Back to FOOD

Well, good evening, everyone. I'm sure you're super excited to find that we are here yet again. Tonight we have a special guest spot focus. You won't believe that we have managed to procure this man from the wilderness. He's come to join us to to talk on our favorite subject. Some of you may know him. He's occasionally done some low-key stuff. He's talked a few little bits here and there. But, you know, we really wanted to get back down to a topic that we all love and the reason that we really set up Raw Pet Medics. And so, you know, we truly are back to food tonight. And our special guest Can you believe it? Drum roll, please. Good evening, Dr. Nick Thompson.

Good evening, everybody.

Sorry, that was a little bit of a fascination of how dare you take a week off, young man.

Yeah, you take a week off and Brendan takes the piss. I mean, what can you do? I'm sure Clayton was full of Business Gems. What a good, what a great bloke he is. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm sure it's an absolute cracker. How are you doing, Bren?

Great, great. I haven't obviously been to the gym working out, so I can't come in with a sleeveless vest.

Oh, sorry. Okay, so listen, here's the story. We got back at about 5 6 o'clock, emptied the car, and I sat down for the first time at 6:40 for 5 minutes. Okay. Literally straight off the road. We started packing this morning at 7:30. That's the dog. Sorry, Pete. We started packing this morning at 7:30, but, and it was raining. Okay. So we deliberately took our time. To pack the tent. The children have got a small tent and Ellie and I packed the big tent and got an awning on the tent. We've got all the accoutrements inside. Guess how many hours it took to pack all of that and two dogs because we left Jed at home? It took us 6 and a half hours to pack the tent. Can you believe it? Uh, so there we go. So, so I have been packing. We then drove for 2 and a half hours to get back here. We were in sunny, well, not so sunny this morning, Somerset, and just outside beautiful Porlock in a, in a little valley. We were camping for 10 days with the kids and it was absolutely beautiful. I have to say, uh, I think I've got the best tan.

Never.

Not that you can see it. I have got a tan. I've actually got a tan.

I'm so glad you're not in the same room as me.

And so literally, this is my camping gear and we're in orange today. Got me orange. Got me orange trowel on. And so all good, but very much glad to be back in the fray. And tonight we're going to be talking about food. Yeah, and, and I was just saying to Bren, I think what we should do is every month we should do, we should do, uh, some, some content which is really going to appeal to people who are new to raw, because people are coming on to Raw Pet Medics every week. And we should do something that's kind of in between, medium, a medium level, and we should do some high-level stuff. And within those, I'm sure when we do the basic stuff, we'll throw in a few nuggets of goodness for those people who are, are been in Raw for, you know, some time, but also when we're doing the advanced stuff, I'm sure we'd be able to make it accessible to those people who are new to Raw. I think it's really important that we all travel together on this journey. But as I say, wonderful to be back. And yeah, back on, back live. It's very bizarre to be packing a tent all day long. It's like, oh, Arthur, go pick that up.

I thought you had one of these wonderful those wonderful tents that you could literally unplug and it just went—

Yeah, but it's full. We're not so much camping as glamping, I have to say. We've gone back to really basic beds. Tell me when you're bored of camping stories. We've gone back to very basic beds because we've tried absolutely everything. We've tried blow-up beds. We've tried kind of a frame bed. Which was pretty good, but weighed an absolute ton. When we went to Wilderness last year, oh, I haven't told you about Wilderness. I will tell you about that shortly. We actually got three-quarters of the way to Wilderness. Luckily, it's only an hour and a half away, hour and a quarter away. And we thought, shit, we haven't got the beds. So we had to turn around and come back because otherwise we had zero to sleep on. So we've gone back to mats, sleeping mats now.

I was always told when you do that and you turn up 3 hours later, you've got to start collecting bracken and dried grass and you stuff it underneath the ground sheet so that you create your own mattress. None of this packing beds with you.

Yeah, I mean, if you were camping in the wild, then that would absolutely be an appropriate thing. You should have as much underneath you as you have on top of you, as they say, for insulation, both from above and below. But if you are at Wilderness— Wilderness is a festival that we go to. It's a very family-friendly festival. There's lots of food and lots of music and lots of poetry and lots of this, that, and the other.

Was Ellie singing again?

Was she on stage? No, they do a They do a choir every year, but for some reason she didn't do the choir. I'm just trying to think of some of them. They're always tear-jerkers. You've got these 45 people who are wilderness festival goers, and they all come together and you've got the bass and you've got the sopranos, you've got the altos and things, and they all come together and over just 3 days produce the most beautiful sound when they sing the song. I think they did them. Bridge Over Troubled Water, I think, last year. They do those kind of heart-rending songs. Absolutely beautiful. I can't think of any. They did a Beach Boys, um, God Only Knows. If you, if you guys, if you've never heard God Only Knows by the Beach Boys, absolutely beautiful song. Wow. Um, they did that a few years ago, and they did, they did Sinead O'Connor's, um, what, what, the, the, the Prince song, um, Uh, he says, grappling in his mind, um, own— oh God, uh, it, it starts, it's been 16 hours and 14 days since you took— you were gone, yeah, away, or something like that. Absolutely just grips your heart and squeezes it. Beautiful, beautiful. So anyway, she wasn't doing the the choir this year because we were busy with the kids and did a lot of dancing, went out and dancing every night, which was absolutely amazing.

Debbie Williams says it's Nothing Compares to You.

Nothing Compares to You, Debbie Williams, what a star you are. Yes, if you've never heard that one, definitely worth checking that one out. Beautiful.

And Alice, if you want to know where Conor is, he's at the moment Sipping a beer, relaxing, watching his kids run around and driving his wife nuts. Of course. So, you know, he's away.

He's away. Is he in Ireland or away or are we not saying?

I believe it was, he wasn't travelling too far.

He wasn't travelling too far. Fair enough. Good. So he's in sunny Ireland. I hope he's having a great time. I'm sure he'll listen back to this because we are so scintillating. So Connor, yeah, I hope you're having a great time, matey. Yeah, enjoy your time off. It's great. It is nice to get away, but it's lovely to come back. So there you go. That's our 9 minutes of fill-in, a little bit of background where we've been and what we're doing and all that kind of stuff. So we're going to talk about food. So let's talk about the basics of food where, Bren, you've been able to think about this today and I've been packing tents.

I want to know. I've been doing a load of other work. You know, some of us have to work for a living. We can't just go swanning around talking to people.

Yeah, but that's what we do for a living, isn't it? We talk to people, which is one of the joys. I find one of the joys is I talk to some absolutely fantastic people whose unfortunately dogs are in distress. But because of what I do, holisticvet.co.uk, people self-select, you know, people who, who they've either tried pharmaceutical approach or they've tried an ultra-processed approach to food, and, um, they are, they are either disappointed with that or they, um, they themselves look at things from a more holistic perspective and therefore they want that for the dog. It's, it's really surprising that there are so many people who are very holistic for themselves and for their kids or for their family and how they eat and what have you, and yet they're still feeding ultra-processed food. Do you find that?

I do. And that's a really interesting point because literally yesterday I was having some consults filling in for some of the vets on holiday. So doing some standard consults and talking to effectively novel clients to that thought of food and everything else.

Okay.

Because we run a truly integrative practice, which sort of also deals with frontline work as well. And having that conversation with a couple of clients, one after the other, that were in for standard check-ins and, you know, talking about health implications for their dog's skin and what was going on for another dog's digestive system. And we were talking about diets and I was just talking about the health impact of the processed diets because I always do a dietary check-in, that fifth vital assessment of nutrition and just understanding, you know, a lot of people out there, cost of living is an issue. And, you know, they'll be saying that they're using all these biscuits or, you know, some of the meat or some of them will be choosing, you know, a fresh cooked diet of, you know, the various choices out there. I'm not going to go into those right now, but they will then add in a baseline biscuit as a fear of balance. They've been told that if they don't feed that, then they'll be missing some vital nutrients. And then just bringing in some relevance, that conversation about what they're doing with their kids, because these are family people. They're not just sort of like a pet-only family, they've got kids as well. And they're talking about, we equate some of those ultra-processed foods to ready meals and what's on the table for them and their kids. And they'll quite happily talk about, oh yeah, we're really into fresh foods and trying to get away from chicken nuggets and all of the classics that kids will crave after, literally crave because they become addicted because of what they put in those foods. And it's that realization point that, you know, oh, actually, that is really what we're doing. We've sacrificed for the sake of convenience fresh foods for a lot of our pets. And, you know, it's that mind click. And I love the book Ultra-Processed People because that, if anything, for parents, clicks people into understanding, you know. And both of these guys had heard of that, of the Chris Van Tulleken and, you know, the TV Doctor and the book, interestingly. And so they said, you know what, I've heard of that. It's one of those that, you know, friends and family have been talking about listening to and or reading. And, you know, because we've got kids and everything else, and I said, well, look, you know, you've got to think of your pet is another family member. You know, you've got to think just as importantly that actually one of the biggest impacts on health you can make is giving the right sort of food to your pet. You know, as little as 25% fresh food in the diet can make a health impact. Well, of course it can, and that's brilliant, But obviously, if you want to make the biggest health impact, you want to try and get a little bit higher than that. And that's why we're advocates of raw feeding and fresh food feeding on a whole basis and not really putting processed foods into their bowls.

Totally agree. Really interesting. The people who we were camping next to, near, uh, Porlock, the, the very next people— and this is going to make your, your, your heart glad, Bren— they were feeding raw food to their dog. Can you believe it? Absolutely brilliant, you know. And, and, and, you know, you may think, well, big deal, but actually, what are the pro— what's the probability of somebody next door— they had a lab, Monty, about 8 or so years old, and they were feeling raw. And that says to me that we, the greater we, not you and I and Conor, are having an impact. We are getting that message through, which is very, very heartening.

And it's quite exciting to be on that wave, actually, of people waking up and realizing the impact.

Totally. It's a revolution. It is nothing short of a, I was going to say a bloodless revolution, but actually there is drippy stuff around when you thaw your stuff out.

Your organs.

That's right. That's right. And I think it's really wonderful. I mean, it's very interesting that you say that there are people who don't get it and then suddenly do. Just before, just to justify the fact that I do actually do some work, on the Friday before before we left on Saturday. Okay, so we're talking, uh, where we choose day today, so 5 days ago was Friday. So a week before that, I actually did a talk at the Wellness Way Festival for an hour. Um, this is Philly J. Lay. If you don't know about her and you're into health for humans, then please check her out. I did an interview with her probably about 5 months ago. And she is— she— her catchline is, the doctor of the future is you. And I think that, that is— the nutritionist of the future is you. Yeah, within this Raw Pet Medics context. And so I did, did a talk, and we had a fabulous crowd, and I had a whole hour prepared, and But I just wanted to talk to people because they were really buzzy about these things. And so we just did Q&A. We did Q&A more or less. I put a few slides up and what have you. And everybody was fascinated with the raw journey. There were some people who were feeding raw already and they were, you know, very supportive of what we were saying. But there are other people who were, who you could just see the light go on in their minds when I said, well, it's ultra-processed food, you know, because everyone in the audience is the Wellness Wave Festival. And everybody in the audience was, you know, was thinking about food or they were vegetarian or they were, you know, they were only using biodynamic or whatever it might be. And you go, oh yeah, I've been going along, you know, the vet or the local supermarket or the local pet shop or what have you has been saying that we should be feeding this ultra-processed stuff because it's got a picture of a dog on the front and it's scientifically formulated and everything else. And the lights have just come on. And it's just wonderful to be able to see that transformation of thought. And interestingly, what we were saying just before we came on, that one of the, one of the places where people fall down is that they're feeding raw, they're feeding raw, they're feeding raw, and then the dog gets ill. Perhaps they get some kidney disease or they get some liver disease or heart disease and what have you. And that's where I find— and I'm taking this from your lead earlier— is that that's where they falter, that they, they, they, they go to the vets their dog is diagnosed with kidney disease, for example, and the vet says, oh, you've got kidney disease, you have to have some of this food because it's got kidney disease written on the bag, or it's got K stroke D, which some of our friends who make ultra-processed food call it KD. Others call it renal support. And what do Purina call it? I can't remember. Our friends at Nestlé, who've never made a healthy food, healthiest human food in their entire existence.

I'll be screaming, I made a granola bar. Just like, you know, missing the point. You know, I had a really interesting conversation when we were— we did the BVNA podcast on nutrition. And as part of Bellarine, I was asked to come on to talk about raw food feeding with a colleague of mine. One of the veterinary nurses on the team, with Mike Davies and one of the nurses from a weight clinic, Royal Canin-run weight clinic up in Liverpool University. And it was interesting, the start points that they started off from, but when you actually point out some of the science, the bits that they cannot disagree on, which undermines their start point. But, you know, coming back to, you know, they were trying to talk about those relative risks. And, you know, when you point out all of the other risks, even in kibble feeds and basically risks full stop from under the hedge, you know, that actually they're trying to— if they're immunocompromised, what they need to be aware of. Well, I mean, just this week I saw another article appear. If you're immunocompromised, beware of sharing bathroom products with people that have been in hospital. So, you know, everything from razors to the soap dish to the whatever, because it might have MRSA on it. And it's, yeah, so, yeah, there's just alarmisms everywhere, isn't there? And so, and there was an oncologist oncology nurse that was just talking about, well, of course, there's that, you know, they're going to be immunocompromised. But you've got to understand, we don't sterilize the guts of those animals when we're giving them chemotherapy. You know, you can't be suggesting that, you know, we're going to suppress their immune system so much that they can't deal with normal, effectively, combinations with their normal gut flora, their normal skin flora. Otherwise, you know, we'd be in dire straits with what we're doing for welfare.

I think what, what, what we have to realize is that we humans and we and, and our dogs have enough bacteria to probably pollute every waterway on the planet and probably kill every human being on the planet in our guts. Every single moment of our entire lives. And what Bren is suggesting is that there is a thought that many bacteria in the environment are dangerous, forgetting that we contain multitudes— another wonderful book— of bacteria with whom, even if you are going through chemotherapy, you more or less rub along with very, very well. Because if you were truly, truly immunocompromised, then can you remember— I'm showing my age here— can you remember the Boy in the Bubble? Yeah, Paul Simon sang about him, the Boy in the Bubble and the Baboon Heart and what have you. If you were truly immunocompromised, you could not breathe the air that everybody else thrives on, you know, because there's that famous meme, isn't there? If you don't like bacteria, you're on the wrong planet. And this is it. This, you know, when we were at vet college, you and I, it was bacteria was the enemy and antibiotics were the savior, home guard, were the savior. Exactly right. And it was a good and evil fight of good and evil. But actually, what we've evolved into over the last 30, 40 years, which is why old codgers like us is quite— I think we're quite useful because we can see where we came from and where we're going to. And we're coming to a place where we're redefining pathogens. You know, what is a pathogen? In the old days, it's Clostridium. Was a pathogenic bacteria, will give you pneumonia in sheep and can cause infinite problems within the guts of humans and dogs and what have you. But they forgot the certain element, which was Clostridium species are found in the normal human and the normal dog gut. Okay.

And we're just beginning to realize that, you know, Do you know what's more distressing? Is that the more you research this, the more references you can find that actually 100 years ago, people were saying the benefits of bacteria. They were actually talking about the emotional change that actually did the level of mental illness that occurred if you didn't have certain gut flora. There was a great conference in 1911 on that whole subject. Of psychologists looking at bacterial flora and the influence on mental health. And you go through to all of the stuff we talked about post the First World War of what they recognized with people's distress and post-war issues and anxieties and then all of the influenza influence and you know, what was happening with their gut flora and how you could correct it. And then unfortunately, we then just fell into this whole chemical world of, oh my God, but actually, if you've got a festering wound, look what you can do with this chemical drug, this antibiotic that we've taken from nature. We have taken from nature, but we've now made it into a drug that we can manufacture and distribute to the masses. And now bacteria are all bad. But actually, that antibiotic resistance— this was one of the arguments on BVNA. Sorry, my dog's just had my wife decide to come in. So the antibiotic resistance has actually been going on for eons, not just millennia, but eons, because it is a competition between fungi and bacteria.

Yeah.

And so resistance, again, an argument. So if you wanted to listen to this conversation around raw food versus processed foods, it's on the BVNA podcast. It is actually free to air for anybody. If you go on to Spotify and just put in BVNA podcast, raw nutrition, that's your—

BVNA. Bravo Victor November Alpha. And that'll be.com or?

No, no, it's just on Spotify. Just go on Spotify and just search BVNA podcast. And you'll be able to listen to that, I believe. There's no restrictions on it. I thought it was going to be for members only, but it's no restrictions.

Okay, that's really, really good. I think we could talk about that. All evening because it's a fascinating philosophical point. There's a question.

Sorry, Debbie, I know all of your dogs are barking. Sorry.

Amazing. Just remind me, we need to plug the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society conference in Mallorca.

Oh, absolutely.

I believe there are some tickets left and it's going to be amazing.

Have you seen the stars?

I know.

Ignore those people that are comparing it. I know. You can come along and see if you wish. Have you got a lineup?

Have you actually, just while we're here, this is very random, this chat that we're having today. And we cannot, we're just going to do it anyway.

Would you have a chat with everybody listening?

Do you have the thing?

Because, well, I know that Fiona is right there. She's going to be talking. So I know that we've got people like Peter Tobias. Yes. We have wonderful Rita Hogan. We have Rita Hogan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have Lisa Hansen.

She's good.

So I mean, look at that. That's just those three alone. You should be clamoring for tickets.

Yeah.

Obviously Amaya is having a talk. We've got a great dermatologist, Mark Craig.

Yes, he is great. He is a very, very conventional dermatologist, but he has been forced kicking and screaming, I think initially, into recognizing that raw food is supremely beneficial for dermatological disease. And he's a very, really fascinating guy. A lot of experience and absolutely there. Have you got the dates just for the podcast people?

So that is the 18th, 19th, I want to say, of October. Is that right? 18th, 19th. Let's get this right. Otherwise, it's a shot.

Okay, 18th, 19th. Is that actually correct?

I believe so. That's a Friday, Saturday. Half day Friday, full day Saturday.

Have a look at that. Yeah, and all the details are going to be there.

All weekend in Palma, Mallorca. So you don't even have to worry about the weather. You can come join us. Now look, there are a crazy load of other people coming. So for you guys who are joining us over on Dr. Judy's channel, on Facebook, you will recognize the two crazy cat ladies. I'm looking forward to meeting them because I love cats. So we're going to That's a song, isn't it? Love Cats. So just fine.

Love Cats. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Anyway, so from— yeah, see, Fiona's agreeing with me. It's the 18th, 19th of October.

Okay, thank you, Fiona.

We have actually Caroline Ingram coming as well. So that's a whole other— there are just so many people. I mean, guys, this is like some major convention of big name people. If you want to come and talk to us, face to face, you know, be part of the gang. All you need to do is to buy a ticket and have a good time.

Okay, come on over.

If you want to go clubbing later and go up to the, you know, for later in the week, then by all means you can extend your week in Mallorca. But for us, you know, join us in Palma. Nice hotel, great, great company. And All you need to do is go onto the RFVS website. You can, if you're a member, you can get your extra discount. If you're not, just still come along.

RFVS.info, Romeo Foxtrot Victor Sierra.info, guys. I'm doing that super, super slowly because whenever we, whenever we call out anything, for the next 5 minutes people say, what was that? What was that reference? All right, it's down to you really slowly. It's okay. I mean, why not? It's fun.

Oh, Fiona's saying it's a wonderfully intimate venue. I'm now a little bit worried. Which hotel did we book, Fiona?

No, it's good, it's good because we're all family, you know.

Everyone in the—

within the raw feeding community, where it's just— it's a family gathering. It's just— it's going to be as good as that. And Peter Tobias He doesn't do a lot of lecturing. How they managed to get him over, I do not know, but he's a fascinating guy, deep thinker, very, very, very positive, lovely, open chap, and he's well worth it. Rita Hogan we've had on the show, so you probably know her. If you don't, check her out. She's got a website, just do the Google thing. Absolutely amazing. The mad cat lady? What are they called?

Crazy cat ladies.

Crazy cat ladies. Mad, crazy. Yeah. The crazy cat ladies. They've got a wealth of information, I'm sure. Who else have you got? Fiona? Fiona? Anybody?

Fiona's come up. Have you not seen? We've called out most of them. I think there's— who was else? I think there is one more that I've possibly not mentioned yet.

And Bren and I are going to be there and we're going to be officiating. We're going to be doing some Raw Pet Medics stuff, which is a minor attraction. It's a sideshow in the whole thing.

But we forgot to say, of course, oops, I'm seeing her next week. That's why I've not mentioned her name. Professor Anna is also joining us with a couple of her researchers to bring us the latest in research. So you're going to hear that. Billy Hoakman is flying all the way from the States. Anybody who's in the States, come on, guys, you've got to understand there are so many people coming from the States to be with us. You should be getting on the flights with them and coming across. So, oh my word, there is so many people coming with their families.

Amazing.

It's amazing, guys.

It's going to be amazing. And Palma and Mallorca is an absolute dream, and it'll be the autumn. It won't be too hot. It'll be warm, beautiful, lovely. I'm really looking forward to it. You know, we're going to have a few days there, and, uh, it's, it's, we, we do a lot of serious stuff during the day, and then the evening, we're going to eat some amazing food. We're going to go out dancing. Just, we're going to have a great time. Seriously, it's going to be absolutely fantastic. I cannot wait. It'll be Amazing. I'm going to bring us back briefly to nutrition because this is supposed to be back to food. I'm going to bring us back to food.

Raw feeding.

I'm going to bring us back to food. And Jackie Ward, God bless her, says, do conventional vets believe certain KD food is a good diet for kidney problems, or are they just following their practice— practices protocol and promoting a certain brand? I am so conflicted. As to this answer. Now, there's a lot in that question. Do you want to have a little go first?

Yeah, I see. I understand what you're saying, Jackie. I think to some degree I get frustrated when half the time they don't understand why they're feeding that diet. You know, they just think it's made for animals with renal disease, therefore I'm going to feed it. They don't understand the individual nutrients that are going to benefit a renal patient. They don't look at omega-3 levels. They don't look at the individual papers for what's within those diets, the quality of protein. They're trying to make sure that the animals keep eating, all of these side of things. Some of these diets don't actually encourage that. The biggest issue that dealing with is trying to restrict excessive urea production and they're secondly trying to restrict the amount of phosphates that are getting into the bloodstream. And that's really all they're doing. And they created a diet out of a base processed food which then had two couple of caveats to it. And one being they didn't want to add too much protein, so they kept it a bit lower. And two, because that's the urea source, that the ammonia being hived off the protein to actually then be bound into urea and building up because the kidneys weren't filtering it properly. And then the phosphates, partly because they were adding inorganic phosphates to the diet to increase the phosphate amounts because they need those for energy production. But actually, the body cannot control them if the hormones from the kidneys aren't functioning properly. So we end up with excessive amounts circulating in the bloodstream. So they decided to bind phosphates. So you can get phosphate binders if you're still giving foods and you're finding the phosphate levels going up in your pet's diet. But actually, The studies show that if you give phosphates in their natural form, bound in bone material, then actually the body doesn't suffer from the hyper— that's the excessive— phosphatemia. That's the phosphates in the blood. So it's something that you should be thinking, do you know what, you can truly think about dietary change, you can be going, okay, I'm going to add more omega-3s. There's lots of evidence there, actually, for a lot of other inflammatory diseases, but kidney disease being one of them, that it will improve blood pressure, it will improve the filtration and the, the scarring within the kidney, therefore improve the kidney function. So Getting omega-3s in at a good high level is really important. You can add foods which have vitamin D3 in them because they're naturally rich in those. I love Nick's little thing of feed the food of the ill organs. So give them, you know, if they've got kidney disease, why don't you give them a little bit more kidney? Because it's going to be full of nutrients which the kidney needs to support itself. And also some of the hormones and other things that are released by those kidneys for the other animals before they gave their life for our food are going to be ultimately in that kidney and going to be beneficial to your pet. So you've got an easy win of increase the amount of kidney for a kidney patient. Increase the amount of omega-3s within the diet. Monitor. I always say those blood tests are really good to give you a monitor of things that you might need to change. Okay, so lots of stuff that you can be doing. There is no reason why a good raw diet isn't going to support their system without creating lots of waste urea. Okay, we don't need to be worrying too much if you're giving quality protein. And quality protein is that, that's not been adulterated by heat and processing. Because what can you do with rubbish protein? Just as we do with our rubbish, sometimes the only way you can recycle it is to turn it into energy. That doesn't mean it's more digestible. That just means it makes more smoke. It makes more waste products. As they have to create energy by cleaving the ammonia group off the protein. So that just creates more ammonia. So actually a good quality protein to me is one that can actually be recycled and reused by the body the most easily. So don't corrupt it.

Good stuff. So Jackie points out about KD food, but KD is only one, you know, all the, all three of the the big Mars, the Nestlés.

I think that very much depends on the practice though. I think you will find them just as much eulogizing about the other renal diets dependent on what they've got to hand.

But that is part of the question, and in that, so I'm going to go into kind of the, the politics of this because you've done the, the science of it very nicely just then. So, um, if you are not running a practice, they will probably possibly have a protocol to say if dogs and cats come in with kidney disease, this is the diet that we use. And it doesn't matter whether it's, it's, it's Hills or it's Royal Canin or whoever it might be. That is the protocol. And I think that's very restrictive. It's a bit of a shame. I saw a professor of internal medicine about 20 years ago who was lamenting that, that we vets— and I was doing this at one point as well— we are defaulting to off the peg foods. That is to say, some company has put nutrient A, B, and C together for us for a certain disease. When in the, in the '90s and the early 2000s, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate said, right, there are no— we are going to seriously reduce the amount of compound drugs that vets can use. For example, back in the day, there was a thing called Phenobiotic. And this was phenodyne, which is really powerful, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. And it was, it was combined with an antibiotic. So it's just, you know, you just fill the syringe with this and you give it and off you go. You've got a non-steroidal going into the animal and you've got an antibiotic. Hey presto. And the veterinary medicine side didn't like this. And so they separate. They said phenyldione, very useful, and antibiotics, very useful. But you've got to separate them so that there is a degree of customization that you can actually bring to each different case. And this is Penny Watson, Professor Penny Watson at Cambridge. And she said, well, we're doing that for pharmaceuticals. Why don't we do it for nutrients? You know, because what's happening is that vets will say, oh my God, we've got kidney disease. Let's go for the— let's go for the renal thing because I can't read and this is putting it on. This is— and I'm not decrying veterinary medicine in the slightest. It's just that the food industry, big food industry, has come along and they've kind of schmoozed them over the years to say, don't worry, if your dog has kidney disease, we will take care of the food side of things. You don't need to worry about the nutrients. You don't need to worry about the ingredients. You don't need to worry about the fact that you are feeding a dried pellet to an animal who already has a problem with electrolytes and fluid balance. You know, this would be, this would be like putting children who have kidney disease onto fortified digestive biscuits, you know, feeding a dry food. It's absolute madness when actually those children, they need real food with real moisture within the food in order to move as far as they can towards an equilibrium, a food equilibrium. They may need some pharmaceuticals on top of that to help them with their disease process, but to stymie them at the beginning of their therapeutic journey, whether it's a child or a dog or a cat, with giving them, you know, I mean, this is Medicine 101. First, do no harm. You know, you've got kidney disease and you're giving dry food. It's absolute madness. A primary school child could tell you that that's probably not a very good idea. So we're just coming to the end.

Why do you say that? Say that, look, just before we come to the end. And I know that we're, you know, a minute off. It's interesting because there are certain health professionals, in fact, even nutritionists, that still cannot get into their heads why breakfast cereals are not the healthiest start to your child's day. They say that it's just a fad. That actually breakfast cereals are the most brilliant start to your child's day.

Seriously? You knew, you know nutritionists who say—

Absolutely gobsmacked.

Very briefly, tell us the story, and then what I think we should do for a bit on the side for our—

Well, people will hear it if they listen to the BVNA podcast. People will hear it. So they just like— I was gobsmacked. You cannot seriously think that that is the healthiest diet to start your your child.

Okay guys, you have got to listen to that because, because that is, that is, there are so many things on that.

I'm going to have to answer some of the bits that are coming up on the bit on the side because there are little bits here, there and everywhere coming up. Look, there are so many prescription diets. Somebody, I'm going to answer the last one before we say goodbye to the other side. And that is somebody gets really upset that these are called prescription diets. And did you know that actually it's not anything to do with because they're licensed? It was literally a marketing ploy before there were restrictions on what you could call diets. And then they stuck with the name because they won that they'd been using it for long enough that it was actually a brand.

Grandfather rights.

Yeah. And so You could argue, and I'm not necessarily advocating for this company, you could argue that without veterinary care, you couldn't feed this food repeatedly for fear of doing harm to a patient that was otherwise well. So I'm going to defend it in that way. I was suggesting with faint, damning it with faint praise. Yeah, I think there is a risk to your pet's health if you feed this diet without veterinary advice.

Yeah, there are several diets, and I can name a few, but I won't. There are several diets which they— where they actually give that, uh, that SD, for example.

Oh, I need to press the wrong button, so I'm going to quickly flip over, um, to a bit on the side. If you want to join us over on the patreon.com/rawpetmedics, you can join us as Nick refinds his access so that we will talk about the next bit of foods and prescription diets and health over on A Bit on the Side. Nick's joining us now. He's coming back into stream. Please do come and join us and find us at the RFVS conference. We are comparing. We're going to look forward to that. And I'd also love to speak to you if you're at any of the dog fests. I'm there with Bella and Duke. I'm going to do some pet clinics, so pop-in clinics. You can book a spot. We can speak to you in person. That's every weekend just about through September and into the beginning of October. And there's just so much coming up. I've got some good podcasts coming. So we are going to be there if you do want to. In about an hour's time, we'll release 10 to 15 minutes especially for our Patreon goers, just for the price of a pint. And if you don't know what a pint is, you know, at least a cup of coffee, then come and find us over on a bit on the side. Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.