RawPetMedics

Good evening. Let's just hope that this is working somewhere in the ether.

Um, tonight, uh, I think you've got, you've got quality, not quantity. Brady has just, uh, deserted us. He's gone on holiday with his kids, but it's Easter holiday, so that's actually fair enough. But I think we should give him a bit of a hard time over that. I didn't dig out any of those photos that the paparazzi sent us of him and his budgies, so maybe we can dig one of those out for next week. However, I'm going to be on my holidays, so I will have to be— Salah, I am going to have to be slightly careful how low a blow we go for that. Just want to say welcome everybody. We're going to be talking about the 360 Degrees PET conference that we— that Conor Brady and Brendan Clarke and Anna Heimbjörkman and I were at over the weekend, and it was a great success, and everyone really thoroughly enjoyed it. So we're going to be talking about that today, and we're going to do some questions and answers. And, um, what was I going to say? I was going to say thank you very much to all our Patreon people. All you need to do if you want to support us on a, you know, give us a wee price of a cup of coffee or a cup of tea or a pint of beer or whatever your poison happens to be Uh, if you want to give us that, the equivalent of that, just once per month, we would be very, very grateful. You just go to Patreon and you look up Raw Pet Medics and follow your nose. You will get certain perks being in Patreon as well because we like to look after you. We haven't got a lot of time to really look after you, as many, many shows do, but we do recognize you and value your input to us. Also, you can get us on any podcast you like, Spotify and Apple and all of those kind of things. And what else? Oh, we're on YouTube as well. If you do find us on YouTube, please subscribe so you can see all our shows. And please do give us a like because the logarithm, the algo as the youth are calling them these days, the algo likes that, and they will send more people in our direction if there's lots of likes. So, um, so they go and—

nice to see some people. Uh, hi to Rach Mac, who's made it live again.

Uh, was she first?

Uh, yeah, Nick— no, she wasn't, but she was live, so she's really pleased with that. Um, Nicola, no, he's not stranded over in Turkey. He flew back and managed to fly off on his Holly bulbs. So he's, as Nick says, probably currently scorching himself under the sun and enjoying a bit of family time. So we'll allow him that, you know, from that side of things. And don't forget, you know, tonight we are going to be talking about the 360 Pet Conference that we've just been to. I think it was great. We're really going to enjoy talking about that. We've also actually possibly got a little bit of time, so if you've got some burning questions. We had a great one from the conference that I think we should address tonight because we didn't really manage to address it live, um, on mercury in fish and what's safe. But if you've got a question, do pop it in the comments. Um, we might be able to scan through and see those, and if it's something really interesting, especially if you're on YouTube, uh, we'll be able to show that up live. So hi, Kaz, who's on YouTube, um, good to see you there. If you are able to get on both and you want to go over on there, then please do pop over onto YouTube. We can actually see your comments a little easier. Well, Nick can see them.

I can see both comments on YouTube, guys, on the tube of you. But Brendan can see them on Facebook, the book of face. So you can put them up anywhere you fancy. I've got a few just in reserve because we always have about 2 dozen questions on any given day. But, uh, it's going to be fairly— a fairly relaxed situation because we were working over the weekend. And, um, and we're just going to do a recap. It's not too heavy this evening. It's going to be a bit more chatty. Uh, I'm just about to go on me holidays as well. We're taking the kids away on Thursday, so really looking forward to that. It's quite funny. Are you up?

Are you back for Tuesday next week?

No, I'll do you a pre-record. I'll record you 20 minutes to let you off.

Will you now?

If you like. If you fancy. Or I'll come on depending on what the time difference is and all that sort of stuff. We'll make something happen. We'll make something happen.

So just so everybody knows out there, we're going to be talking all about Easter and eggs. Next Tuesday. So if you've got any interesting questions about eggs, we're going to answer them next week. And it looks like it's going to be me and Conor, and we're going to see how scorched he actually has been this week.

No, I'm going to have sunshine in the morning and sunshine in the late afternoon and avoid the sun cream and maximise my vitamin D. That's essentially what I'm going to do.

Brilliant, brilliant.

Yeah, yeah, that's the plan, that's the plan, trying to avoid the sun cream these days.

So Rach is on holiday at the moment, just enjoying time with her little pooch Macy.

Cool.

That's why she's able to watch us live.

Okay, brilliant, Rach, nice to have you there. Um, please do come on, on, uh, YouTube, uh, because then I can see you. Kaz, we've got you there. Um, I'm sure you're not the only person But you're the only person I can see. So thank you for being there, Kaz Langley. Brilliant.

Tracy is saying she's got her ticket for seeing us in Florida in October. So Tracy Smith, hi, how are you doing? And just, you know, there we go.

So that's very organized.

I'm sorry, I am not spending too much time in Wales. Maybe too much time speaking to the Welsh, but not too much time in Wales. So, oh, here we go. The egg puns are coming.

So excellent, etc. I'll tell you what would be lovely to go over to Wales, maybe mid-Wales so that everybody can come along, the North Wales Brigade, maybe Aberystwyth to do an RPM. Oh, where is Aberystwyth?

Is it in the middle? It's, well, it's right on in the middle on the West Coast, isn't it?

So near St. David's.

So I think from a point of view of being able to do the RFVS conference, maybe we do it at the same time and we have a little bit of RPM over there as well.

Have an RPM day the next day after. I'm not sure how that's going to go down actually. There may be—

We're really upsetting people.

Maybe trouble at Nell. Yeah.

Don't start talking about Trump.

It's as good as it gets, mate. Really want to see a big—

Patricia, hi, how are you doing on YouTube?

Oh, I was going to see that. Yeah. Anyway, Patricia, I was just looking at— I was just doing a run-up on how to pronounce Gonzalez. Salvez. Excuse my Spanish accent.

Depends which nationality it's from, I guess.

Oh, did you know? Somebody told me, sorry, somebody told me the other week, over the weekend, that in, I think in Spain, they pronounce, there's a kind of a lisp on the S's, I think. Yeah, okay, yeah, you know, I'm just trying to think of some words, I can't remember, and any Spanish speakers, excuse my ignorance, but apparently in South America, where they also speak Spanish, they don't. They speak— they say their S's without the lisp. And apparently it's because— so this— the Spanish went over back in the bad old days and established Spanish entity in South America, right? And then the king in Spain changed and he had a lisp, and nobody wanted to offend him, so the entire court started speaking their S's with a bit of a lisp. And ever since then, in Spain—

and all their V's as B's, is that what you said?

It's not V's as B's, I'm not sure what that is, but the lisp thing, Velázquez, Velázquez, that's how they say it. And it's because the king had a lisp and nobody wanted to upset him. Yes, Patricia.

Oh, wonderful. So Portuguese, there you go. You've now got to work out how that's Patricia is in Portuguese, right?

Well, I love Lisbon, but living in Spain. Oh, living in Spain. Okay, well, the best of all worlds. And Joey is here. Joey, please do say whether we've organized the time thing. I sent you, Joey, the whole British summertime thing with dates and times and what have you. So I hope that's clear, Joey. Lovely to have you here. Thank you so much.

And thank you for restreaming to all of those people watching us on Dr. Judy's page. Um, you know, it's essential for Joey to do his job in order for that to happen. Uh, so thank you, Joey. Um, amazing.

And greetings to all our compatriots, our amigos and amigas in the US of A. That's fantastic. Um, so Brent, how did you find the, the conference? I was there for the first day and then I had to shoot off for the second, and you guys you did all your stuff on the second. How was the second day? Tell me, because I wasn't there.

Busy. I tell you what, you know, let's face it, we did two sessions on the first day. You did one where you were wonderfully speaking up front. We did the live session, obviously, as well, which, you know, a couple of hours, it It was great to interact and hopefully you guys watching us could cope with the translation delays and that side of things. So that was a learning lesson. Maybe we'll need to edit that down and make it a little bit more concise. So if you watched us on Saturday, you're welcome. There is a question to come to answer from that.

Was it audible, Bren? Ellie had a look and she said she couldn't hear a lot. But maybe she only listened right at the beginning or something, or no?

Yeah, well, that's right. Right at the beginning wasn't great, I think. So there was that element. So we'll have a look at how that can be chopped and changed because we've got soundtracks, we've got video, we've got all sorts for us to be able to repost on our upcoming networks and stuff. So we'll have a look at that. So second day was great. Anna did a brilliant job. From DogRisk on research really sort of laid the tracks for, you know, really eased things for me because all the research was then talked about and I could just go in and enjoy my bit later on talking about cats, giving cats a bit more relevance. Because did you realize this? Well, I hadn't realized just how much cats probably outnumber the dog population in the pet owning community. So a lot of dogs on the streets, a lot of dogs that are looked after by the communities out there, but actually there's a massive interest in cat medicine, feline medicine out there. And so really received very well talking about how to bring raw and holistic health to cats a little bit more. So So that was really great to do that. There's a little bit of overrun. I think everybody got too excited and did more than they should, but there we go. We just ate into the last sessions of the day, so Conor went down okay. Unfortunately, he still needs to learn how to use PowerPoint and not try and put them up as PDF slides.

He still needs to learn PowerPoint. What can we do? I can remember I can remember I've still got PTSD from Conor turning up at Manchester. You remember when we did the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society conference, probably 6 or so years ago?

Yeah.

And Conor turns up and he says, oh yeah, here's my presentation. It's on— what's it called? OpenOffice or something?

Yeah, it's like anything that's free.

Open what? Open— you are joking. And this is 10 to 9, and he was on at 9 o'clock, and I was there organizing it, which is why I'm aging at the rate I am because of this kind of trauma. And so we had to search around the room to see if anybody had a laptop that could play his thing. It was an absolute nightmare. So we must try and lean on Conor to learn PowerPoint.

Oh, I think this weekend's done it for him. He now knows with a learning lesson that's going to happen. There's no way. So he's basically, by the time he gets to October, there is no way he's going to be let loose with anything except PowerPoint.

So totally, totally. Okay.

Even if we have to strip the talk off him and convert it before his very eyes.

Well, I'm happy to go through an hour of how I use PowerPoint with him. You know, if you're— do you use PowerPoint? You— if you do the same, then that will get him off to a good start, I'd have thought. And Joey is saying, we will be sure to hold his hand in October. Joey, you just need to lean on him and say that you will not accept anything PowerPoint. Okay, if you can do that, even if you have to lie, do it. Yeah, good. He's probably going to watch this. He probably won't watch it actually because he'd be on holiday. Just give me a little resume of what you went through, Brent, with your cat stuff. That'd be really good. And if you could do a resume of Conor's and a resume of Anna's, that'd be great. And then I'll give a little resume of mine.

Yeah, so I basically ripped off your talk. No, no, we were joking all day at your expense. And there was a wonderful slide that you opened with, with the dogs being pulled, you know, pulling a lady along. And we just had a little bit of, you know, actually recognition that a lot of the stuff that's talked about for dogs is just as relevant for cats. And as soon as you're feeding raw, the whole anxiety about the Taurine levels just really is, is almost becomes mute in the sense that there's going to be plenty in there unless you do something seriously wrong with your food. We talked about variety, we talked about balance, we talked about bones, what's appropriate. We talked a little bit of the main parts were very much about understanding the importance of behavior in feeding for cats. So making sure you're getting them ready with a bit of hunting exercise can be really useful for those cats that aren't just ready to go and straight away eat. To look at dawn and dusk, you know, so twilight feeding, looking at the wonderful additions that you can use, almost mimicking some of the process tweaks that have been made in their previous food. So looking at bone broths, looking at goat's milk, fermented goat's milk, to make it creamier texture for them can be really useful additions. Looking at just unfortunately having to use some of the horrible flavored stuff that is effectively cat crack to tempt them into eating a healthier diet. It's like treating them as children because they really are, you know, for many of us and being able to develop them across understanding that drive to addiction that's often out out there in the processed diets. So we talked a lot about that, talked about the risk of toxicities of adding a few, you know, things, not thinking necessarily about where those, those are sourced from. So being careful with the types of fish you use, especially with raw, um, thiaminase, uh, looking at where that can lead vitamin B deficiencies if you're going to fortify a diet if you really feel the need to do that. If you've tested, then, you know, and found deficiencies, how to choose something that's a great option that's actually going to be absorbed and not using artificial minerals. Looking at, you know, what foods are rich in some of those chelated minerals, some really good usable vitamins rather than analogues which just aren't absorbed very well by cats or dogs for that matter. So a lot of crossover still. Talked a lot about omega-3s, the importance of those, the underestimation that is in a lot of diets, and then the fallacies about just that minimal bar that we've got for AFCO and FEDIAF and a really interesting conversation about, you know, Australia fighting to try and get some sort of similar standard to AFCO in their country and just thinking, well, actually, why are you arguing so vociferously for those standards when actually they are really bad, poor minimums almost, and not optimized to any degree? As you were saying, the day before. And so interesting conversations. So that's me. Conor was very much talking about— I did go into holistic health. If you want to know more about that, then come see me at the dog expo in May. We'll be talking a lot more about that. I'm not going to go through it right now, but you can find that Natural Dog Expo is on first weekend, bank holiday weekend in May. So hopefully see some of you there. I know lots of people have already been messaging me to say, oh, really looking forward to seeing you. So that's great, thank you very much. So Conor's very much was about carbs, the fallacy of feeding carbs to dogs, and, you know, just the lack of data there, that how these companies get away with saying that it's anything other than a really poor option that's out there. I think from looking at some of the diets that have been named out there, some of the diets that have changed over the years so that, you know, Hills even came up with a whole strapline of how much better feeding high fats was, especially in cancer, you know, how we should be avoiding high-carb diets. And yet they've sort of very quickly changed that tune, I think, because it just undermined the whole of the rest of their ranges. So there was a little bit of chat of, you know, why are these companies using those high-carb diets? What's going on with that? So great sort of exploration into a number of sort of dietary options that were out there. You know, where do carbs really come in, if at all, in these? And why would we not even think to consider that an option in, in our raw ranges generally? So then Anna, of course, was very much— looked, she just went into some of the main references that they've done at DogRisk, how a lot of their surveys have developed, you know, what systems they've developed their surveys on, why surveys are so readily accessible, talking about that wonderful— she did a great slide which maybe we'll share on Patreon with regards to the summation of the I think it was 90,000 years of experience from the 16,500 homes, that very early sort of summation of those people feeding raw and the lack of problems and the fact that you're more likely to get food poisoning from your kids returning from kindergarten than you were from pets being fed raw. And a summation of the the benefits of actually putting something like that out and having another second source, and in this case Nikki Camach's, you know, similar survey come forward and actually find almost the same proportions. And so that's the benefits of not just doing one piece of research but having multiple centers in different areas around the world coming up with different things and actually challenging us, you know, if If it is different, why is there a problem? So, you know, and if it isn't different, isn't that just great? Because it just repeats the process. So hopefully— now it looks like somebody may have lost the sound, or is that just Rach Mac? Because you're on holiday in the middle of Scotland, Rach. I think that's what's happening.

I'll teach you if you're having a holiday, Rach. Um, it sounds like—

thank God. Okay, so it must be you, Rach. Sorry.

Uh, it sounds like you've got a bit of a cold there. Did you pick something up on the plane?

Oh yes, all the planes, you know. That's what it is.

Bad luck.

Yeah, bad luck.

Uh, you'll be right soon. You'll be right. Um, so I just— I really just did a, uh, a resume of my two, uh, vids. I've done a vid called called Raw Feeding: The Basics, which you can get on my website. And I've done another one called Bones and How to Feed Them, again on the website. Follow your nose, you can't miss it. holisticvet.co.uk. And I think it was— I mean, they're, they're quite advanced as, as raw feeders and the vets over there in Turkey, possibly and probably actually more advanced than the average vet in the UK, which is absolutely fabulous. And we had a whole gaggle of vet students there as well. So there were second years and third years and fourth years from Istanbul University and other universities. And so that was really heartening. And for them to get some real basics from, from me, and it sounds like Brendon did some, some fairly good basic stuff with cats as well is so valuable because when I was at college, we didn't really get any practical small animal nutrition lecturing whatsoever. We did get some biochemistry and some physiology and what have you and how to feed a dairy cow and what have you, but not practical. This is how you feed a cat. This is how you feed a dog. So hopefully that will have inspired them. They were really keen.

Do you know what was also really impressive over there was actually just their embracing of multimodal integrative medicine, you know, not just, you know, not just about their interest in nutrition or raw food feeding and, you know, looking at that. And yeah, there was a little bit of a debate, you know, and, you know, empowering them to think about how to look at research and utilize stuff that's not in the species they're necessarily treating, but, you know, in other species. Just thinking that through, you know, you've got comparative anatomy, you've got comparative physiology, you've got comparative biochemistry. You've spent 3 years of your student life learning, you know, don't put that to waste. You know, it's a brilliant grounding for nutrition, but actually them embracing homeopathy, chiropractics, acupuncture, herbal medicine, you know, all of that side of things, and being enthused by that. Um, uh, so we brought in a little bit more about, you know, the other, um, uh, thought processes and the interactions with owners and, and that side to it, um, you know, but it's great to see how much even the professors that were on, um, the, you know, Bano was there of course doing holistic medicine and, um, and homeopathy. And I think just, um, seeing how well they were received and how much they used those, um, alongside conventional medicine, uh, within Turkey.

So Because the, uh, Professor Suleiman, who was, you know, fairly, uh, eminent, opened the whole show at the beginning. Um, so the recognition— they, they're beating us, guys. The Turks, God bless them, are beating the Brits. And I think that they've only come to the show in the last 5 or 10 years. We've been in— we've been you know, pretty keen for about 20-odd years. And actually, the professionals are embracing it with greater open arms than we are in the UK. Maybe that's because we're a bit more conservative, and I don't know, yeah, conservative, small c conservative. Maybe the Turkish people, they're they're a bit more open-minded. Don't know, but they're certainly, you know, as a proportion of the vets in Turkey, it seems to be there's more who are keen, which is fabulous. Yeah, so we've got a thing to learn there, guys. So let's step up and use them as our guidelines. So yeah, there we go. Simple stuff from me. The vet students really liked it, and I'm really glad to be able to offer them that. We did some other stuff, you know, kind of just trying to get everybody on the same page. I was just thinking to try and get everybody on the same page. It would have been too little information, or no, just too simple information for some of the people there, but hopefully many people would gain something from that. So, and then we went to, on the Saturday night between the two days, we went to the most impressive, impressive ultra-modern— it's only been open 5 months or so— called the Vet American Vet Hospital. And I have to say, it was probably one of the most impressive I've seen ever, really.

Yeah, I think we're going to share some photos of that on Patreon because I know a little video from the, uh, the Wolf Bar on the top floor, um, just so that you've got a little understanding. Let's do that on Patreon so that the guys can, uh, see your post on that, because I think you will be— yeah, all of the toys, even to the point of, you know, owners' hotel-type rooms that they could stay if their pets were sick. They could stay with their pets on site.

12 hotels where you could stay if your dog was sick, and if the dog wasn't critical dog would stay with you so that they could monitor the dog and what have you. And it was a really nice room, better than some of the hotel rooms I've been staying in over the last 20 years, that's for sure. So super impressive.

And we've got to say thank you publicly to Naz and Ece for just being, you know, such great hosts and looking after us and you know, actually inviting us over and sponsoring us to go and deliver those talks, you know, thank you so much over there.

Yeah, absolutely brilliant. So some questions, should we have a look at some questions? I'm not sure if any— none have come up on YouTube, but that's okay. Yeah, I'll forgive you, Hugo the Frenchie, I'll forgive you.

Well, I think Tina, was it Tina? I think Tina asked on maybe a different Tina on the Saturday when we were doing the live about— so let's kick off with the discussion over using mercury or heavy metal contamination in fish. So, um, what do you feel? You know, what's your interpretation of fish if being used what would you allow your pets to eat and what would you be sort of seriously frowning at?

In terms of— just in terms of mercury, not in terms of thiaminases?

No, no, uh, I would say— okay, just for me, I would say, uh, in risk of pollution, let's say that, because there's more than just mercury, isn't there?

Okay, I think that is a really sticky Wicket.

All right, remember?

Yeah, I do, because, you know, how can you— you know, when you've got a fish lying on the slab in the fishmonger's, how can you tell what the mercury level is within that piece of fish? However, what you can— so, uh, the other thing was that we did have a presentation, remember, in Helsinki. Somebody done a lot of work on it, and there were certain species which were markedly higher, and I think I think, was it trout? There was trout and, and, and what have you, but I can't remember. I could look it up, but I can't remember right now. But what you can do is you can go online, you can say, this is a table of mercury in fish from the Atlantic, or this is a table of it because it's different, of, of mercury in fish from the Pacific or from wherever it might be, the North Sea. And you can say, right, this, this, and this is going to tend to be higher in mercury, and this, this, and this are going to tend to be lower in mercury. And I actually would be guided by something like that. If you're not feeding loads of fish all the time, you can probably get away with not looking at those kind of tables, but for the sake of 4 minutes of looking at a table, because you know that John the fishmonger down the road gets all his fish from Whitby, which is fished in the North Sea, for example, you just say, right, North Sea, what are goodies, what are baddies with regard to mercury? And you stick with the goodies and don't— for you, the dog, the family— don't touch the baddies. And what's your take?

You know what, so there's two aspects to this. What is a safe limit? And I think the thing to remember is there's certain metals which accumulate in fat. So it doesn't matter how much it is, it's about the accumulation. It could be nanograms worth, it could be micrograms worth, it could be milligrams worth.

Yeah, but how does the average person—

they don't know. So the first thing is to is to recognize there's accumulation in some of these, and, you know, once the accumulation gets to a point, toxicity can start to develop. So as Nick says, really hard for you to work that out fish-by-fish basis. However, the second point for me, which came from that study, was actually not that you necessarily need to think about the individual fish on the slab but more where did it come from? And there was some really good stuff that actually comes back to why we choose the fish oils that we choose, that maybe Mid-Atlantic sardine and anchovy. Okay. Versus, you know, having a bottom feeder of mackerel that's, you know, on a coastline. And actually one of those cases that really was an eyebrow raiser for me was literally looking at North Cornish coastal mackerel being high in lead, you know, which obviously sort of actually— well, yeah, they've got lead mines, you know, the rivers will flow out, you know, if you've got mackerel feeding from effluent that's coming out and that's also contaminated, you know, groundwater with You know, they're mining lead in that area for a reason, because it's rich. And what else is going to pass through those rocks which are lead-rich? It's going to be things like, yeah, the water flow, and therefore you're going to get that risk. So it was really interesting to think a little bit outside the box. You know, if you've got a salmon farm that's stuck right at the face of an estuary to a river that has industrial cities upstream. Okay, think, is that going to be sensible? In fact, actually, talking of farmed fish, if you've got farmed fish and they're moving those farms around all the time because they're wrecking the seabed below them with stuff they're sticking on the fish to keep the lice away, is that going to be your optimum fish that you want to feed raw to your dog, especially the fats from that fish, which often accumulate those medicines. Um, so I think that's what I would say. Yeah, the fishmonger will usually say where that fish is from.

Yeah, you know, totally.

Uh, they will know from when they bought it where those trawlers have been out to. Um, you know, because that's the sort of thing they're interested in too.

Of course it is. They will know, absolutely. Probably sometimes they'll know the fishermen. And the other thing I was going to say, but I've just been reading another question, so it's gone completely out of my head because I'm on to the next question in my head. What was I going to say? Oh, avoid farmed fish. Okay. Because they're likely to be higher in not necessarily heavy metals, but they're likely to be higher in everything else. They use molluscicides, they use fungicides, they use, you know, all sorts of chemicals because the fish are stressed. And stressed animals, as with land animals, if you've got a stressed animal, you're going to, you're going to be much more prone to disease. And if you, if you're, if you've got that disease, then you have to use antibiotics and other chemicals to get them through to, to, to kill weight. So Yeah, avoid farmed fish, I think, is quite an easy win. Joey has put through a question. If— are we— are you done on this?

One very last thing for Tracy. Look, you've got less control in America, you're saying, about where that fish is from, but actually, you know, look at the sprats, look at the whitebait, you know, things like that aren't necessarily gonna be, you know, anywhere except out in the ocean. Okay, they're not going to necessarily be coastal, they're not necessarily going to be in rivers or anything along those lines, so you've got options there to choose some really great fish. So, Joey, yeah, you know what, I think we should answer that because I think for Joey, I know what I would say. I'd be really interested to see what you would say, actually, Nick.

Yeah, well, I think it's a massive question, but just in the last few minutes, let's do that, and then we'll just do one or two quickies. Over for the Patreons.

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Go on then.

So let me just share this. So Joey's put up, you know, what should the ratio of calcium phosphorus be for cats on raw food diet? And I think actually it should be the same for dogs.

I agree.

You know, from that side of things, both, you know, looking at that side for carnivores. Look, let's look at realistically what are the ratios in blood. That's a really easy way. So we would often reflect that the ratio within the bloodstream of solubilized calcium and phosphorus are going to be 2 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus would be a normal ratio that I would accept quite happily in any food. And there is actually— they don't want you going below a 1:1 ratio according to AFCO and FEDIAF. You know, they, they actually prefer it to be— I think it's 1:1.2 or about 1.2 calcium to phosphorus, 1.2:1.

Is, is the AFCO recommendations, which is predicated on ultra-processed food. But I think it's a good starting point. So it's about 1.2 to 1. So this is calcium to phosphorus, 1.2 of calcium to 1 of the phosphorus. But you can push the calcium up a wee bit. So I think that's a good place to start. The thing is, Even if you get an analysis on the side of the bag, that was an analysis on a batch from possibly 6 months ago. Okay, so a different season, you're going to have maybe different mineral content.

Not necessarily come out of the bag either.

And your ability to digest that calcium and the phosphorus is going to be different from the— or your dog is going to be— if you've got 2 dogs they're going to have a different ability to, to, to digest those two things because of microbiome and, and parathyroid and vitamin D and, and all those kind of things. So I think that really it's as long as you don't get it too wrong and you're feeding a reasonably well-balanced in terms of the proteins and the, and the fats then, and some veggies. You notice I don't say carbs, I'm going to say veggies. Then, and you're getting some seaweeds and some omega-3s in there, and you're having a nice range of foods and variety is the absolute key there. I think it's going to be difficult to go wrong with the calcium-phosphorus ratio. Within veterinary medicine, it's one of the few ratios that everybody remembers because you are drilled with it at college. But whether it pertains to a really close inquiry of real food versus ultra-processed food, I'm not sure.

And I think, you know, just in case this relates to people worried about phosphate binding for cats with kidney disease, you know, again, look at what source of that is there. Is it bone material, which is one thing totally different, or is it as mineral content? So there's a lot of hidden calcium going in as effectively a carrier for mineral mixes being added to food as balancers. And you're in that scenario of, here we go, I've now got to deal with limestone calcium carbonate being in the product, you know, forcing up calcium levels, and then them adding inorganic phosphates, which, you know, both of which will be absorbed abnormally from the gut compared to—

yeah, minimally, you know.

So, you know, let's let's consider that very carefully. That, you know, there is a great study that I remember Pete Colshaw, you know, sharing with us about the relative absorption of phosphorus from bone compared to the phosphorus salts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's completely different. But the natural product is— it has a much smoother absorption profile, whereas the unnatural one, surprisingly, always gives you a big peak and then drops you the other side. That's— yeah, yeah. So I think, I think we as a society have been kind of going down a fairly artificial route for 100 years or so. And I think we are just entering a new era of natural nutrition and the relationship of us, our dogs or cats, to that food with the microbiome in the middle of that. So I think it's a very interesting time to be starting a nutrition journey, and there's more unknowns than there are knowns. So just get the basics, the macros right.

Before you're going to start doing the knowns from the unknown known.

Yeah, we're not going to go there, but yeah, I'd say think like your grandmother in terms of these things. Keep up with the variety, keep it as fresh and natural as possible. Don't just feed your cat liver for years, years on end, because that ain't a raw food diet. It's raw, but it's not a raw food diet. Yeah, it's about variety. Cats are mouse-ivores, dogs are mouse-ivores, rat-ivores, deer-ivores, rabbit-ivores. That's what they're meant to eat. And the closer we can get to, to that kind of food, then I think the better. Right, um, Bren. Yeah, let's go over to Patreon and see if we can do a few quick, quick-fire, um, questions there. Just big thank you to all our Patreon supporters. Thanks for everybody joining us on, on Facebook as well, our podcast people. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Joey, for managing us over on Dr.

Judy's side. So, uh, that's great. Yeah, good man.

So, and with that, guys, we're out. I'm gonna be on my jollies and Is Conor going to be back for next Tuesday or is it going to be you?

No, no, no. What, egg yolk? No, no. So I literally— it will be us all about eggs. We're going to be—

oh, they're going to be eggs. All right.

Well, excellent. Excellent. I think we're going to be comparing and contrasting all the different eggs that are available on the market, why you might choose one over the other, all the different components within eggs, everything that you can feed from the outer shell, membranes, whites, all the way through to the yolks. What to enhance, what to avoid, what to consider in farming and sustainability. And oh, we're just— oh, we're going to be talking for days on eggs.

You will, you will. It's one of the perfect foods, isn't it?

An egg. It is, it is.

Yeah, it's got the fats, got—

there we go—

of it, bit of everything. So absolutely brilliant. Right, so that's— you're going to be doing that and I'm just going to be jumping in. I'll do a short one because you're going to have your work cut out with all that eggy, that eggcellent material that you're going to be presenting But I'll, I'll do a little 10-minute, uh, to say hello about something or other. I would— I don't think I'll talk about eggs because you're going to be doing that to death. So, uh, guys, that's us. We're going to jump over to Patreon and we'll do some quick-fire questions to entertain and delight our Patreon brigade.

Take care, everyone. See you.