Dr. Nick Thompson, Brendan, Maudie, and Sarah Pepper tour a pet supply shop in Cornwall to examine green tripe products and discuss their nutritional benefits. Maudie shares how tripe helped a Westie with chronic illness and explains her DIY dehydration process for making tripe chews. The group covers sourcing, fat content, and using tripe for leaky gut and pancreatitis.
Chapters
Oh, look, it's a real mix tonight. I'm gonna just take over the reins for a second. Uh, thank you so much for Maudie joining us, the queen of tripe, we know. Um, and Simply Raw Feeding. If you, uh, look on our Facebook page, you'll see a link to all of her details and a little bit more later. But right now, uh, Nick is out and about. He's our roving reporter.
Uh, I am our intrepid roving reporter. Maudie, it's lovely to see you. Thank you for coming on. That's absolutely brilliant. Bren, great to see you as always. I hope my audio's okay. The wonderful Sarah Pepper, who runs Pepper's Natural Pet Pantry— I knew I wouldn't remember it— and Active Dog Shop. Okay, it's just outside Camborne, and it's absolutely brilliant. Can I introduce you guys to I'll introduce you to her.
Please do. Say hello. This is lovely Sarah.
Hello. See her jumper? How cool is that? How cool is that? And she's going to be my cameraman, camera person, until we get indoors. And then we'll— if we go in, right, I've got some, I've got some trike to show you guys. Can you believe it? We actually get, we actually get, um, excited about trike on this show. It's incredible.
So you can see, Nick, we're going to do a little bit of magic and we're going to tried a few things. Okay, okay, you can still be heard. Don't, don't say anything rude.
Yeah, yeah, okay, so this is, this is it. This is, this is the shop. This is Sarah's amazing shop. And we've— what we've done is we've got some, some samples of, uh, of Tribe. And these are just the first ones that came.
Is that backwards?
Can you see that?
It's backwards. No, don't do it, Nick.
Let's try that.
That's the one.
That's it.
Okay, that's me. Um, so they— so we've got some— so, uh, Natural Instinct do really nice green tripe. It's in a— it's in a mince, which is brilliant. Sarah is the queen of treats. My dogs love her. And so we've got some tripe sticks, really, really useful. Will have a certain amount of cleaning effect on the teeth, which is absolutely brilliant. And then we've got these, which I've never come across before. These are Anko— hang on, let me just get that out of the way. These are Anko Bully Tripe. Okay, so they're pretty chunky, pretty chunky tripe there. Then this one, which I've never come across before, it's Duggies. Pure green lamb tripe. And the wonderful thing is these are in 140— so here you go, it's 140-gram blocks like this, and they're fairly low fat. So if you— if Sarah was saying that if somebody comes in and say, I've got to feed duck but I need to reduce the, uh, the fat content, she will use these to reduce the fat content, which I think is really, uh, useful.
He's gonna kill you for that sound of crinkly, uh, packaging, but that's okay. But that was wonderful, thanks.
You're in heaven, Nick.
This is vom, which sounds like it's almost like barf, okay? But Sarah is just telling me that it's, it's to do with the Viking because it comes from Scandinavia, okay? And this is— it's fortified with extra mints and bits as well, so that's quite an interesting one to look at by Von. And then we are going to have a look at— we've got, uh, we've got the Dog's Butcher. We see that, uh, ox tripe mince. And we've got from the same people, we've got lamb tripe mince. Lamb. Okay. And then if you come down this way, we've got, uh, Furry Feasts You see that one? Yeah, this is, this is lamb tripe. Very nice, nice big block of— looks fairly fine mince there. We've got our friends at Naked Dog, they do a lovely tripe. It's there. Okay, this is good, this is good. And then again, our friends at Nutrament, they do a lovely just tripe. And one of, one of my favorite for the shape as much as anything else is— look at that, look at that beauty! Now, can you see the size of it? It's the size of my arm. Okay, so if you've got big dogs, that's really good. I imagine that's very good value as well. Do you know how much that one is? We have to have a look. So just looking at the price, £6.09 for that beast of a— so that's 1.4 kilos. So I think that's really good value. I will help Sarah and put that back in the freezer. So there we go, guys. That's— so that's— this is Pepper's Pantry, and I'm going to take the machine from her there, and I'm going to do that, and she's going to go and put the tripe— she's going to go and put the tripe back in the freezer. So that's absolutely brilliant. It's a lot of tripe. It's fantastic, isn't it? So, you know, it's just— it's not a vast warehouse that she's got here, but within the space that she's got, she's just got wonderful range, and she's incredibly knowledgeable. Sarah is a canicross champion. Sarah, tell us about your canicross endeavors.
European champion, the only senior in the UK to get a European gold medal.
Hang on, come and say that again. You can't—
yeah, yeah, European gold medal. We heard that. It was great.
Oh, you did? Oh yeah, good sound. Just, just Tell us, tell us about your, your Canny Cross.
Um, I won the, um, European, um, European, um, gold for my 30th birthday.
Wow.
Um, with my dog that's unfortunately not here anymore, but Nick used to treat him. Um, yeah, so, um, and he had many, um, national, um, championships as well. So all my dogs except for my new Ridgeback have all got, um, all got national medals.
Amazing, amazing.
So just describe to us, Nick, just describe to us. So Cranbourne is down, uh, what part of Cornwall?
Okay, Sarah, where's Cranbourne?
Uh, it's in between St Ives and Newquay.
Oh, right at the end, right at the toe of the pig. So I always say it's the witch riding the pig map of Great Britain that I always go by. So it's the lowest pig's trotter. That's fine.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. She's been so— she, she, um, Sarah has actually come back. She was at home, she's come back to the shop now just so that I can use the Wi-Fi so that I can talk to you guys. What kind of a star is she? What kind of a star? I've just been to— sorry, I don't want to hog the, the show— I've just been to the wonderful Trevaskis Farm shop where they're selling organic and regenerative produce. I've just got some amazing lamb chops and some wonderful burgers and some red wine for Ellie. And that was going to be a surprise, but obviously you've just told us. Exactly. So I'm going to A couple of things to say. One is to say very thank you very much, Sally Tobin, for pointing out that I'm often mirrored. So I'm now conscious of that, and now we can— when I, when I show things, we can— you can see. That's wonderful. Um, what else is going to say? I think this is a really good format, being a roving reporter and, and, and reporting from a shop or a show or something like that.
Yeah, I'm so glad I'm not doing the Yorkshire show today. Some of the language on those, from those farmers, oh God, it was purely agricultural.
All right, and what's the weather like? It's been, it's been, it's been pretty blowy this and rainy this morning because we're camping. Let me, shall I tell you, I'll just tell you the camping. We've had a collapsed tent because the wind was so strong, it's just, it's blowing the, it's It's an air tent. Yeah, a blow-up. Yeah, with these poles of air like this, but it was actually being flattened by the wind because it was so ferocious. And then last, last, you know, whole of yesterday and last night, the rain was so bad it drove the rain under the tent. So we spent the whole day today taking half the tent down and, and then mopping the ground sheet in order that we, we can sleep tonight without getting absolutely soaked. So everybody's still in great, in great shape and really, really happy. Um, and the kids have just gone down to the— gone down to the beach now. And I said, guys, I've got to go and prep and then and go and see Sarah and do the show from here. So I'm really— hey, I'm really quite relaxed because I'm on holiday. And B, Really excited. This is great, just being the correspondent. It's great.
Out and about.
Yeah, it's really good. So there you go, that's enough about me. How are you guys? And Maudie, thank you very much for coming on. It's so much better to see you than Brady. You're a lot better to look at, that's for sure. And thank you for coming on.
I think Karen's a bit worried that we're going to put another picture of Conor up in his budgies.
Oh, please do.
If not, make one up. So, well, it was an interesting— Karen's going to laugh at this because there was an interesting meme that came up on a chat group that we have. And I was tempted and then I thought maybe I shouldn't. It's a whole little video.
I'm going to get you back, Brendan, if you do that.
We might have to post that separately. Anyway, so, um, the, uh, we've got a couple of announcements tonight. Um, uh, so before we really get into it, um, there is going to be a post up at the end of tonight's show. Uh, it will go up separately, but we've got some really exciting news. Okay. And that is that we are doing a little bit of a lunch and learn. I want to say a lunch and learn.
It's more than a lunch and learn.
Learn.
This is so much more than a Lunch and Learn. So on the 2nd of December, the first weekend in December, okay, we are getting together in Manchester. It's going to be everybody from Raw Pet Medics. It's going to be obviously myself, Nick, and Conor. We've also got Amaya and Julianne coming to join us as well. You're going to see some of the quorum of gang that help us moderate all of the Facebook and Instagram and what's going on with those and the reels. So come and join us. Look out for that. You'll be able to buy tickets. There are a limited number, okay? So please don't delay in booking your tickets. And you'll see that on the poster. Follow the links. We'll get you a way to book your tickets by the end of this week. They're going to be on sale soon. But we just thought we'd let you guys watching tonight, get the date in your diary and ready to be booked. We look forward to seeing you there and having some great times, some great information, and maybe just a little bit of a drink afterwards. Just, you know, just a tad.
What's the probability of a drink afterwards, Brendan? It's going to be a mess. It's going to be a latterly again.
Yeah. So yeah, so it'd be really, really great to, to see as many of you there as possible. Um, it'll be a great learning experience, I'm sure, for all of us, us included. Um, and, uh, you know, it would be great fun. So have a little look at that. Otherwise, tonight, uh, you know, things that happened to me today— I've been to the Great Yorkshire Show looking at a bit of sustainable farming stuff that's being talked about, what's, what's going on. Out there, some very interesting stuff there. I was a bit shocked actually that there wasn't quite as much moving forward. There was a lot of sustainability was still about carbon and not a lot about just growing soil and improving how we're creating our food in that sense. So I was a little bit, you know, that could have progressed a bit more, but hey ho.
The ground's well-burnt.
Yeah, yeah, apparently. So, but there we go. That's maybe because I've got a slightly tainted view because I've moved on a bit from where they're at. But it's great to see some of the raw food stores there. I'm going to say hi to Steph's Pet Pantry. Said hello to her today. There's some pictures going up, various dog stalls on. They only have great shame about the Great Yorkshire Show is they don't allow the general public to bring their dogs in. So there's lots of stuff to do with dogs there. There's lots of stuff about, you know, working dogs, all of the activities, all of that side of things. Lots of things for your dog in there, but you just can't take your dogs in because of all the livestock. And actually what we find is it's such a big show that the general public will either leave their dogs in the car to overheat, or they will bring them into the shows, and rather than sticking away from the livestock areas, they will drag them through the livestock areas, which is just, you know, so distressing for those animals. So unfortunately, they've had to therefore say, no, we can't allow dogs in to the show, which is a great, great shame. But I mean, there's some great county shows going on around the country, you know, do drop us a little note on those posts. If you've got a county show that's really dog-friendly and lots of fun, you know, do let us know when it's happening and give us a little bit of a heads up, and that would be brilliant. And then we can send Nick out to do his roving reporting across the south of the country.
I shouldn't do this.
Is this for Devon County?
That's a shame. That's a shame.
County hopping.
That was a good one where they, where they have dogs actually in May near Exeter.
Amazing, amazing. And also a note for your diary, in February Andy Gray, who is the Farmer's Dog producer, he's a big regenerative farmer down in Crediton in Devon, he is organizing Rootstock, which is a regenerative festival where they're going to have speakers and all things regen down there. So thank you for reminding me about that. Now, Maudie.
Yeah, loads of people saying, come on.
Yeah, exactly. Stop hogging the limelight, you two. Yes, Maudie, tell us how you first discovered Tripe and why you love it so much now?
Well, obviously I've worked for several of the raw feeding companies, and I think I've always known a little bit about tripe, maybe going back to butchers' tripe mix— horrible food. I think you then named me the tripe queen many years ago, Nick, which is a very glamorous title which I'm very, very, very proud of.
I'm sure.
I think it must be in the last maybe 10 years since I've been doing my consultancy stuff. I just found that I— the more dogs I was treating that had tripe, the better they got. And I had an example of one little Westie a long, long time ago. I think he'd been on about 27 diets. The vet wanted to open him up, and I suggested that we just put him on tripe. And he was on tripe for a year which is quite scary because obviously it's not complete and balanced, but we know about the calcium-phosphorus ratio, etc. But this little dog kept getting better and better and better, and he's now completely fine and eats anything. So I guess that was quite brave in my early days of nutrition and knowledge of tripe. But yeah, I think that's probably where I started. I, I think I'm just fascinated that this rumen has these four amazing chambers that each process is a fermenting bit and each bit's different. And obviously Brendan and I chopped up a tripe last year together, and I love the fact that my picture is surrounded by the omentum, which was taken in the garden last July from the bit we got from Andy Gray, actually.
Yeah.
So yeah, I just, I just think it's, it's just, in my opinion, a wonder food.
Tell us about you and Brendan and the tripe and the filming and the hijinks you got up to. That, I think, that's a nice little story, and why, why you did that as well.
Um, I think it was, um, Morag's idea from Raw Feeding Vet Society. Brendan and Chris were coming to stay last July, and Morag thought, what a great idea, let's get Maudie and Brendan to do a video on tripe. And clearly it's not something you can I totally take seriously. Maybe, maybe anyone that comes to the Royal Veterinary Party at Christmas, if they pay me enough money, I could show them a little picture. Anyway, so Brendan and I got in the garden and we did a very silly one for the first 7 minutes, and we were wearing wigs and aprons, and we managed to do 7 and a half minutes, which Chris filmed, without laughing. And it's very, very stupid, but I think it's quite funny. Anyway, it lightened the load.
There was only a little bit of wine and whiskey and gin beforehand.
No, there was none. There was a glass of wine on the table outside with a dog toy, and I've got a big knife. And yeah, so it was very, very stupid. And there were our dogs running around, and we talked about it, and then we did a series of— I'm not sure what's happened to the one because I've never seen it, but I do have the one that's worth a lot of money. So we did that because we just wanted to talk about it, and we put it in some water And actually, I thought I knew quite a lot about tripe then, but Brendan taught me a lot more. One thing I know is you never stop learning about tripe. Um, yeah, yeah. Um, there's just so much information about it, but I think I know people have got questions about histamine and all sorts of things like that, but I— because I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I will only really want to feed my dogs tripe I know where it's come from. In terms of it being properly grass-fed, not grass-fed finished. Um, and actually, anyone who's interested, I've got a really amazing contact in Devon who's the only guy I've found who does venison tripe. So if anyone's got an issue— obviously it's only UK-based— if anyone's got an issue, let me know and I'll, I'll, I'll put you in contact with this guy, because it's— I've never found venison tripe and My dogs love it, so that's quite an exciting one for me. He's quite local to me.
We can put his details on the link to your details that we've posted, so if you have a look on that post, you'll find those further details there. That would be brilliant. So somebody was asking, did you, um, have you found that the cost of tripe has gone up for where you source that from? Is that something that you found as well, Maudie? Or have the people that you bought it from kept it fairly reasonable?
I think, um, I get, I get a lot of mine from Paleo. I love— they, they do do a DIY organic tripe. They don't always have it in stock. Um, I love that, it's fantastic. I think that's about— I think that's just under £4 a kilo, but the quality is amazing. But actually, their DIY tripe is a lovely mince. It very rarely smells horrible, and I think that's really important because if it's, if it's not taken out of the abattoir quickly it's going to stink because it's fermenting. And that, yeah, it should— I guess it should smell like a farmyard, but not so bad that you need to wear a gas mask. Um, so yeah, I think it has gone up. I'm not sure what other— I mean, obviously, Nick, you had that big one there that was, what, £6? That's just under a kilo and a half. That's pretty good value. Um, but another thing that worries me over the years, that is, that is the fat content, because the highest fat content I've found in tripe is 18.84, and the lowest is 6. Um, and I've recently treating a dog with gallbladder issues. Obviously the fat, the fat's an important one there. So that, that's something to really look out for, apart from smell, is the fat content, because it shouldn't have any fat in it.
Yeah, the way to get around that is to ask your supplier what is, what is the fat content, because it's one of the, you know, in the mop fur analysis that you— protein, fat, and ash and what have you. I think know what the fat— because if you've been feeding tripe from Mr. A for 6 months and it's been at 5-6%, and then suddenly you get it from Mr. B and you're feeding 18%, that's potentially quite a big jump. You know, and then you might think, oh, well, why's the dog got a bit loose? Or, oh my goodness, the dog got pancreatitis. It's not the fact that it's relatively high fat. It's the jump, the overnight jump that I think people just need to look at. And if they can't tell you what the fat is, you've got to be a bit suspicious, me thinks. Brent, what are your thoughts? How did you start with tripe and how do you use it in the practice?
Yeah, so I tend to— look, I love the fact that it's packed, if it's a good tripe, that it's packed with prebiotics, not just from the content in green tripe, from the fibers that are within the content there, but actually all of the collagens that make up the lining. All of that is prebiotic for our dogs and cats. I love the fact it's got probiotics in it. Okay. And often it's going to have more than a mix of just lactobacilli dependent upon which stomach, which of the 3 chambers that are mainly used. The abomasum is less used, I find. And in fact, actually, it's just one of those looking at what probiotics are within there and then the postbiotics. So again, all of the products that those bacteria are making, all of the butyrate are brilliant alongside all of the vitamins that those bacteria make. You know, we've talked a little bit about in that series of how these bacteria are making vitamins for the herbivores, which our dogs are then going on to eat. And, you know, realizing that actually a lot of that we would consider as postbiotics, so things that are made by those bacteria. So great to see that. I think the fat question is always about how much omentum, how much attachment to that stomach is being used in that mincing process, how much it's been trimmed before it's been used. And often, again, if you're grain finishing the beef or the sheep, you're housing them, you're then giving them a concentrate feed. Yes, it helps to marble the meat for those meat producers that want to produce a tenderer steak with more flavour, inverted commas, not necessarily healthier. What we can find is that they will have more abdominal fat, they will have more things that will just get trimmed off and stuck into the mincer. And so you'll have a higher fat content. So it's about the trimming and price of tripe. Yeah, gone up because we've got so many much more raw feeders. We've got actually the Asian market went up. A lot of people say that preferentially a lot of beef tripe went off to the Asian market because it was well sought after. And there's a lot of— I've been to abattoirs to ask for that, you know, for farm animals which have now gone in for slaughter for us, and they won't produce it. They won't give us it. They want to trim it. They want to sling it. They don't want to be messing about with the entrails to give to us. You know, it was a fight to get the pluck let alone, which is the heart and lungs, let alone, you know, asking for the intestinal stuff too. So it's a challenge. Do you do— because you've got lambs, haven't you? You've got your small number of organic sheep.
Yeah, sometimes we can't get it back. They will not. There was a chat a couple of years ago, I think, when we first started, and they they said it had to be vet checked. And our view was, hang on, it's our animal, we want all of it. But it is quite difficult to get back. I think some abattoirs are pretty— maybe they're selling it to raw food companies on the sly. I don't know.
On the sly? I don't think so. Surely not. So, yeah, so, you know, sourcing it, what it's got in it, you know, we talked a bit about in Tribe 1 a few weeks back. There was just so much more about than what we use it for. And, you know, what it would be be a shame to have Maudie in front of us and not ask, you know, because you, you do do nutritional consultations and advice, um, and you've used it, as you said, in your own case and found it brilliant for that recovery. Um, yeah, give us a little inkling. Are you using it for leaky gut stuff? Are you using it for chronic diarrhea cases? What, what sort of are the big ones that you really resort to tripe?
Yeah, one of them, all of, all of the above. And funnily enough, pancreatitis well. I know people— I know that's a debatable conversation about fat and pancreatitis, but I just think it's a healing food. I think it's also a great thing to dehydrate. I've done a lot of dehydrating myself. It's like Nick was showing us those treats earlier. It's a great sort of dental chewy stick if you're brave enough to dehydrate it. And I know people worry about the bacteria, but I have to say I have never ever had a problem with bacteria and tripe with anyone or myself.
Little question, little question, Maudie. You, you dry tripe. How do you actually— what's the nuts and bolts of how you go about doing that? Because I'm sure a lot of the gang will be very interested to dry their own tripe, but they don't want to stink out their house. So how— what's the nuts and bolts of how you do that from getting the tripe from the abattoir or wherever to getting a dried product that you put in an airtight container?
Well, the first time I did it, Nick, was a few years ago when we first moved here, and Charlie set me up in the, in the yard with a trestle table, gloves. He was not keen for me to do it in the house. So I chopped it all up with a very sharp knife that one of my boys very kindly gave me. It's really hard to cut up unless you've got an incredibly sharp knife, so I cut it into strips. And I got quite a big commercial dehydrator, so I literally laid it on trays for— oh, I can't remember, everything's different— 5, 6 hours on high and then low, depending. You can have it as a chewy consistency, you can have it as a crunchy consistency. But I, I— it didn't smell because it was so fresh. It really was amazing. And then when Brendan— we did that one last summer I turned that into tripe sticks. And again, I think I've been probably on my Facebook or Instagram somewhere. I think I think I post things of weird stuff that I chop up and dehydrate and it just— yeah, I just don't— I've either become immune to the smell of tripe.
And what's your— what's your— what's your machine? What's your dehydrator called? Have you got any particular—
The really big expensive one. It cost me a lot of money a long time ago. I can't remember the name of it, but I'll find out for you, Nick.
Okay, because we, we got a dehydrator from Amazon. Apologies for that. I don't like certain people any more than you do, but we got one for £40. It's basically, it's just, you just stack the— it's about this big by about this big, and then it's got about 5 levels. It's really simple and literally it's £40. So, you know, it may have been a special offer or something. I think you could probably get one for about £80. Do you think?
Yeah, mine started off just like yours, Nick, and then I was going to go into producing pet treats years and years ago, but Defra wouldn't have liked my kitchen. It's not nearly plastic or clean enough, too much bacteria. So it was about £750 grid. It's a huge one. You can do human things in it, but my, my family aren't particularly wild about me. I did do some, I did do some chicken of the woods mushroom in it the other day, um, but they're not particularly wild about me mixing things where there's been tripe. I don't have a problem. I haven't eaten tripe, but I know that Dr. Nick Thompson has.
I have.
Have you had the dried treats? What? Come on, tell us. Tell us about this. Was this the temptation of the slightly bleached with onions, or was this the let's go for a crunchy dry version, Nick?
Say again, Brent? Sorry, I was just reading some comments there.
The crunchy dry version of human tripe. I mean, not human tripe.
No, I haven't tried. I really don't think I could do it because My experience with tripe was with bleached human-grade tripe. Okay, so all the goodness has gone because it's been bleached. But I found it was like squid. Squid has got quite a firm, soft consistency. Would you agree? Yeah, if you're eating squid. Okay, so if you take that down a few notches That's like tripe. It's, it's got slightly more squidgy than it— what does it taste of? It tastes of pretty much nothing, especially when they've, when they've bleached it and done all this stuff with it. So would I eat it again? Yeah, I guess so. In a stew or something like that, we could probably get away with it. I'm not sure what the value is after it's been bleached and what have you. I'm not sure whether there's any nutritional value in it whatsoever. Would I go for one of the chews? Definitely not, because you'd have to chew it until it got soft enough to actually, you know, then put down your neck. And that process, I think, would be so— the flavors, the tastes, and what have you would be really quite unpleasant. However, my dogs go insane for dog, for tripe treats. It really is good. And you can chop the things up. If you get a stick, you can chop the stick up, and then you've got a day's worth of treats, which is fantastic.
You describe it a little bit like eating oysters, Nick, you know. Is it one of those that you sort of like have to just sort of squeeze a lemon, a couple of chomp, chomp, swallow?
Just— yeah, I, I, yeah. But the thing about oysters is that they're stunningly good for you with the zinc and with the essential fatty acids and all this stuff. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Whereas the tripe, I think human tripe is probably not worth, not worth the—
Can we not call it human tripe? I think people are gonna—
Would you eat a dog tripe stick then, Nick?
No, I wouldn't. I don't think so. I don't really want— No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. However, we could have perhaps a game at the, at the Christmas— we're calling it a Christmas party, it's supposed to be an educational event. So at the Christmas event we could maybe have a who can get through a tripe stick quickest.
I think Brady will win that one.
Yeah, he's got this thing. Well, as long as we're not into puzzles, we're all right.
Oh, you're bold as you like.
Anyway, so there we go. So, so guys, just the last 10 minutes, any top, top recommendations, any top tricks that you use with Tripe? I'm trying to think of some myself. I can't think of anything off the, off the top of my head.
I'd always say if your dogs are, or cats, are are a little bit iffy about tripe. It may be just down to the quality. If something's been messed about with for a long time before it's then been frozen, that can affect how it smells. We talked about this earlier, that actually sometimes if abattoirs don't give you really super fresh stuff, it's much smellier than others. I think there's also an element of what those animals have been fed on, which comes into that. But if it's purely grass-fed and not grain-finished, then I think you'll have a different smell to the purely grass-fed. I think so. Going on, if you're defrosting that, make sure you're defrosting it in the fridge. Don't sort of be tempted to defrost that on the side and let things ferment even more. And yeah, just don't get put off if one type doesn't suit your animal. Don't get put off by that effectively corrupting your total view of tripe altogether. And remember, beef tripe is from a cow. If your pet has sensitivities to beef, it's going to have a sensitivity to the protein within the wall of that tripe. So just think there are other tripes out there. You can get goat tripe. It's rare, but you can get it. You can get sheep tripe. You can get venison tripe. Look at those other sources if you're going to go down the tripe route. Don't just sort of sling the baby out with the bathwater thinking that they'll never eat tripe again.
It's very interesting you say that, Bren, because I've actually got beef-sensitive dogs who can eat beef tripe.
So, I mean, yeah, I mean, how does that work?
I mean, the textbook would say beef, you know, beef is beef is beef, from whether you get it from the nose or the tail or the, or the, the, the rumen. But in, in practice, I think you can almost treat them as, as 2 separate entities. However, so that means that if your dog is beef sensitive, as, as Bren says, don't throw the baby out the bathwater. It may be— and I would start with very, very small— and if you don't see the itch, if you don't see the squitty gut, you might find that you can get some good beef nutrition into your dog through the back, through a, you know, through a side door rather than saying, oh, we can't feed beef, you know. So that's definitely worth doing. And if you're feeding beef tripe and the dog can't tolerate it, then you've got to have— as Brent says, we've got lamb tripe and we've got venison tripe if you're very lucky. And Maudie, where did you get your venison tripe from?
It's a guy here locally to me who was at uni with Ollie, our youngest son. He's called Curtis Pitts. He has a— he does it for the human market market. But he's very cleverly— he does heart, liver, kidney, spleen, tripe, antlers, trim. He's brilliant. He's a really, really, really cool guy, actually. Um, I went to him just before Christmas.
Wow.
Um, and I'd like to do more with him because I think it's— I think, like you were saying, I've got quite a few dogs who can't tolerate lamb, but they're fine on lamb tripe. That, that kind of doesn't make sense, does it?
Doesn't make sense.
No. Um, okay, so maybe if they're buying from a different supplier— it's— I, I'm really passionate about the fact that I need— we've got sick dogs to treat. We need to know what the animal's eaten that we're feeding the dog. Yeah. And if that has been given any grain, and we all love glyphosate and all that stuff, I think, I think that clearly must affect the tripe.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love the Bella and Duke stuff, and I'm sorry, but yeah, I do give them some advice, uh, but I think from a point of view of their grass-fed tripe, because they do a meat-only range, my cat will absolutely demolish that, my dogs will absolutely demolish that. It totally does not smell like the normal tripe from some of the other companies that I've dealt with in the past. And I would just say it makes a difference. It absolutely makes a difference where your company is sourcing their tripe from.
So tripe isn't tripe. I mean, We could talk tripe for hours, but it isn't— I mean, it really isn't. It just— I think it's, I think it's so important to know what the animal's eaten, um, and, and the fat. But I think another thing to do with the dehydration is you've got a, you've got a fussy dog or not well dog, and if you dehydrate it really, really dry, you can make it into crumbles and put sprinkles on the top. That can tempt dogs to have a little try of something different. It's not for everyone. I do get that. And so many people say, I just can't feed tripe because it smells so bad. But in my opinion, I think that you're getting it from the wrong supplier. I think it's just— it's fantastic stuff. Love it. Um, and yeah, I mean, when we chopped ours up last year, Brenda, we didn't— did we wear gloves? I can't remember, but I don't remember it being—
yes, we did, because I distinctly remember we went for the gin and tonic afterwards. And it did not smell of tripe. And you're right. So Patricia, you know, you say direct from the abattoir, you know, it's great when you can get abattoirs which will produce. But again, you sort of need farm assurance. You need to know which farm they're coming from as to how they're finished. And so some will be brilliant one day and terrible the next because they've got different cattle from different farms coming through. So it's knowing the guys, literally knowing where they're coming from, from field to plate, is so important with all of these things.
Totally agree, totally agree.
Very interesting comment from, from Penny van der Merwe. Penny, I've just murdered your name, I apologize. And she's saying tripe shouldn't smell. Yeah, if it's fresh and it's finished properly, and I agree with that, but never add kelp to tripe, makes the best tripe smell horrendous. Now how interesting is that? Any thoughts, guys, on what might be happening there?
Well, it's really interesting because actually we start to feed kelp to some cattle because it can improve their gut flora and actually change their gut flora to reduce methane release, if I remember rightly, as one of those additives. So I wonder if that's also— if people are using that as their silage additive, that they actually suddenly get a really smelly tripe. Maybe they're adding it into the grain for the the pellets that they feed them.
Interesting, interesting. So, so, so we're thinking that the, the kelp might be changing the microbiome. Is that what you're saying? However, well, if you've got tripe from the abattoir and then you add kelp, which is what I think Penny was, was, is trying to say, then you haven't got a live creature to then, you know, maintain a new biome. So if you put it, sprinkle it on like salt on your fish and chips, I wonder, Penny, is that when you see this change? I think that's what she's saying.
Yeah, I think that's what she's saying. But I was interested that actually we do know that some farmers are adding it to their cattle feed in order to change their cattle microbiome. So I just wondered if you'd get the same effect. That was my question back, not my statement to disagree with what Penny was saying.
Yeah, well, there you go. It might be that when you put it on, it will change the biome. Maybe it kills some of the smell-suppressing bacteria, possibly. You know, if anybody's got any ideas, please please let me know. Okay, Caitlin says kelp equals iodine. Well, yeah, it does, but it's got a lot of other things in it as well, that's for sure. So this is interesting stuff. I don't have the answer. If anybody does, then please let me know.
I think I saw some green tripe with added kelp when I was looking at foods earlier. All right, maybe that's why that's super smelly.
I know, all right, okay.
They were saying they put it in because of the calcium, which I thought was quite odd actually, because there's calcium in tripe. Um, but they said they were adding— I think it was kelp. I'll have to— I'll make some notes. I'll have a look at that tomorrow.
Okay, I can do one better than that. What I'm thinking is that, um, so the question is, is there a product in the, in the shop here that contains kelp I can go and have a little look. Um, let's jump onto Patreon and see if we can answer that question. And I'm going to ask Sarah, what's the quick run round? Well, no, no, no, look at the, um, look at the Natural Instinct one.
It springs to mind. I'm not sure.
Brilliant. Okay, I'm gonna go do that. So guys, we'll see you over on Patreon. Uh, come over with us. And, um, and we will look into the kelp and tripe thing, and we'll also touch on—
I think we, you know, Maudie has already touched on pancreatitis, and we're going to touch on that again because somebody's just asked, you know, is it too fatty? We can talk about that. And IBD, we're going to talk about why it's good for IBD. So we're going to do that over on Patreon, uh, right now. If you're listening to the podcast on any of your favorite podcast providers, you'll probably hear a little bit more about this on the audio. So just remember, guys, Pete is really nice to a lot of you, and I believe that actually he allows the audio from our bit on the side to occasionally sneak into the audio files for our podcasts. So if you want to catch up on some of that information and feel a bit too scrimpy to join us for a cup of tea or a cup of coffee over on Patreon, you might want to re-listen to some of these podcasts on your podcast provider and you'll get some extra snippets of information. But otherwise, guys, look out for the advert for our Christmas get-together. It's a lecture day on a Saturday. Come join us in Manchester if you can. We're so looking forward to that. It's going to be really exciting and we will see the rest of you over on Patreon shortly. Okay, take care.
Amazing. See you guys from sunny Cornwall.
