RawPetMedics FB Live: Controversies in Pet Food

You all right? Very dark, isn't it, guys? Very— look how dark it is.

Haven't gone back.

Are you talking about this paper? It's very, very, very dark.

Very dark, very dark times we're in. No, very dark.

Anyway, listen, how are you?

How are you?

Good.

Yeah, I'm, I'm doing well. Uh, just, uh, so many things to think about, and then this, this set of stuff came out. We were going to talk about many other controversies. And then what landed on our doorsteps this week, but controversy, what we're going to talk about today. So we're going to deal with that in a moment. Um, uh, but look, things, uh, I've got to say hi to, um, a few, uh, clients that are out there. Um, Lynn, you know who you are, but I'm not going to go any further than that because obviously GDPR, I'm not allowed. But, uh, Lynn, Yeah, I'm well on with this new book, just for everybody who knows that I love books. Okay, that's the next one to really be piling through. It's rather than just thinking of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which we've been talking a lot about with vomiting and regurgitation and megaesophagus and gut motility, what's going on. There's the whole thing about splitting up the parasympathetics into whether it's part of the HPA axis and which part of the HPA axis it comes from and which part of the brain those nerve centers emanate from as to whether it's going to be pro-health or risking disease. Okay, it just goes into so much, but it's all about how not just your own body affects the disease and the processes, but actually how you interact with those around you. So whether you see friendly faces or you see them as aggressive faces can affect you physiologically and your disease. Interesting. Just brings in the whole thing about how the environment affects you, how that those around you, whether they're worried, sick themselves. So this whole contagion around COVID sort of comes in. Everybody else is worried how it affects your health.

That's interesting. I think somebody had a line for that earlier. It says, well, medicine treats the individual or something. This is about treating the— what was the word? Not microcosm, but like you are a very complex organism. You're 10 times more bacteria. So when we use— I think it was you that was saying it, Nick— when we use antibiotics or we use something to to kill one thing, it affects a whole lot of different systems because you're not just one thing standing there, you are just incredibly complex. And now, Bren, you're extrapolating it out, going, and it's your relationship with all these other things as well. Isn't it nuts?

It's a superorganism. I've just finished Rodney Detroit's The Superorganism, which is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful book. I do a lot else than just read books. In the, in the, in the 7 days between these, these splurges of foodness and, and what have you. But really wonderful book. So if anybody's, if anybody's keen on, on learning a little bit about, a bit, a little bit more about the microbiome, because he takes microbiome to the next level, he's talking about the superorganism in that all these, all these drugs have been tested on our mammalian cells, on cows and rats and mice and things. But what about the effect of any given drug on the microbiome? Not just the microbiome of the gut, but the skin and the, you know, the holobiome. You know, your microbiome extends 2 feet beyond you.

And we've sort of— well, it goes beyond that because it's actually becoming Gaia. It's the whole environment.

I love it.

With the environment.

I would say any vets that are watching this tonight in anticipation of the fact we are going to destroy that BSABA statement are listening to the start of this going, what a bunch of muppets, couldn't possibly— but doesn't that just lend in beautifully to what we're talking about? Because while we talk about these things and the fact that BSABA try to talk about a fresh food document, don't mention biome, and the fact that the product they stand over, you know, it's like you are so proud, you are so full of chemical anti-life, you've got zero life. And we are talking about life not even inside the dog but around it. It's like there's a beautiful contrast of the complete different worlds we inhabit. I mean, forget about not being in the same, you know, stadium or car park. They're not in the same planet when they write statements like that. And, uh, we've been talking about this.

This is our messages to each other today. It's like, do I live in a parallel universe?

Yeah, yeah.

Something that we've been reading for how long, and then This comes up and I just think it just doesn't— it's just—

yeah, I wanted to play the Twilight Zone music. So like, lads, let's get into this statement.

Okay, can I start? Listen, can I start? I just want to put things in some kind of context.

What have you been up to?

Well, I've just been reading that book and I'm doing a presentation on Thursday on The Gut Doctor on Thursday at 7 PM. It's usually at 8, but we're doing 7 PM because the nights are fair drawing in. As they say. Sorry if you're Scottish. Um, and so I'm preparing for that, so I'm rereading Niemann, uh, Nicolette Hahn Niemann, who is a goddess in my world because she just has such a deep dive into the effect of cattle on soil and, and, uh, water retention within soil and the ecology of soil and preventing deforestation and desertification. You know, we've only got 100 crops, 100 crops left on the planet, they say, you know, about 100 years and then boom, that's it. So we're all going to be the Sahara Desert. So that's why we need cattle in our agriculture system. Whether you choose to eat them or not is up to you, but we do need them in the system. Absolutely. And thank God they are beautiful creatures. Bren, so you've been reading the polyvagal thing, is that—

Yeah, no, I'm— Okay, yeah, no, sorry, I cut you off there, go ahead.

No, no, I was just saying, come on, Conor, now we've talked about my stuff, I'm not going to go on about that. Go on, Conor, go on, read it.

I'm just itching to get into it, but before we even do that, we need to say—

Where were you last week?

Thanks to everybody on Patreon, we have shared the document on Patreon, you'll be able to find it there. We're Raw Pet Medics on patreon.com and every little bit helps. So if you can afford the price of a cup of coffee for the lads each month, we really appreciate that. If you can, great. If you can't, no sweat, don't worry about it at all. It keeps us going, but you're free to listen absolutely. So that was the Patreon plug out of the way. I just wanted to push that first, but I do, I'm just itching to get into this because I put a post up there 3 or 4 days ago on, somebody sent me this on Saturday evening. I think it was bloody Karen, because I know you're listening, Karen. And she sent it to me about 7 o'clock on a Saturday evening and said, saying, uh, have you seen this, um, poo? And so you take a look, you know you shouldn't, you have a glass of wine in your hand, it's like, Elaine, I'm going upstairs. And then she just knows by my tone, I'll be back in 4 hours, kind of like Oats leaving the tent, you know, I maybe sometime. And, uh, and I just go upstairs with my wine and, and write this rant of a post. But like, because there's so much to it, so I just think that we have so much to get through tonight, uh, that I'm just itching to get into it and get this ridiculous statement from the leading veterinary organization in the UK. Let's face it, I mean, a massive, massive organization coming up with this, uh, this statement on raw feeding, which coincidentally coincided with the release of Rodney and Karen's book. I'm not saying it's just saying it's a coincidence, but the contrast in information that we get from a book that's trying to help people to a statement that it says it's trying to help vets, but I can't imagine it's going to help with their relationship with their clients, I'll tell you that. So, Nick, did you want to start us off? What's the very— like, the very— what was the first couple of lines on this?

Yeah, it's really, really— I just wanted to put it in some kind of context because it's— science is not just about science. Science is about politics as well. I think there's a lot of politics in this document. I've showed it to you enough, I won't show you again. It's the BSAVA Guide to Nutrition. And the 4th or 5th chapter in the book— there's about 7 chapters in all— is on raw diets. Okay, and I just think from the very first few words it is very, very biased. Okay, so for example, and then I'll shut up and somebody else can take the reins. For just before they even start, they're talking about raw diets. Oh, before we even get there, the 3 people who wrote this have never, I don't think, have really engaged with feeding raw food at all. Um, mentioning no names, but it's, it's, for me, it's a little bit like asking the Labour front bench for, in the UK, the Labour front bench to write the policy document for the Conservative Party, or the Republicans to write the policy documents for the Democrats. Yeah, well, essentially what's happened here, and I don't think that's fair.

And I can also actually guarantee, because obviously still being connected with the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society, I know at no point did the BSABA contact the RFBS for any comment whatsoever.

And I'm really sad because I know all 3 of these people personally, and all they needed to do was lift the phone and I would have been really happy to engage with them, as would either of you guys as well. Obviously they wouldn't come to you because you don't know anything, but had they come to me, I would have just— I would have been happy to give them a week of my life to make this document more fair. I don't want any special favors.

You're right, they don't ask. Like, sorry, just Lynn's asked twice. Lynn, in answer to your question, uh, I was away on the piss with the lads for 2 or 3 days last week.

Sorry, I didn't want to pass the gang.

Um, but, uh, yeah, like, they don't ask anybody. They don't say, like, they don't criticize your book. And say, on, say, Conor, you know, chapter 3, paragraph 4, the mega, mega issue with this— they don't address you, they don't email you, they don't ask you for comment. They just ask the opposition to write this vitriol on, uh, you know, the advantages are often disadvantages on— they can't wait to get into what they could perceive as a disadvantage. But like, um, yeah, you're right, Nick, like, it does reek of, of bias when you see the authors. We know more about the authors than most people on here, and so It's kind of like, why would they be writing any sort of statement? Why weren't the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society and all the vets on there? Could they not get one for their opinion? A little paragraph from the lads, you know, nothing. No mention of the stuff that we want to see. But yeah, the very first thing they got into, Nick, was balance, which I know is a topic that's going to just get you going. It's like the very first thing that they want to tell us about raw dog food was that you have to be careful because balance is a big, big issue. And if you don't have a PhD in nutrition or a veterinary nutritionist on hand, there's 130 in the world, 30 of whom will answer the phone to vets. Okay, so your vet has to talk to the veterinary nutritionist. There's 30 of them in the world. There's one available for the entire of Britain. Okay, many million dogs have you got? 10 million dogs, and you've got one veterinary nutritionist, Marge Chandler.

That's Marge Chandler, who spends her time writing these things.

Yeah, so you've got 10 million dogs and 60 of them are overweight, obese. They need a special diet constructed by a veterinary nutritionist. So Marge Chandler has 6 million dogs she needs to formulate a diet for her. Isn't that amazing that she can do that? Amazing work. What a woman. So balance, lads. I mean, did you want to say anything about this?

Just cut in for 1 second there. The food industry for the last 40 years has been under the responsibility of said appropriately qualified people, PhDs, diplomates, et cetera, et cetera. And we've got at least 65— I think it's more like 90% overweight and obese. So on their watch, the world has got— the canine world has got a lot fatter. So you've got to bear that in mind. You really do have to bear in mind. Also, Mike Davis, our friend, our friend of the show Mike Davis, in 2017 did a study on about 200 and— how many was it? 213 foods. He just went to the supermarket and got, got the wet food and the dry food and some raw food, and he examined them, and he found that 95% of the wet foods did not conform to FEDIAF guidelines. 95%.

Minimum guidelines.

Minimum, minimum guidelines. And they didn't even make that in some or all parameters. And 61% of the dry foods—

of the complete dry foods— complete. And yet it says 100% complete and balanced on the front. So how are 61% of complete dry foods not complete and balanced? They promised us.

And these are from Purinas, the pedigrees, all these people who have got PhDs dripping from every office.

Yeah, they bring—

not every office.

Yeah, I mean, look at all these guys that are on here tonight. Very few PhDs, no veterinary nutritionists that we know of that would watch our stuff. And yet their dogs are walking around perfectly perpendicular, you know, and it's just such a preposterous, ludicrous statement that you need a PhD to feed your own kids. Why would my kids be more complicated than a dog can. Like, I just hate the balance thing. It's just absolutely ridiculous.

They've not figured out yet that when they're feeding these highly processed diets and you get into a rut of feeding the same one over and over again, it's a big problem. Because if there is a problem, it's going to be accentuated. When we talk about how to feed, we're talking about you know, giving some variety, giving something that your dogs enjoy, your cats enjoy, and not just these little pellets that drop into a bottom of a bowl. Yeah, they just can't get their heads around it. I'm amazed that these guys are actually still alive because surely their parents should have perished.

Yeah, it's true. I asked the nutritionist, I remember Marge was doing a presentation on the, the, um, remember, uh oh, bloody hell, the webinar vet owned by tails.com, wasn't it? Yeah. And they had a sec— they finally had a webinar coming up for vets on raw feeding, and who do they ask? Who better than Marge Chandler? And so Marge was on giving a whole hour of why she wouldn't feed raw to dogs, a lot of very interesting anecdotes. And then eventually I asked at the very end, so Marge, can you tell me what the RDA of calcium is for a kid? And she was like, I don't know, I don't do children, much to the delight of everybody listening. And I was like, yes! Nobody knows their RDA calcium, where you get it, how much you absorb. It's nonsense. It's balanced over time. Nutrients don't come in a George Jetson pill to a giraffe every day. I mean, bloody hell. Anyway, listen, we're already at quarter past 7. Nick, no evidence for fresh food was their second point. I mean, what a pathetic statement. No evidence for fresh feeding dogs. What's the story with that on the very front page? There was no actual evidence. And this is really the whole— this, the confusion in, um, no, not just veterinary, but in, uh, in human doctors as well, in the health sector. The big difference between science and academia: science is a tool we use for doing stuff and finding out, and everybody can do it. Kids do it, and never— your mom does it when she's cooking, and everyone does science, and it's perfectly okay to talk about science. And then there's like academia, which is the publishing part of it, where you get a study published via peer review it doesn't negate any of the science you do over here on these amazing stuff. So they say no evidence, no peer-reviewed evidence for raw feeding. Does anything leap off the page?

Yeah, it's totally wrong, isn't it? Because let's face it, the 'there is no evidence' claim disappears, evaporates as soon as you get one half-decent study. Then you can't say there is no evidence. So off the top of my head, there is the study looking at the biomarkers from the Helsinki Dog Risk— God bless their souls— where they look at homocysteine in dry-fed dogs versus homocysteine in raw-fed dogs and a number of biomarkers. And they've got Robin over there who's got a brain the size of a planet and does metabolomes, and so he'll measure actually 300 minute metabolites, and he'll compare, you know, compare the raw dogs with the healthy dogs, and then they'll swap over and they'll compare them again. Yeah, and actually the metabolites got worse in the dry-fed dogs. They then swapped them over, and the dogs who were feeding dry-fed, they improved on the raw feed.

Yeah, that was a great—

raw-fed dogs got worse. Yeah, that's a double-blind study.

Yeah, 10 times worse. So the raw-fed dogs had 10 times less homocysteine, an inflammatory marker, And when they switched them, it plummeted by 5. And in the raw-fed dogs, when they're fed dry food, it increased by 5. And then they followed it up and they said, I wonder what that's doing to the doggies? And they did the PITY study where they had more atopy. So raw-fed dogs had less atopy, less strange itch, than dry-fed dogs had way more. And they looked at the genes then on the skin and they found that there was more cytokine expression. Is that the right word?

They were just a healthier cytokine balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The expression goes— and then they fed bitches on raw food and found that they had less ATP and were healthier. Their pups were healthier.

It's nuts. And then like a myriad of studies, like I've just written down two things actually. There's a lot of published peer-reviewed studies of surveys, of client surveys of a couple of thousand people where it's like Not over 90% believe gut conditions were improved, over 85% skin conditions on the very first— so this kind of stuff. But I love the little studies where they add things into the bowl and the dog does better. So it's like if this food was 100% complete and fresh food never helped, fish oil, how come fish oil helps with arthritis? How come fish oil helps with skin disease, reduces steroid need? How come there's about 170 studies on adding fish oil to dry food and shows improvement in dogs? Shouldn't happen. The food was complete, wasn't it? Adding blueberries as antioxidants, adding vegetables decreased bladder cancer in Scotties. Like, you know, on and on and on. So many examples of circumstantial evidence that just adding anything to the bowl, you know, adding a tiny bit of meat water makes them pick that food over anything else, you know. So it's just, it's just not fair. They can say statements like that.

And the beauty is that many of these studies have been conducted by the at the kibble companies themselves, you know. So, so you've got— you, you quoted a few months ago, yeah, they put pomace in real, you know, food into the things, and then they compared the, the behavior of those dogs.

Oh, that was cool.

You were saying, yeah, and the, the ones on metabolic diets, which was where they were looking at the epigenetics of adding in some of these foods like the lycopenes from tomatoes and things like that, and how it changes the metabolism.

Yeah.

Yes, you know, all of a sudden, no, that's—

yeah, adding probiotics to dry food changes the mood of dogs. So you can use Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria, the bacteria that are in kefir, concentrate them and get them into dogs, and it changes their mood and behavior. So we know that probiotics have certain effects, like lots of different metabolites that come off that. Why would you— where do we get off?

Where do you feel scientifically, if we see all of these studies that are now being shown to us about our kids and highly processed diet pets. And, you know, we're, we're now actually— that's mainstream, you know, we're seeing that on, you know, the BBC, you know, they're doing whole documentaries on it. And, you know, they're showing the science behind why it's bad for our kids. And why is it that we cannot transpose that highly processed diets are really bad for your kids to highly processed diets for your pets? Well, not so much because there's no actual study that we—

studies done.

Yeah, what really gets me about that is the subtext of these kind of, uh, uh, the difference between feeding children and feeding dogs. The subtext is it doesn't matter, they're only dogs. That's what they're saying, isn't it? They don't actually say it, but they say, well, it's, it's, it's scientifically formulated ultra ultra processed food, you know, and it'll be okay because it's just a dog.

Who cares?

Go for it. That's what really, really, apart from 300 other things, that really, really riles me.

But the clients don't complain, you know, so it's much easier to make a nonsense product that can cause issues because the clients don't say anything. Very good at just eating whatever's there with enough salt and taste enhancers.

I did see an advert for a complete and balanced human bar that you can buy if you're, if you're rushed for food and you're not sure how to do it, and they reckon it was completely balanced. I reckon what we should do is buy a truckload and ask to just eat that. Yes, 360— no, 6 months. 6 months is the trial period, isn't it?

Yes.

Do you think you'd get away with it?

Do you think we—

I wonder how many of them would refuse on the basis that they might get poorly.

They— we could kidnap them and maybe not. What is the solution, Brian?

What do you think, guys? I think, I think all of those guys out there should comment on that.

That's going to be cropped out now and probably cops are going to come to my door. I also love— and when just coming onto page 2, I love when they say— and their third thing that they complained about, um, the wolf comparison. They don't agree with the wolf comparison. It's like, lads, there is nobody in any raw feeding forum spending much time talking about wolves. It's just, you know, we like the image, we like the fact that some dogs look like wolves, we like wolves, but nobody is thinking that dogs are wolves, guys. They can barely interbreed anymore. Forget talking about wolves. For anybody that might still be a bit confused, it's about dingoes now, because dingoes were dogs only 2,000 or 4,000 years ago, and they're complete carnivores, so, and they freely interbreed. So wolves are, you know, 100,000 or 30, 30, 40, 50,000 years ago. Let's not talk about wolves. But we don't. No serious canine nutritionist is talking about wolves. Not one. So why would they bring that up? Because vets go, oh yeah, they're not wolves. They're not. They're very different animals. And then vets regurgitate this information to clients at the door. They'll say, but dogs aren't wolves, you know. And then the raw feeder says, my God, you're saying that to me?

Like, These sort of lessons are going to hold on to one little nugget there. Yeah, okay. Um, so you're— these people are trying to say that actually these dogs are closer to humans than to wolves. You know, I know they're not close enough, but I'm still not sure that a dog can dislocate its jaw and chew sideways. I'm still not sure that its gut has suddenly elongated more than 2.5 times its gut length and has suddenly developed the flocculations within the large intestine to allow it to absorb some of the fermented nutrients that they're feeding. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I don't believe that the book really goes into how the microbiome works and how dogs may differ from other herbivores. In their microbiome and why that might be. So I think, you know, there's so much missing from this text that, you know, unfortunately becomes misleading.

Yeah, definitely.

Can I just put something to bed with regard to the, the Wolf study? So this is Axelsson, Axelsson 2013. It's a Nature paper. Nature is one of the best science journals in the world, so it's a quality paper, but there's just a few things. I think we should do an entire show just on that paper because I think it would warrant it. But basically in the document it says that there are 36 genomic differences between domestic dogs and wolves, 10 of which are involved in carbohydrate digestion. That is fundamentally wrong because actually only 2 are involved in carbohydrate digestion and the other 8 are to do with fatty acid digestion and other elements of digestion itself. So even the facts weren't properly researched for that particular element.

Can I also say that if we look at genetics and evolution and things like that, we've got to understand and yeah, they're still within the mammalia, you know, and you've got all of the fact that the genes aren't that different. They've got to have similar genes. If anything, what happens is you start to get deletions, you know, as you go down the pathways. You don't necessarily get re-emergence of capability. And even, even if they were able to digest cellulose and carbohydrate matter. They don't have the physical capability to macerate that into a bolus, mix it with the enzyme. So even if they could produce the enzyme that was perfectly ready to digest starches and everything else, they don't have the capability to mix it and then have that in the stomach to digest that process. The only things that that's starch and carbohydrates go to do. Either it's readily digested in glucose and sugars already and it goes straight into the bloodstream, feeds insulin, starts to go off a whole raft of inflammation because of inappropriate stimulation of a hormone that's not really there for dogs to utilize in that manner. But also you are missing out that the bacteria are really the ones that are going to benefit from that. Do you really want to flood bacteria with inappropriate foods and cause bacterial overgrowth? That's a disease that we see quite commonly in our dogs.

Yeah, yeah. It's like I always explain to people about feeding strange food, chemically preserved. So the chemicals that kill the life on the outside will affect the life on the inside. And it's very strange, denatured protein and high carbohydrate. So I always explain that you had carnivore life in there, probiotics, ready for a meat meal, and they're going, can't wait for supper time. And then this chemical sludge goes past and they go, I can't eat this shit. And, uh, but a pathogenic bacteria or the wrong guy kind of goes, oh, this is lovely, I'll get to eat, nom nom nom nom. And so those guys grow, whereas the goodies go, oh, we've got no food. So this is what shifts the gut flora into this strange state, and then you get their toxic byproducts. So that's this, I believe, the start of all the gut issues we're seeing in dogs. So The live stuff is brilliant. What else did you want to say about that Axelson study?

I like that study.

I liked it.

I've looked at it in detail and I think we need to have a big long chat, Conor. We need to have a big long chat about that.

I think somebody else found this. I think they're good guys and then the industry took the message and used it for their nefarious purposes.

Let's go to town on it. Ask if we can peg that for some time before. Before Christmas would be amazing.

Yeah, these guys are looking like they probably want to sit in on that conversation about that particular study.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think let's move on because we've done, we've done.

I wanted to touch on something, guys, right. And we've already, we've already really. We're only on page three of a seven page document has this microbiology as the other half. We have covered hazardous microbiology to death a number of times, but we can absolutely spend a few minutes on at the end. But I just wanted to bring up the fact this whole no evidence word. Okay, so there's no evidence. So we've already alluded to it, so I can be brief probably. And they're saying, straight out of the traps, they're saying there's no evidence that high carbohydrate diet is fueling the obesity crisis in dogs. There's no evidence. Nobody has shown with a long-term study. No raw feeders have got together with great expense, millions of dollars, getting a lot of expertise, a lot of scientists, and proven without question that the high carbohydrate kibble is causing obesity in pets. And that's true. We haven't shown it, but any child could make the leap that if high carbohydrate diets are doing ultra processed, high carbohydrate, high sugar diets in humans is the cause of the obesity crisis in humans and the dog obesity crisis mirrors it almost exactly kicking in in the early '70s, the same level of obesity. And that's what causes in humans. How do you reckon carnivorous dogs that don't need carbohydrates in their diet would fare with all that sugar? What did you think was going to happen? And we've got studies to show that the more protein you feed them, the better the weight loss, the better the lean muscle retention, the decrease in hunger. Everything is better on higher protein diet. So the circumstantial evidence is all there. So what are you talking about there isn't evidence? I mean, what are you waiting for? Are vets honestly waiting until somebody goes, here is this massive study that took us 10 years to— like, I remember Laurie Wise, who was a vet for diabetic cats, and I remember her saying that there wasn't— while there were studies to show that feeding carbohydrates to diabetic cats is not a good idea, I don't think we have enough evidence to suggest that feeding carbohydrates to non-diabetic cats is a big issue. So she was going to continue to do that. This diabetes specialist, you know, and it's like, what? You know, decreasing carbohydrates in a diabetic cat and dog is going to be a good idea. Why would you give it to a normal cat that does not need carbohydrates.

But it's the same in the British Diabetic Association. They have no problem with, with people eating sugar and they are very sketchy about the link between sugar and diabetes. Yes, seriously, it's the same in the humans. So if the doctors with all their research and, you know, millions of pounds of, of research money, if they can't get their head around it, how can the vets who are just taught by Hills, how can they—

There is the science. They turn away from it because it doesn't fit with their dogma. It doesn't fit with their, you know, way of doing it. And actually, if you do sit them down, as Nick was trying to say to Conor, if you sit down, if that doesn't fit into their vision of the world, there's no quicker way of turning somebody off, is there? They just say, no, I can't accept that I've been wrong for 30 years.

Yeah, there's a, there's a brilliant book that covers that, Black Box Thinking, uh, Syed, his name is, and he talks about the difference between doctor between doctors and pilots. When pilots make a mistake, their mistake is diagnosed and brought to the front, and it's like, how can we learn so this doesn't happen to us? With doctors, it's buried because mistakes are not tolerated. So there's this godlike complex. And he says what fuels it all— half the book is on these two words: cognitive dissonance. So it's not like these people are bad. It's just like, I can't let my ego be hammered so badly that I was so wrong on something so obvious. Jesus, it just turns out that you know, this, this kibble made by a candy company is crap food. My God, I am so stupid. It's like, you're not stupid. We were all there. We were all being misled by stuff, but they can't let it in. Cognitive dissonance is the term, and it's a fascinating book, guys. Black Box Thinking. Every page is like, he comes up with these cool little studies and you go, oh, that explains it. And examples of why pilots made simple mistakes and how they fix it. But pilots are encouraged to talk about their mistakes, whereas doctors and perhaps vets have got a 15-minute window to fix your dog. 15, next, the next one, fix your dog. You can't fix someone in 15 minutes. You don't even know the dog's bloody name when they're coming in the door, you know. So it's just very, very difficult stuff.

That's amazing. That happened as well in the States. Jason Fung in The Cancer Code, his book, the second book called The Cancer Code, he talked about the, the cancer world in the States. They would, they They piled millions, probably billions of dollars into research and really just kind of came up against a brick wall. And they thought, crikey, what are we going to do here? And so what they did is they brought a physicist in for exactly this reason, that physicists, when they see an anomaly, a mistake, they chase it. Whereas in medicine, and the doctors are exactly the same as us, if you see, if there's, you know, something that doesn't fit, You say, oh, it's an anomaly. We will just concentrate on everything that does fire a model, you see. And so they went then with the physicist. He led them down a whole new rabbit hole, and they've come out with a new approach to cancer. So it's a way of looking at things.

There was a great guy in World War II. The bombers were coming back, and 1 in 2 bombers used to— 1 in 2 people, if you went into a bomber, you had a 50% chance of getting out of the war. So massive death rate in the RAF, but particularly the Yanks with the bombers. And what they found was that like a lot of the planes are being shot out of the sky. So the planes are coming back and there's holes all over them, and they say, right, well, we'll put these steel plates— you know, there's only so much armor you can put on a plane because it weighs it down, it doesn't have enough fuel to get to the bomb site and back. So they have to be very careful where they put the armor. And so they kept losing the planes until some guy was hired, some genius just comes up and he goes, well, these are the planes that came back, right? And they're like, yeah. And he goes, well, then that's not where it's 'You put the armor where, where like the holes aren't because the plane can fly with those holes, can't it?' I was like, 'Well, yeah.' And overnight, like, he just saved thousands of people, you know. And it's just— that's what black box thinking is all about. It's just about you're so in it you cannot see the result. But the no evidence thing was then used— I'm just going to wrap up this point on no evidence— they then used it for bloat. There's no evidence that dry food causes bloat. No, but there's evidence that dry food took off in the 1970s and 3 studies say it's kibble. So that's a bit of evidence. There's no evidence dry food causes pancreatitis. No, but there's evidence that dry food with high carbohydrates spikes blood triglycerides, not protein and fat. And now thanks to Mark Roberts, we know raw doesn't either. So we know dry food spikes blood fat and pancreatitis is a high blood fat issue. So we know jumping them to raw is the solution and they bloody know it too. So saying no evidence, it's not good enough anymore. That's just the shittest of medical reasoning. I mean, cop on and be a scientist. Do what you're trained to do and cop on. That's my advice to everybody. We can get t-shirts with that written on it, you know. Anyway, I had more, but I'm annoyed.

Love you, Conor.

Obesity. Okay, if you want to look at the obesity, I've made notes here that says Just look at the whole— this whole thing about ketogenic diets. You know, there's so many people who've just transformed their life with ketogenic diets. Guess what a raw food diet is, guys? It is much more ketogenic than a high-carb, um, kibble. And you just need to read Noakes, Tim Noakes, fantastic. Yeah, he's great. Who we just mentioned, uh, Gary Taubes, amazing, and Mark Roberts, 2016, and other, other studies he's done there. So What I think is happening— there's a, there's a thing here. I'll just have a little run, and then I think, Bren, it's your turn. Um, there has been a limited number of studies looking at the association between obesity and diet type— that is, you know, whether it's raw or whether it's kibble. Uh, but thus far, results have been inconsistent and variable. Further work is therefore needed in order to determine the association between diet type and obesity in dogs. That, for me, is called obfuscation. It's called muddying the waters so that we push the book— that we kick the can down the road. And this is exactly what happened with the cigarette argument. They managed to kick the can down the road for 50 years. This happened with the, the greenhouse gases and global warming. They kicked it down the road. The petrol— does petrol contribute to global warming? Kick it down the road. This is what happens with this. And I believe, I may be wrong, that this is what's happening with this document, is it's kicking it down The book and the movie called The Merchants of Doubt will take you through this.

That was very good.

This idea of you get a guy in a white coat who says smoking camels is the best thing for your health. Yeah, because he's a doctor, therefore everybody believes it. And it delays the inevitable. Hey guys, cigarettes are bad for you, and light cigarettes are not half as good for you. They're all bad for you.

Yeah, so I think there's a guy who does a, um, one of the TED Talks on exactly on that, um, merchant account.

I think that might be good.

Maybe the author.

Yeah, the Colgate-Palmolive. Does anybody ever wonder why a toothpaste manufacturer makes pet food? Because in the 1970s, they were the first people, can you believe it, to think of using a white-coated dentist and go, this toothpaste is great. And people go, wow, Attentas just said this toothpaste was great. I'm going to buy it. And they made billions overnight. And then in the late '70s, this is all documented in the Wall Street Journal. Colgate-Palmolive turned around and goes, I wonder, would this work with pet food? So they bought a couple of vets. Mars now own over 50,000, but Colgate-Palmolive were the first people to buy them. And they bought a couple of vets and they stood there and go, I think this dry food is great. And overnight they became this kind of sensation. They were the first people to use white coat vets to push the dry food. Very, very clever. Seems obvious, doesn't it?

You mean actors dressed up as vets?

Yeah, maybe. Hills.

They bought Hills, and that's why I think that Hills was one of the first in. You can Uber in Hills, but Hills really made a big splash, and they went and talked to vets. You're absolutely right, it was the merchants of doubt, Eileen Davis, not the merchants of doom. I just always say doom because it is so doomful. Merchants of doubt.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, that's good.

No doubt.

Yeah.

Bren, what have you got?

Um, look, the things that I want to bring some calm to, to this for a moment, because I've got an idea. You know, we've really, we've really ranted against— you've railed against the machine.

We haven't even started, mate.

I, I know, I know, but I want to reassure all of those guys out there, and thanks for your support. All of you are probably, you know, we're teaching to the converted, uh, we know that, but we need to reassure you, you know, this this way of feeding, you know, using common sense, using that variety. You know, we've seen the difference, you've seen the difference. Don't get smokescreened by this complete unbalanced argument. You know, even then they've got it so wrong because everybody is an individual and every animal is an individual, and assuming that there is this standard metabolizable energy requirement and then nutrients to that for everybody is just so wrong. It just doesn't work. It doesn't actually compute. And actually, if you go down that route, you will get it wrong for at least 20% because the bell-shaped curve, okay, the top 10% and the bottom 10%, they cut off. So, you know, there's going to be 20% of the population you've got it wrong for. So if that's where they're going, then actually they should be banned from putting on those bags of food 'complete and balanced.' Yeah, yeah, too right. Yeah, it's not complete and balanced for every dog out there.

And 100%, 100%.

Yeah, so I think what we need to say, you know, guys, Be reassured, you know, this is something that evolution has allowed us to