La dieta BARF. ¿A favor o en contra?

Today, I'm going to give you both the positive and negative arguments for the Barf diet. And at the end, I'll give you my personal opinion, but please don't kill me for it. Oh my gosh, what am I getting myself into? The trouble I'm going to get with this topic. Hello, I'm Carlos, a clinical veterinarian at Small Animals. Welcome to the Happy Pets and Families Channel. As you know, since we started this YouTube channel, our main goal has been to provide you with all the information you need to keep your pet healthy. That's precisely why one of the topics we like to talk about about the most is nutrition. Because nutrition is the basis of a pet's health and is almost more important than preventing other types of diseases. If your pet isn't fed properly, it's impossible for them to be healthy. In the past, pets were fed with the leftovers from our food. Whatever was left over that day or whatever fell off the table. Luckily, we've moved to a healthier diet in which we take much more into account the nutrients, the origin and the quality of all the food. This has come about thanks to the growing awareness that society is having regarding animal welfare. We are now at a point where we are moving beyond construction work to think specific foods for animals, such as animal feed. However, for some time now, in addition to these feeds, there has also been talk of more natural foods. In this context, the barf diet has emerged, which is increasingly being talked about, and more families are choosing it to feed their pets. This type of diet attempts to imitate the feeding conditions that our pets had before domestication. Since nutrition is something that people take very seriously, this creates many conflicting points of view because some people argue that animals should eat what nature naturally ate, and others argue that technology and food engineering exist for a reason. Reason and precisely to make living conditions easier for pets. Today we wanted to talk about the Barf diet for pets because it is something that people read a lot about. It's good to have a reference where you can see what the arguments are for and what the arguments are against so that you can draw your own conclusions. And I'm going to give my personal opinion as a veterinarian. Oh my goodness. What I'm going to get on this topic today. But what is the barf diet? The bar diet, also known as the ACBA diet in Spanish for its acronym for biologically appropriate raw feeding, is a philosophy that aims to emulate the way animals ate before contact with humans many thousands of years ago. I don't know how Many, but it must have been a while ago. Animals fed on what they could hunt or what they could consume from nature. Therefore, if an animal was a carnivore, then what it ate was prey that it hunted. However, when humans bring their animals closer to them and keep them close to them, what they do is feed them so that they do not have to look for their own food in nature and that they remain close to humans. They giving them their benefits, such as preventing mice from entering the house for cats, or protecting the sheep from other attacks for dogs. Therefore, what is proposed is that you feed your pets raw meat, meaty bones, all of them in a certain proportion and always with very little amount of vegetables. Some people say that cats, for example, did not eat vegetables in nature. However, if a cat hunts a bird, the bird has vegetables in its intestines and stomach. Therefore they do eat a proportion of vegetables.

The person who eats a beef bled is not thinking about the grass inside the cow, but because you are not eating the entrails, but the cat eats it all. Ah.

Or the cat does this with its knife, that cat fork and stops. The cat eats all the prey. And in fact the first thing that the animals they hunt usually eat, apart from the meat and a little bit they go for the viscera, because it is the tastiest and the viscera have a little bit of everything. If you think about it, it is completely the opposite of being vegan. I also talked to you about the possibility that a cat could be vegetarian or vegan on the blog, and if you want, I will leave the link in the description box below. However, the this type of diet is quite controversial and has almost as many supporters as detractors. Why? Today I am going to give you both the positive and negative arguments of the barf diet and at the end I will give you my personal opinion. But please do not kill me for it. Let it be known that I love all my subscribers the same, whether they support the barf diet or not. So you love me the same no matter what I say, because I am a good person. Come on, let's start with the advantages. The main advantage of the barf diet is that you can control what your little one eats at all times. The positive side of this is that you will be able to choose the best quality products that best nourish your dog. Imagine that your dog is a gourmet and loves steak. Well, he will always like that more and it will be healthier for him than if you feed him processed food. Nobody buys steak from him of Course, fresh meat, awful that has many nutrients, such as liver, you will not depend on the feed industry and you will be able to control exactly what your pet eats. Another positive aspect of this diet is that the food you are going to give your pet does not have flavorings, additives, or preservatives whose use is always controversial, even for feeding people. Another important aspect is that the products are given fresh and uncooked. The good thing about this is that they keep all their nutrients intact, such as the structure of the proteins, their quality. Since they are not cooked, they do not lose nutrients along the way.

And raw food is digested just as well as cooked food.

Well, in fact, there are studies that say that raw food is digested just as well as cooked food. It has been shown that the digestibility of raw meats and raw fat is very high, around 90%. Therefore, in principle, cooking meat would not provide any greater advantages than not cooking it. If you want to know more, I will leave the link to this study in the description box. If you want to opt for the bar diet, but you find it a bit complicated to carry out because you do not know very well what to buy, what not to buy, or what to give it, there is already a commercially available bar diet, raw and without any additives that you can offer your pet, although it takes away a bit of freedom when it comes to choosing the ingredients that you have to give your pet. But at the end of the day, it is a raw diet that is accessible to anyone. Okay, now that we've talked about the arguments in favor of the barb diet, let's also talk about some of the arguments against it that are used by the detractors of the barb diet. The main negative argument, and the one that we veterinarians tend to use, is that the barp diet usually includes a proportion of meaty bones, chicken carcasses, turkey carcasses, they are soft bones, but they are bones. The downside of bones is that it's not the first time that I, as a veterinarian, or you or any veterinarian have had to treat an animal, usually dogs and cats, that has had problems eating bones. The bone could break, or it could cause some type of injury to the digestive system, or the bone could be large enough to obstruct the passage of food through the digestive tract. And that is a very common complication for animals that eat bones and that can seriously put their lives at risk. If you are not sure what type of meat to feed your pet, your barf diet may Be unbalanced and in the end this may affect their health because you are giving them more fat than you should, or because you are giving them insufficient fat. In the end, all nutrients have to be balanced in a certain proportion. This is related to the fact that barf diets usually include a small amount of plant foods that provide nutritional benefits such as fiber, which is very involved in blood sugar levels. For example, if you do the D diet right, you add enough protein and plant based nutrients. But of course, if you don't know how to do it right, you can go overboard with one thing or another or you will lack them. Of course it often means that you will spend more money feeding your pet, but if you are spending that money to feed your pet foods that are supposed to be of higher quality, it probably won't matter much to you. It is also worth noting that you cannot give your dog or cat raw food that comes from the discarded food intended for people, because if it is discarded for people, it means that it is not consumed. Therefore, it should not be consumed by your pet either. If someone hunts or discards it from a slaughter, it is better to do so in a rural environment where you can give it something that you are not going to eat for yourself and give it to the dog without having undergone a veterinary check up or having undergone a heat treatment such as cooking that would kill the parasites that could be transmitted to it. When I mention this, I am referring to the fact that there are some parasites that are found in the organs of other animals and that these can be transmitted to the dog or cat. We have all heard of dog tapeworms which can also be transmitted to you. A small kibble will never transmit dog tapeworms to the dog. Therefore, the diet you give your pet must be safe enough to not pose any risk to their health or yours. Another disadvantage of feeding your animals raw food is that it has not been preserved in the most appropriate way possible and that this could transmit bacteria that could put their lives at risk. Since dogs were domesticated, they are no longer scavengers or animals that can eat food that decomposes in nature. Therefore, the bacteria that can grow on the meat can affect them in the same way as they do you and can cause some type of health problem for your pet. If you cook food, the bacteria will be killed by the heat and therefore it will be safe to eat well. Another argument that we could make for or against is whether dogs are carnivorous or omnivorous animals. Well, as this is a very extensive topic and goes beyond the Scope of the barf diet. We can discuss it in another video. Let me know in the comments. And if we see that there is interest, we will do it.

Okay, so now you are going to give your opinion.

Now I am going to give my opinion. Now I am going to get involved. Personally, I do not like the bar diet because the arguments that I have given you against it weigh much more than the arguments that I have given you in favor. If you are choosing the bar diet, I am not saying that you are feeding your dog poorly or that nothing bad will happen to your dog, because it should not. I am only telling you that according to my clinical experience, there are cases in which it does not turn out so well, and that is why I do not like to recommend it. For me, it is not inconvenient to give your dog raw lean meat, mainly without bones, because bones can cause your dog some problems. The only problems, well, some of the contamination of bacteria that can occur and so on. But if you are careful with that, in principle, you should not have any problems feeding it to your dog. So if you opt for the bar diet, you have to be very aware that the food you give your little one has to be of the highest quality. If you have discarded commercial food, you have to know perfectly well what diet you have to give your pet. You have to know very well what types of ingredients you have to combine so that the diet is nutritious and that you do not leave them fed or overfed. And this is another argument that I see quite against it, because you have to have more specific knowledge of nutrition than if you give your pet a commercial diet that is already perfectly formulated. Yes, yes, I know there are commercial diets that are terrible and that can be considered almost like the ground I am walking on. But know that you can count on a wide range and probably in a higher price range than what you usually find in the supermarket. You will find very good quality foods that nourish your little ones very well. There are holistic monoprotein diets without genetically modified foods. So you have a wide range to choose from. Also, as I am a veterinarian, I cannot ignore the issue of bones, because every day in the clinic, animals come across my hands that have eaten bones and have not agreed with them. They have caused vomiting, diarrhea, as something very mild, or even others that have caused much more serious problems and have even had to undergo surgery because these bones have caused an intestinal obstruction. And if they were not removed from the intestine, they could die. And if, for Whatever reason, the owner chooses to give them crushed bones. There are bones that are crushed, processed, and so on. They can also cause impactions, balls that form when these bones group together and can cause poor digestion. Therefore, I do not share the issue of bones. If, after this video, you still choose the bar diet, the only thing I recommend is that you do so in a committed and sensible way and nothing bad should happen to your dog. I really don't think you're doing anything wrong by feeding your pet a barf type diet. But it would be advisable for you to first go to the hands of a veterinary nutritionist who can create a specific diet according to the requirements of your little one. And in the process, we can avoid many of the inconveniences that I mentioned before. Because just like with humans, there can't be magic formulas that work for all types of dogs, just as your aunt's weight loss diet won't work for you. That's why I still prefer other types of diet alternatives for pets. Although this is just my opinion. Well, I think that up to this point, I've given you all the information I could give you about barf diets. Did you know about it? Have you used it with your pets? If so, tell us in the comments about your experience. Or if you've decided to give it up, tell us why in the comments too. I hope you found this information useful and that it has helped you broaden your horizons regarding pet feeding, or quite the opposite. And that's it for today's video. If you liked it, give it a like and share it with your family and friends. Remember that we have a group on Facebook that you can join to build community and we can also answer some of your questions there. I never said to subscribe. I thought you had too. Oh, and I always forget. Please subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Thank you very much for following the Happy Pets and Families channel and I'll see you in the next video. They haven't looked at me.

No, no, I'm going to watch it. I'm embarrassed. We choose the best days to record. Okay? The air doesn't mess me up. You don't have a Kiki here. Of course, the air doesn't bother me at all because of how my. You're not going to record me anymore. I'm not flying. Okay, but at the end of the day. Oh, all the macronutrients. All the macronutrients. Damn. Look. Look at that funny ball. The barf diet, also known as you're going to shave, it is going to be used against me. Done. Look. No, it's not a Belgian Shepherd. This is one of those from the bar diet, but with mussels and potatoes.