scraps and leftover the tops and bottoms of your carrots, all the pieces and parts that you probably won't be eating yourself. You always get that container of blueberries, and there's always those soft ones. Dr. David Sinclair, who runs a Harvard Longevity Lab, he says that the dented blueberries are the ones that have had to create more polyphenols because they've had to protect. There have been an insult to the tissue, and they had to fortify the dent or the ding or the cut or the bruise by making additional polyphenols, so those dented, slightly soft blueberries-all the ones that were like going to skip that one. they have higher polyphenol intake than you, because we're all like picking, hand picking those really firm, good ones. The dented ones are the ones we can share with our beloveds, and so we can recycle or we can upcycle the pieces and parts of Our fruits and veggies, no, you know, no onions really is the rule. No chives, no onions, no no grapes, no raisins. Other than that, like you can upcycle the pieces and parts.
Dr. Judy Morgan 50:10
Think about it when you buy a whole chicken and it's got all those pieces and parts inside, and you're like, oh, I'm not touching that. I'm not eating that. Guess who wants that?
Dr. Karen Becker 50:17
And guess who needs all that taurine? Your King Charles cavaliers, right? The more taurine, the better. I automatically put high risk breeds for any type of heart disease. Dobermans, calves. You automatically, as little guys, you either put the monitoring supplement, which is expensive and difficult, or just feed them all the hearts you can find.
Dr. Judy Morgan 50:34
So, at our local grocery store, they now stock chicken hearts all the time because every time they'd have them, we would buy every package that they had because our dogs on their platters every meal get cut up hearts.
Dr. Karen Becker 50:50
Brilliant.
Dr. Judy Morgan 50:50
So we started buying them, and finally the meat guy came out and he's like, "What's with you guys with the hearts? And we're like, "What are you doing with these? And every time we go to the checkout stand, "What are you doing with these? We're like for our dogs. What? So every time we check out, we're educating somebody.
Dr. Karen Becker 51:04
So good.
Dr. Judy Morgan 51:04
So the guy was like, "Oh well, I can just order and buy the case for you, or I can just make sure they're always in stock. I'm like, "We're here three times a week. Just make sure they're in stock. Then discovered in the freezer section, they're sporadic, but they have tubs of turkey hearts. Which those are really cool.
Dr. Judy Morgan 51:22
one turkey heart is equal to about five chicken hearts. Yeah, so every time they're in stock, I'm like, I'll take all those.
Dr. Karen Becker
So wonderful! Wow, and like that is the best dog treat like on the planet. You cannot get a better, more nourishing treat, and every male on the planet needs more taurine. We all like even humans, we all need to we all need to be supplementing with either some type of heart or taurine. The richest whole food source of taurine is scallops. They're just who can afford that? Not very many people. That's good. And and if you can afford scallops, it's the richest source of taurine on the planet.
Dr. Judy Morgan 51:57
Interesting. Yeah, I'm not sure that I'm going to buy them for my dogs. It's a little little pricey.
Dr. Judy Morgan 52:02
Although it's funny because one of my favorite ingredients when I need a really cooling diet is crab. And I've had some clients who have had to incorporate crab into their dogs' meals, and they're like, "Yeah, it's a little expensive, but man, did it take the fire out of them!
Dr. Karen Becker 52:18
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Yep. You don't need a ton.
Dr. Judy Morgan 52:22
It doesn't have to be a whole crab meal, but it can be really, really, really helpful. I use clams for that phlegm, sticky stuff, so good, and you can get canned clams, so they're easy.
Dr. Karen Becker 52:31
They're so disgusting. You when you do when you do canned clams, you have to do full out nasal protection because you can listen to the retching, like as you're as you're like can opening, like there's a little bit of retching. It's they're just nasty.
Dr. Judy Morgan 52:48
You do need to rinse them. They're pretty high in salt, but yeah, I like using clams. I'm a big sardine person.
Dr. Karen Becker 52:54
I'm a big sardine person too. and like there again just a bunch of free vitamin D without having to supplement, we all like and the DHA EPA. Oh, that's the other thing with AAFCO that we should probably talk about. AAFCO doesn't. I mean, everyone knows how important DHA EPA is, not just for cardiovascular function, skin, coat, health, mentation, brain, joint, all of it. And what does AAFCO says we all they need is ALA, the plant based omega threes that do not convert to DHA and EPA. So everyone's like, I'm going to give flax oil. Great, you're getting no DHA EPA. Everyone's like, well, I'm going to use chia or hemp. Beautiful. There is no DHA EPA. So you have to give a marine source DHA EPA or a bunch of alga oil that provides DHA and not so much EPA. But all that to say, the amount of DHA and EPA animals, dogs and cats need is extravagant, and so either supplement at every meal or sardines packed in water. Yeah, a really important thing for managing systemic inflammation, maintaining brain function, and immunologic well-being. Every cell of our dog's body needs DHA and cats DHA and EPA for healthy cell membrane, and we are not providing that in any AAFCO approved pet food.
Dr. Judy Morgan 54:04
Yeah, not in the not especially in like the highly processed stuff. Now, what's really interesting is now that we have all these smaller, high end pet food companies, like we look at their omega six to three ratios, and AAFCO is like, oh, you know, we don't care what it is. You know, so many of them are 30 to one. But you look at some of these smaller companies that are doing the right thing, and it's like
Dr. Karen Becker 54:27
five to one, or yeah, or three to one. Yeah, it is. But the overall still volume of milligrams needed. So the ratio is beautiful, but the amount for managing, especially inflammation in the body, and if you want to tackle joint, even twice that amount, adding extra either whole food form
Dr. Judy Morgan 54:45
My kids are on the best diet out there, and they're still getting supplements.
Dr. Karen Becker 54:49
Same thing with me, and and my animals are getting free range chicken hearts just like yours, and so those animals. That's the other thing is that if you're looking at at the levels of nutrients, it has to be more free range, like Factory farmed animals like factory farm chicken livers. There's there's no vitamin D, zero vitamin D, but if you can get free range chicken livers, it will meet your dog or cat's vitamin D requirement. It just depends on if they lived a good life outside with sunshine eating good food or not.
Dr. Judy Morgan 55:13
Yeah, exactly. And that's again that food desert thing where it's like this is all I have available is this factory farm stuff,
Dr. Karen Becker 55:23
And take it, but then supplement. You know, take your factory farm chicken livers and hearts and feed them, but then you do get a really good quality marine oil and add at the time of feeding.
Dr. Judy Morgan 55:31
Yeah, so critical. So many. Oh my god, so many things we could talk about. Except we're out of time. Oh my gosh
Dr. Karen Becker 55:38
This is just one fun hour on the couch. We'll do it again sometime. Yeah, next time we're in person.
Dr. Judy Morgan 55:42
There you go. We're not on the same side of the country all that often. So thank you for listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Hopefully, you got something out of today, and it was a little bit of entertaining. I think it was.
OUTRO/DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research, and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
