RawPetMedics QnA May25

Everybody.

Oh, even Bren. Bren is pretending that he's lost his voice. Hopefully he's a little bit better because he's avoiding rooms with carpets, which is fairly difficult in this day and age.

He's sleeping on the tiles now.

Yeah, he's actually sleeping in the doghouse outside. But he had to remove the carpet, the Axminster thick shag carpet in the dog's— no, it's carpet— in the dog's bed. Uh, before he did that. So I'm reliably informed. We are Raw Pet Medics, and I am working with these two guys, Dr. Brendan Clarke and Dr. Conor Brady. And we rely on your support. We do this free, guys, absolutely free, and we rely on your support. But you can help us, but if you go to patreon.com/rawpetmedics, or you just go to patreon.com patreon.com, and you can support us for a fiver a month. It can be a dollar a month. I know, I think actually a fiver is probably the minimum, but if you can do that, that really helps us because we do have to pay to keep up with our software, and we have to keep up— and Pete transforms this dribble that we produce and turns it into a fairly decent podcast.

Thank you, Pete. He rolls the turd in glitter.

I love it.

And yes, my voice is back.

His voice is back. Amazing. And we're on podcasts, so check us out on your favorite podcast. Literally, we're on all of them. I don't know how Pete gets us on all of them, but he does get us on all of them. And we're doing quite well. So thank you to all of those guys. How are you?

Very good.

Although I'm missing my Barry White. I've got loads of requests to come back.

You're just normal, Bren, now.

Yeah, thanks.

Wow.

Nothing special about you at all.

Did it become kind of part of your personality for a while, do you think?

It did. I had a low growl. It was pretty good.

I'm the raspy vet.

How are you?

Your new kitchen looks well, Bren. I'm envious.

Wow.

Well, you'll have to come over.

Yeah.

You, the family, you know, we'll have a nice little get-together. Nick and you guys too.

Yeah.

I'd love that.

Yeah, we will do.

It'll be a revisit because remember, just before COVID in 19, we came to your place in order to try and kickstart this thing before it was even called Raw Pet Medicine. In the kitchen.

Years ago.

In the kitchen. You, Bren, came up with RPM. Well done, you. And we tried to do some filming. There you go. This is ancient history now, but it seems like yesterday. We tried to do some filming and it just didn't kind of come together. And then very rapidly, maybe a few months later in— when was it? We did our first shows in 2020, early '21, when your book came out, Conor. And, and that is why Raw Pet Medics came together, because we'd come together beforehand and did something and it's like, it doesn't feel quite right. And so we said— and so we did this, which is fairly easy to do. It takes time, but it doesn't take half as much time as schlepping up to Ilkley to Brent's place every month or something to do some films. So, um, yeah, so there you go. There's a little bit of background. The historians will be writing that down for— to write the biography of the Raw Pet Medics, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

Debbie Williams wants to see if a select few can do an RPM live from my kitchen. Live, live.

That's not a bad idea.

Wow.

How many, how many dozen can you fit in your kitchen on seats, Ben?

Yeah.

Oh, we could do two dozen. Blimey.

Wow. That's pretty impressive.

Yeah, that'll be nice. Let's do that. We could have a very select party.

Very select.

£10,000 entry.

Not very much.

Oh dear, it looks like half the people have just dropped off.

Guess what I've been this weekend?

I know, I'm not going to say.

Okay, I'll just tell you anyway. Euro Disney. So I went to Euro Disney with the kids and I have to say it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. Oh my God. I don't know if you guys— Just because if you like roller coasters and just being happy, You know, you wouldn't like that mix. Well, Bren, you would like that.

I like being happy.

Roller coasters.

Lots of sweeties and roller coasters. General happiness. What about you, Bren? Are you a roller coaster— I imagine you are.

I have been a roller coaster fan for some time. Do you know what? I hit 50 and my wife loves roller coasters.

She does.

I was going to say. She is a super fan of roller coasters. She will go on The Smiler at Alton Towers, 15 times in a row, flat. Enjoy it every single time. I get to the 5th time and I remember just going, okay, I've had enough of this. I went for a lie down on the lawns, fell asleep, woke up with all of the geese around me pecking to see if I was still alive. And I looked up and there's my wife waving from the top of the Smiler.

Nice.

Can she walk past a merry-go-round, Bren? Yeah, or is she so fanatical about these rides that she will have to— even a smallish merry-go-round, she has to jump on? Was she pretty extreme?

No, no, she likes the extreme ones, especially if it's something new. She researches the places and, you know, really wants to get on. I mean, like the new rides at Universal, she threatened my life If I were to go and walk into the gates of Universal while we're over there and dare to go on one of the new rides without her, that was like, that's a red line.

Okay, because it's the thing, isn't it? There are roller coaster fans who just travel the world, you know, great if you like these things, but you know, they will do exactly that. They'll research it, they'll think, oh God, there's a new one in Tokyo, and then fly to Tokyo just to go on the new thing.

It's the start Avengers ride, you know, it's like 3, 2, 1, and you just go up a tunnel. Like, it is so terrifying at the start, straight into a loop-the-loop. And my kid is only 7, and, uh, I mean, bloody hell, she was changed. So you could see the tears. Oh, she was fine eventually, but then she just loved it. On Hyperspace Mountain, same thing. That was the For her, that was like, I've got to do it, Daddy. I've got to do it. You don't have to do it, but don't worry, we'll be back here at some stage. We won't be. It was so expensive. I said, but there is nothing worse than regret. There is really nothing worse than regret. Give it a go and lose or miss. At least you tried. But there's nothing worse than regret. And so on the second day or third day, she was like, okay, because you get a few hours in the morning on the third day before you get your flight. And she's like, I'm going to do it. And then she did it and she was absolutely delighted. She's like, again, again. I think I did it twice. And after twice, it's like, I've enough. My neck is a bit sore. I don't need any more adrenaline than that. I have nothing left. I was a used tea bag. But, uh, I loved it. I loved every— I love the shows. I loved all of it. The little, little faces on them. And the other one's 4 years old. So when you're going through the rides and the puppets are there, even the ghost house was unbelievable. Like, actual ghosts going around. It was phenomenal. It was just, uh, I highly recommend it. But, uh, but you will drop serious cash, and the food is dire. So I'm actually fasting at the moment, which is question number 1 on FAQ night, guys. 2 people came out onto my page there, we're talking about fasting. And do you guys ever do any fasting? Because I'm in the middle of one at the moment, as I just said.

I do it every, every day. I'll do intermittent fasting every day. I won't have breakfast, don't eat till 2, finish eating if I'm lucky by 8, if I'm not, 9. And so I'll do that kind of length of time. But ideally, I'll eat at 2-ish, a little bit at 2-ish to keep me going, and then 6-ish. So that would be a daily thing. And once a Fortnight I'll do 24 hours.

Yeah. Oh, that's pretty regular. That's quite a lot. What about you?

I'd like to do three days. A three day fast, though. Tim. Tim Ferriss every month does three day fast.

Yeah, I can't see. I can't see you fasting, Bren, no offense.

Whoa, what are you saying?

I just know you love dinner and breakfast and lunch, as I do. I am not a faster. I mean, but I do do it under duress. I don't do it because I enjoy it. I can't get into the swing of it, but I will do and have done 3-day fasts. I bragged about it there going to Africa. I said, I'm off the back of a 3-day fast. And Anna, Professor Anna Hung Borgman goes, I just did 13 days. And I'm like, 13 days?

No, no, no, no, no, no. Because I know that Prof Anna loves her milk, loves her milk, especially in her coffee. And I know that when she fasts, she still drinks her coffee. And I got the report back saying, you are not fasting unless you are just drinking water or black tea or black coffee. Those are the limits.

Oh, surely still a huge digestive rest not to be processed.

I would guess, I would get, do you know what, as Billy Hoekman says, you can survive for months on just milk.

I'm Googling.

You've got to imagine the amount of protein and fats which are in milk that actually, you know, I was a bit distraught because, you know, As with Nick, I would consider that I do reasonable intermittent fasts, you know, with no breakfast on several mornings a week, if not most mornings a week. I love a good breakfast when I get an opportunity, but I will do those fasts. But I do succumb quite often to a nice milky coffee, and therefore I am not truly fasting. Whereas I know Nick loves his black tea, I do.

Yeah. And you know, when we were in San Diego, and no offense to any Americans watching, the water was so appalling that I brought my tea bags because I'm quite fussy about my black tea. So I brought some tea bags, but the tea tasted so bad. The only thing I could drink was green tea. So that's flipped me to green tea. Thank you very much, San Diego. I've been a tea addict for about 40 years. And then we went to South Africa. And I got into rooibos— rooibos— whatever— red bush tea. And Angus McIntosh is a big, big fan of that, and he really, really converted me. And that is even better. It tastes like black tea, but it doesn't have any caffeine or any other badness. And so rooibos, I would totally recommend. The guys downstairs have it with milk, but I just have it black because I do have those two black and I love green tea and rooibos.

Absolutely. I will drink those, but I'm not great with normal black tea.

This is, this is, this is dandelion tea. In my defense, I love milky coffee too, but I don't have any today.

So you dropped something inappropriate into your mug.

It's just sadness. It tastes like a cup of sadness. It turns out, yeah, that drinking milk during your fast you're taking in nutrients, it gives your body a bit of work to do, and it definitely does break a fast on every single type of measure. So milky coffees will do it to you, which calls into question the idea of fasting your dog and giving them broth. Same idea. You're bringing in nutrients and you're getting bits and pieces going. So I imagine broth would be the same issue, although milk comes with a bit of sugar and broth almost certainly doesn't. So, but still, it's still getting the whole—

Still proteins.

Yeah, it's still proteins. And both of those turn off autophagy. So if you're giving it for the, the reason you're going to fast is because it takes 16 hours, 8 hours to digest and assimilate a meal, another 8 hours to pack it away in, it seems dogs and humans. And I don't know if it's different for tiny animals, but seems to be pretty similar for us. And after 16 hours, the body goes into autophagy, which is housekeeping, and the body goes, right, I have nothing else to do here. Oh my God. And your immune system charges up. Actually, when you eat a meal, your immune system plummets. You're more prone to infection, you're more prone to all sorts of things. Inflammation is worse when you're constantly eating food all the time. So when you're not eating, you power fire up your immune system and suddenly it's got lots of spare juice to do bits and pieces. So it starts to zap cancer cells and whatnot. That's what the Nobel Prize was won for. But it also can help with gut healing. The guys are trying to retarmac out on the road, you know, when you're whizzing cars down the road all the time, like, we're trying to get the tarmac down. So it definitely helps with gut issues and stuff. So, um, yeah, it— but it turns off if you have any sort of nutrients going in there. It turns off that autophagy bit. So if you're fasting your dog for reasons of autophagy and cancer and that kind of stuff, then any sort of nutrients during that fasting process would, would knock it off. But so, yeah, interesting that the milk coffee does it. But I have been good today. So just purely because the food is so bad in there.

Okay. So, Paul, I'm just going to ask because Martina asked— Martina, hello. She's great. She is in, in, in near Williamsburg in Virginia. We met her last year, so hello to her.

But she asked near Williamsburg, 3 hours away, I think. Yeah, she was.

Anyway, a hell of a lot nearer than Bath, that's for sure. So what she asked specifically is, when is fasting appropriate? And I would ask, when is it inappropriate? I think that's an interesting twist to the question. And How a fasting day should look. Okay, so do you want to go? Who wants to go first on that one? Okay.

Oh, right. So a fasting day.

Hang on, appropriate. So when is fasting appropriate? When is, or more importantly, when is it inappropriate, I think is a better question.

For our dogs?

Yeah.

I would say, well, for any pets, look, inappropriate for the very young. Okay. So, you know, if you've got puppies, kittens, please, this is not a time that they need intermittent fasting. They need a good nutrient supply on a reasonably regular basis so that they are getting, you know, all the nutrients they need for growth and energy and, you know, brain development especially. So getting those fats up that are appropriate. So absolutely not for the really young. I think for They're really sick, you've got to be really careful. You know, are they hydrated? Have they got the appropriate nutrients to fight any infection or something else that's going on? I think if you are healthy, I think it is appropriate as part of your cleanup routine to have fasting periods. Now, you know, there are people that say, ah, but my dog vomits if they don't have food, especially overnight. You know, I've got to feed them supper. Look, there is a process to get them through that. We've done GERD and IBD episodes before. Have a look at those as to how to get over that sort of night pukes and all of that, the hunger pukes. But I think if you can get them into a cycle where you can give them intermittent fasting, I think that is appropriate. Gone are the days where I would worry. My dogs do intermittent fast and, you know, I will give them sometimes Sundays off or a day off. And sometimes that might be just because things have gone haywire and I've not got a load of food in and defrosted it. And, you know, we just put it down to a fast day and they're super keen the next day to, to go. I don't go for long periods with my dogs. I feel that a day to 2 days tops is enough. So like a 5:2 diet. Yeah. I think beyond that You know, it's one thing making a personal decision to go for a 13-day fast or something like that, but I don't think it's appropriate to put our pets through that. And I think, you know, that's when you've got to sort of draw the line. Okay, so please seek veterinary advice if your pet is poorly before you put them into a fast state.

Yeah, I don't think many conventional vets will be behind fasting. I saw a message there today from some vet saying, um, uh, please don't fast your pets. Your pets need to eat little and often. And I'm like, that's just not true. It's ancient history. It's just nonsense. They said, oh, this is just a myth connected to blahdy blahdy blah. And it's like, rubbish. You know, sometimes you're not going to get food, and that's probably a very healthy thing.

I get that, Conor, but as vets, we've sort of pet's health and they've got an illness, they've got to be having a relationship with their current vet at that point. And it's far from us to step in at that point and go, we know right and you should be doing it our way.

No, but generally speaking, feeding little and often to the healthy kind of middle-aged dog is not a great idea. Yeah, so you can, you can generalize to pretty large part proportion of the—

Yeah, I think the information's moved on, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, you know, it's like we are feeding too much too often. We're activating, getting up as early as possible, eating Cheerios and eating late into the night. And that's just not working out for us, you know.

And somebody's asked, you know, what about the 16-year-old that, you know, is really stressed about eating? And I would say, look, if you've got any animal that's stressed about eating, there are so many other things to reduce that sympathetic drive and bring up the rest and digest, the the parasympathetics that are more important than fasting at this point. Okay. So literally, you know, for that particular case, I would definitely be saying you've got all of your gentle mobility, you've got your getting your light source, you know, Nick would love this, getting your light source right through the day. So get your circadian rhythms sorted, you know, think about Think about all of the, getting the noise stresses, the electronics stresses within the house down, getting your chance to be out and in touch with the ground, getting your breathwork for yourself sorted, getting your own rhythms sorted are so important in those circumstances. You've got all of that to work out before you even think about intermittent fasting because you need to settle their normal stress levels.

Have you got a good ref for that, Brent, for where people can look at, you know, altering sympathetic parasympathetic balance?

You got, uh, so some of the books, uh, you can start to look at the, uh, polyvagal theory books. Okay, so that's anything in particular that you recommend?

Okay, Stephen Borges.

B-O-R-G-E-S. B-O-R-G-E-S. And that is the polyvagal theory. Talks a lot about how they will feel your stress as well. So doing all of those things for you. There are lots of books. There's Breath. I'm just trying to remember the author of that.

Quite a recent one, a journalist who went into breath.

Yeah.

So you'll find him there. You'll find him on YouTube.

So there's some great, look, things that you can do. Just, you will not believe how many people have tried this since and gone, oh my God, my pets follow what I do, you know. And they absolutely, whether they're doing yoga, meditation, breathwork, you know, they've said they've heard me say it, they've gone off and done it, and sure enough, their pets come and come out changed for the fact that they will settle down next to them whilst they're doing it and be changed for it. So it's worth at least trying and trying to get it right for your own health. James Nestor, somebody said, for breath. That's it. Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you, guys. So there's a few books out there that just modify them for yourself. Sleep is another one. There is one by somebody similar, called Sleep. Yeah, I've read that one. Come on, guys, come up with a name. Sleep is by who? Come on. I'm waiting for the comment.

Somebody will have it. Sleep came out about 5 years ago and it's actually pretty boring, but I did get halfway through it and then he's just repeating himself quite a lot. And yeah, probably. Yeah, so great book. Yeah, a lot of repetition. But the bottom line is get the appropriate amount of sleep for you, your dog, and what have you.

Yeah. If people want to get into intermittent fasting for their pet and they want to just reduce down that feeding window a bit and dogs on 2 meals a day, you know, the harder one to break is the breakfast one because he's waiting and he knows breakfast is at half 7 every morning or 8 or whatever creature habit you are. And so you can push that breakfast on. Okay, just a little bit each day. Just push it on. He won't know it's 10 or 15 minutes each time. Dinner doesn't matter. He's happy enough to eat that earlier and earlier. So, from 6 to 5, happy days. 6 to 4, happy days. But he'll get hungry and hungrier. So, you closing that feeding window is a way to do it. So, you're trying to get to this magic figure of 16 hours. So, 17, 18 hours would be great 'cause you get a couple of hours of autophagy in there. So, if you're looking at a 6-hour window, the tricky one is to focus on the brekkie, push that out, go for a walk first, get a bit of sunshine into you, and then get the breakfast in. If you feed breakfast at 10, the next meal's gonna be, the last meal is gonna be 4 o'clock in the afternoon. That would pay massive health dividends to your pet. And a lot of people go to one meal a day, which is the natural next question, is that okay? Of course there's lots of people feed one meal a day. So we fed dogs in the '80s, but, um, I, uh, but so if you want to do two meals a day, Dudley just did not appreciate being moved to one meal a day. It didn't work out for him. So I, he, he eats for honestly 6, 7 hours. He gets his breakfast really late. I don't eat brekkie. He gets his breakfast very late, and, uh, then he gets a meal at 6 o'clock when we're all eating. So that's—

yeah, don't beat yourself up if you can't do kind of intermittent fasting or just single once a day fasting. And the other thing is I always say to my clients that fasting is to the gut what sleeping is to the brain. It's absolutely essential.

I like that.

Yeah. Sleeping is to the body. You'll feel it.

You know, it's not just the brain. It's the whole body, you know, benefits from sleep.

Totally, totally, totally.

So Matthew Walker, thank you guys. For those people out there, you're absolutely right, Katja. It's Why We Sleep.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Listen, let's go to this. This tier one is interesting. Yeah, I found something interesting here. I wonder, are you aware of this? One of the patrons was asking about tear staining and how do you know if it's from the iron compounds in tears, porphyrins they're called, as Bren highlighted a couple of years ago, to me anyway. And or is it yeast or Malassezia? And so, look, we can talk about that. But it's interesting about tears. Did you know that they can analyze tears and they can get a few impressions of the health status of the creature that's shedding them? For example, Alzheimer's turns up in tears. They look at the proteins that are coming out in the tears and they're using it as a cancer marker. And they've been doing this in dogs since 2008. This study here, proteomic analysis of dog tears for potential cancer markers. And they said, yeah, and they said in order to understand the changes in protein expression in the tear film, of dogs with cancer, tears from such animals were similarly examined. A number of differences were found between the tears of healthy dogs and the dogs with cancer. Levels of actin and albumin and an unidentified protein that they still haven't identified. These findings suggest that it may be possible to develop tear film analysis to provide a simple non-invasive test for the diagnosis or management of canine cancers. Isn't that interesting?

It is really interesting. I wonder if that would mirror changes like Nikki Kamek is doing.

Yeah.

The, um, analysis, like the metabolomes, uh, analysis, metabolomic analysis, which, which means going to fantastic, um, depths in looking at amino acids and, and, and, uh, what have you in your urine. You know, your normal, normal dipstick will give you 10 parameters, but she's going to kind of 45 parameters, as, as Anna does with, with blood. And I wonder whether what happens here is going to be mirrored in blood and mirrored in urine. Actually, I think it would be easier to measure urine than it would be potentially poking into the eye.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, didn't Nikki say it's like measuring the smoke coming out the back of a car and you can just tell what's burning and why, you know? So I just thought that makes the most sense. But it follows that your tears do change for different reasons. And one of the reasons is that you could eat more meat. Where do you guys believe if it's that the red staining is predominantly porphyrins coming from the little protein or iron-based compounds coming from the tears that when they come out, they oxidize and turn that red, rusty color that we expect. Do you guys believe that a red meat diet would be— white coat breeds would be more prone to this rusty staining as a result of eating a higher meat-based diet, meat being such a source of heme iron.

So don't get me wrong, yes, that's what causes the red staining, but the underlying epiphora, the watering of the eye, is down to the irritation of the eyes. Okay, so then you're—

inflammation.

Yes. So then you're back to, as Nick was talking over in Orlando about, general inflammation and root of that. And therefore actually why the diet is so beneficial is if you can downregulate all of the inflammation, then their eyes will improve.

Take them off your food, guys. Cleaner.

With the stuff you were talking about, Conor, if you sort out the yeast issues, the imbalance within the gut, you downregulate the inflammation. That's why their eyes water less.

Yeah, you know, exactly. Why is these things So why is the tap on is the question.

Yeah.

You know, the staining. Yes, that's the biochemical change, the oxidation that occurs. That's one thing I was not trying to pooh-pooh the fact that actually if you make adjustments which reduce inflammation, that should reduce the epiphora and that is what's going to stop the watering of the eyes and therefore the stain being there.

Yeah, totally. So it's like that vet, remember the opt— what was it, Nick, that— remember the vet in South Africa that said Is she an ophthalmologist?

Dogs on raw, about 2 or 3 dogs she's done it, and I've seen improvements in the structure of the eye. Yeah.

And so she said, I had to come to this because I was seeing my cases were just not coming to me anymore because it had fixed them just by changing diet. Yeah.

So which is all to do, it's not magic, it's to do with inflammation.

That's just what Ben's saying there anyway.

So I think just to summarize, we're answering that question by saying the type of meat is not so important. But if you've got a dog who is beef allergic and you feed them beef, they're going to be inflamed and therefore they're going to just pump out, you know, loads of epiphora, which is tears on your cheeks, and that's going to then have a secondary staining effect.

Yeah, and it's far more likely to be the porphyrins, the red, the tears, the compounds, than it is malassezia. It's less likely that you're going to get— Masi is more of a darker color, brown maybe to black, it's irritating, it's itchy. That's just less likely. These dogs that are walking around with the teary eyes, your little Bichons and whatnot. And what about, guys, that some dogs just physically have funny looking eyes and they're more prone to weeping? And so, you know, that's a funny looking eyes.

So when you walk into a pub, you've got funny looking eyes.

Yeah, you know, you know, it's a good way to start a fight, actually.

And just going to say If you've got a Frenchie or any brachycephalic and they have got some degree of epiphora, it can go into the skin folds, lip fold, skin fold dermatitis.

Yeah.

Where you basically just get nappy rash in between and you can get malassezia in those.

It loves that. It would love that.

Yeah, it would totally love that. Yeah.

Yeah. And if you feed a high carbohydrate diet, well, we know, and from studies of diabetics, that the exudates, the stuff that just comes out of you all the time, can be higher in sugar. So if you've got skin folds and you're eating a high carbohydrate diet, that yeast is going to love it being down there in that warm little wet folds that don't get touched by anything else. So you can see how those lads suffer.

Sugary exudates.

Sugary exudates. Exactly.

Yes. You become a yeast farm.

A yeast farm. You do.

Until you stop feeding a high carbohydrate nonsense. Yeah. Diet. Have you seen Robert Kennedy Jr. is on the warpath against ultra-processed food, which is good.

Yeah, you do see some, some interesting updates. That's what you want to see. I want to see more. I want more change.

Yeah.

You know, quicker. Let's go.

But let's talk about that for a second. Can I ask the question then? So we have a number of people kicking back that 'How can you use ultra-processed in the pet food manufacturing area because there isn't a definition other than the human food one, which doesn't apply?' It does apply.

Why doesn't it?

So, well, answer me that because it has driven me nuts for months trying to say at what point does it not apply. Right.

Brady, do you want to have a go at that? And then I'm definitely going to jump into that. I talk about this a lot.

Yeah, well, I'm looking to go first and I'd much rather go after the person that knows the most. But I would say that I would say that we've got clear definitions for, you know, for the processing of food. And Nick's going to give us probably a nice simple analogy that will help us understand it a bit. But we have clear steps of how many times you adulterate it and this to that to that. And by the time you get to processed and then ultra-processed, it's very clear that if you're using refined ingredients in your process and then you're bloody put them through an extruder, which is 3 or 4 times cooking it and macerating and extruding it and heating it and drying it. I mean, that is ultra-processed food. We sat down with that French dude up in them, up in Dogrisk.

Benard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very interesting. But like, that guy just goes through it. Except that I really don't like that Nutri-Score. Sorry, I'm sure he's not listening, but that's Nutri-Score. I was, I was in Euro Disney and I'm in the little tiny shop that you can get to. And do you know what? I was looking at a packet of cheese, cheddar cheese, slices of cheddar cheese, and I was looking at this ultra-processed chicken circles. Okay. You know, that horrible shit that you just don't— you'd eat under pressure. And there's like 50% chicken in it. It's like the rest was just nightmare. And the ultra-processed chicken goo got C— A to E it goes— and got a C score. And the cheddar cheese got a D. The cheddar cheese was considered worse for you than this ultra-processed chicken nightmare. And I just thought that is so— the preservatives, the additives used in that product, in that chicken product, for that to be considered a better quality product than cheddar, it takes some explaining. But so I'm sure we have all these definitions done and dusted for a few human food. Why wouldn't it apply to the ultra-processed cible industry, Nick?

Okay, totally. This is so— this is something I've looked into really, really quite deeply. And in order to try and simplify it, there is a thing called the NOVA classification, N-O-V-A classification, okay? And it goes from, uh, NOVA classification 1, 2, 3, and 4. 4 is ultra-processed. And the way to get your head around it, because I've struggled with this for a couple of years, but somebody once said that if you think of number 1 is an apple coming from a farm Number 2, i.e., produce, fresh, non-manipulated produce straight from the farm. Okay, that's, that's number 1. Number 2 is the ingredients that you'd use in the, in a normal kitchen. So you've got, you've got olive oil, or you've got lard, or, and you've got salt and pepper and what have you. Yeah, you'd find in the regular kitchen. So number 1 is an apple, number 2 is an apple pie made in your granny's kitchen? No, the ingredients that granny would use. Okay, so number 1 is the apple. Number 2 is the ingredients granny would use. Number 3 is the apple pie she would make in her own kitchen using routine, regular ingredients. Number 4, however, is a food, is a product derived from food. That's the phrase they used. It's derived from food. And it is— it cannot be made with the ingredients found in the regular kitchen. It uses— there are, you know, emulsifiers and anti-caking agents, all that stuff which nobody uses in their own kitchen. So that's really how you think about it. So number one is an apple. Number two is the ingredients Granny uses. Number three is the apple pie that she does make on her own. That's the third. But When you get into ultra processed, you're talking McDonald's apple pie. Yeah, yeah. There you go. That's, that's— you can— and you can apply that to any type of food, meat-based things and what have you. There you go. Yeah, that was not as concise as I wanted.

Yeah, I can see.

I can see you're struggling with the lack of concise. I agree entirely with what you've said, and I've used those arguments.

Good.

I am trying to work out I'm, you know, you've got to sometimes sit back and say, you know, am I just being thick here? And actually there is a reason that these guys think that that shouldn't apply to pet foods. What on earth could be going through their heads to make them think that no, it doesn't apply?

I think it's 40 years of propaganda is going through their heads and they can't get out of that, that, that, that, that that single-track thought process. That's, that's what it is. I think they aren't able to look, look at a broader perspective, let themselves to us, and they can't admit that they're wrong as well.

I mean, that cognizant dissonance, cognitive dissonance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know he's guilty even though, uh, 5 judges have proved him innocent, you know. Oh, he's guilty. Yeah, she definitely guilty because he's got a funny look in his eye, you know.

Yeah, he's got funny eyes again.

Here we go, funny eyes. Here we go. I meant to say one more thing here about this tear staining stuff. These porphyrins are byproducts of heme metabolism, okay, and are primarily excreted through your bile and urine. So when your liver and kidney is functioning well, you're not going to get a whole heap of porphyrins coming out in your tears. But when you have liver disease, you get way more porphyrins in your tears. So a sign of liver dysfunction, conditions such as porphyria cutanea tarda, PCT, are associated with liver disease. In PCT, decreased activity of the enzyme in the liver, or whatever that name is, leads to accumulation of uroporphyrins in the tears. And these are very measurable. So you can actually measure the tears as—

Did you just say uroporphyrins? Only come from Europe.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No US porphyrins.

British.

There's two types of porphyrins. Not that anybody cares. There's two types of porphyrins. There's uroporphyrins and there's some other porphyrins that I've forgotten. And so you will get more uroporphyrins and you'll get more tear staining when the liver and kidneys are under stress as well. So isn't that interesting? That's a little bioindicator that all is not well. So diet is one thing. Yes, we would expect if you're getting more iron in your diet, those tears will be redder, as Brad said. But to sum up, it's actually more of a sign of dis-ease that they're coming out in the first place. So that's a much better way to look at it.

Martina, please don't worry. She's really scared now because her little dog's got tear staining.

Oh, no.

It doesn't mean that they are incurable. And there's lots of little things that can be done. So please do not worry. We've got your back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've got, we've got one more question, guys. We've run out of time.

We're aiming for a record of only doing 2 questions.

Don't spoil it.

Don't spoil it.

Here's what— let's get this one done because I'm interested.

Get another one done because then we're up to our average.

Prostate. Okay. I had to put up a correction on my page there recently that I put up a bit of my cancer article saying that, yes, of course, if you take out the testicles, you're not going to get testicular cancer, and if you take out the mammary glands, you're not going to get mammary cancer. I included that when you take out the testicles, you wouldn't get prostate cancer, and that was a mistake on my part because actually it might even aggravate prostate cancer. So tell us, what can be done to help a prostate in a dog? Is there any little things, tips and tricks that can help us avoid that fate?

Okay, because of time constraints, I'm going to I'm going to jump in and give you some, some thoughts. And I would say pumpkin seeds would be really, really good for a 15-kilo dog. I'd go 1 to 2 teaspoons. If you can grind them each day, that's really, really good. And you've got a secondary effect, it's prebiotic and antiparasitic. Not sure if there's any papers on that, but it is well recognized as being a potentially antiparasitic. Zinc. Adding something like zinc methionine, 1 to 2 milligrams per kilogram per day, would be a nice zinc. Do you know why oysters are considered aphrodisiac? It's because they're high in zinc, which helps with sperm production. There you go. Learn something every day.

I did not know that. I honestly thought, I thought it was a visual thing. What?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. It was a whole thing. Wasn't that—

yeah, it was a whole thing. Hey, with asparagus, looks like a weed.

What we're doing—

I thought I just told—

right, right, listen, I'm going to carry on with the adult part of this show. Um, saw— okay, saw palmetto is another option. Um, it is, it's, it's a herb that you can get at your local health food shop, or you can get it online. Only get the good stuff, only get the sustainably sourced stuff But for a 15-kilo dog, I'd be looking about 75 to 150 milligrams per day. That'd be good. And then there'd be the obvious things like get lots of omega-3s for anti-inflammatory effects. Obviously, we're talking about a raw food diet because otherwise you're creating a yeast farm with all the carbs that you're feeding. So that would be my little summary. Any extra little nuggets you want to add to that, boys?

So I would just say, look, prostate, people worry about prostatitis, and that honestly, a chronic inflammation of a tissue obviously has risks of it moving into something more serious like a cancer. So back to square one, things that reduce inflammation, okay, that is the most important. That will improve urinary health, that'll improve prostate health, that'll improve joint health, you know, so If you want to do something that's going to benefit prostate specifically, follow all of the stuff that we talk about improving anything, which is get the nutrition right. Look at all of those wonderful nutrients. Get your omega-3s right. Okay. Get anything into their system that will reduce their inflammation.

Which is kind of what we talk about every single week on this show. Don't let anybody notice that. But it's really get the basics right and then everything else is just, you know, is like curly architecture. If you get the foundation right, you're good to go.

Yeah.

And the remedies that Nick's talked about, you know, when they're starting to suffer issues and you need to speed up their improvements, absolutely. There are things that you can give which will improve that. There are some people will go down the sort of using Superlaurin to effectively reduce the amount of testosterone that's going around that should reduce some of the prostate inflammation. You know, there are options to give YPASANE, which again acts directly to reduce the activity of hormones on the prostate.

How do you spell that, Bren?

Y-P-A-Z-A-N-E, I think. Yeah, yeah.

You say Wipizane, I say Epizane, let's call the whole thing off, doesn't matter. Epizane, yeah, yeah, it's actually very effective. It is pharmaceutical, but if you, you know, sometimes these guys cannot pee to save their life and it's a really good way of just going and getting on top of prostatitis and I wouldn't be averse to that, but if you can move from a pharmaceutical paradigm into a non or a much reduced pharmaceutical paradigm, then so much the better.

You know, you know what strikes me when I'm looking at those things that you're saying? I'm looking at this a quick, quick look online and saw palmetto, as Nick said, that's S-A-W-P-A-L-M-E-T-T-O, saw palmetto and then stinging nettle. Look, you know, there's 27 randomized controlled trials to back up the fact that saw palmetto shows mild to moderate improvement in urinary symptoms with fewer sexual side effects of finasteride. Phenestra— fenesteroid and like drugs. And do you know how to improve that? Is when you use stinging nettle. And on and on that goes down to African plum bark and pumpkin seed extract, as Nick said, turmeric, ryegrass pollen extract. All these have randomized controlled trials behind them, meta-analysis and whatnot. Isn't it interesting? Like a randomized controlled trial, you can't beat that unless it has an actual positive effect on the thing you're looking at. And, you know, when you look at how crap some drugs are with the side effects they come with. Remember your guy from GlaxoSmithKline who said that, you know, you know, our cancer drugs only work in 30% of our patients and these sort of claims, and that's totally acceptable. And all the side effects that come with it. And yet herbal products can't get— like turmeric can't get over the line. And you see saw palmetto, which I've never even heard of, has 27 randomized controlled trials that is of really significant benefit to urinary issues and prostate issues and you never even hear about it. No side effects. You can imagine. It's just annoys me so much. It's like, how much evidence do people need? They would accept the fact that bloody aluminum got the okay in kids' vaccines because of a study of 4 rabbits. Still, that's all we have.

Started with 4 and ended up with 3.

So they lost the data and the data in those 3 rabbits was appalling. And it's like, it's just the need for evidence is really starting to bother me. It's like, what need of evidence? I mean, it's— you never—

oh, it's just—

anyway, no, I'm going off.

You know what, Joe? Joe from Doorwest. Hi, Joe. Nice to see you joining the audience there and saying hi. They must have one of those saw palmettos in a herbal constituent for urinary cells. I'm sure they must have. Doorwest Herbs. Come on, Joe, let us know if you I don't think they do, to be honest.

I don't know their full range, but I don't think they do. But I use— they should be—

oh, I know that plant. It's the long sticky out plant that is like a saw. Oh yeah, it's a saw palm. It's like it will cut your hands if you try to grab it. You see? Oh, I know, I know what to see. Oh yeah, very good. Okay, cool.

All right, right, let's, let's see if we can do 2 in 10 minutes over on Patreon.

Stubborn gut dysbiosis, that's what we're going to do over on Patreon. Someone's got a 14-month GSD there and it's just stubborn dysbiosis, what's going on. That would be interesting.

And Joe, you can comment in the comments at your leisure once we've gone to let them know if you've got any special products for prostates. But otherwise, everyone else, it's been great to be with you again. And it's been a lovely show. Please remember, if you want to support us and you want to join us over on patreon.com/rawpetmedics, for the price have a pint, you can, you know, come join us and see what we talk about over on the other side.

And just to say, guys, so Loz on YouTube is saying, sadly I've joined late. Panic not, Loz, and you're very welcome. It is recorded and you can just catch up with the bits that you missed. So no stress whatsoever.

There we go. So, oh, It's in— Joe's just quickly commented, it's in their Damiania and Cola tablet.

There you go.

Oh, okay, they have got one. There you go, I stand corrected.

Of course they do.

Oh, we'll have to have you on, Joe. You have to talk about your products. There we go. Anyway, good stuff.

Take care, guys.

See you next week, and we'll come up with a, uh, a thought process of what— which guest we've got on. The beginning of next month, and then take it from there.

Okay, fabulous. Great. Good night, everybody.

Good night.

Thank God.