RawPetMedics Tuesday Live: Vegan Carnivores?

Good evening. Hello everybody.

Hello, hello, hello guys. Are you well? Are you ready to discuss a very, very dubious paper? It happens to be about vegan food, but that's almost beside the point. It's just really, really bad science. Yeah. Are you ready to go there?

Are you ready to go? I've had my beef stew. I made a beef stew actually, and it made the kids cry, so it obviously wasn't that tasty. So maybe I need to add more veggies. I suppose we need to prelim this bit. I mean, you're probably going to say it, but we're going to prelim this bit but you know, so many people feeding their dogs raw are vegans and vegetarians. I was a vegetarian for 12 years myself, mainly ethical reasons. It was the carbon bit that pushed me over the edge, and I've since learned that that was a bit silly. But so like, this is not anything about vegans or anything like that, whether, you know, this is talking about vegan pet food for sure, and the feeding of it to dogs is nothing about vegans or humans and what you choose to do yourself. You know, great if that's what you want to do, fair play. I mean, more power to you, whatever works for you and the kids. That's your choice. This is about pets and dogs and vegan pet food, particularly this study in question, which is agitating us and doing the rounds. Sadly, lads, it's been shared well.

I think, yeah, I agree. I'm just going to reemphasize that we are not having a go at vegans. If you choose to be vegan, absolutely good for you. There's a lot of amazing recipes, there's a lot of amazing food out there to eat, and that is absolutely brilliant. But your dog is a facultative carnivore. Somebody had a go at me on Facebook about that. They said, well, dogs are omnivores, therefore, you know, try and get your facts right. It's like, please send me the facts, because last time I looked, they weren't omnivores, they were facultative carnivores. So that's, that's another thing. Listen, we can't run past that. You gave your children some beef stew and they cried.

No, just give us 20 seconds on that, please, because I'm out of the swing of kind of working with beef at all. I don't really know. I can cook meat stews. So what did I go? I bought half-price, um, kind of sirloin steak. He's a butcher guy and he had loads of it. And I said that this is perfect sirloin steak, but it's too lean, there's no fat on it. And my mother would be telling me, no, that's the wrong meat. But it looked like a fatty piece, so I got these two huge sirloin steaks and I thought, okay, I'm gonna pop them in a stew, put them in my slow cooker. And I don't follow recipes is my problem. I have a quick look at a recipe and then I'm gone. And, uh, two, like, four hours later, slow cooker, tough as old boots. Kids are crying, the carrots weren't even soft after 4— I don't think— maybe the tea wasn't on and it was just flavorless. Okay, absolutely brilliant. Yeah, it was carrots.

Raw stuff. Did it come out slightly gray?

Is it like that Oliver Twist, you know, the baby doesn't have teeth for this. So, uh, and then I got on the huff because I spent so long making it, and then I just found it. So yeah, Layne's downstairs picking up the pieces of my meaty diet. But I have gone back to including a bit of meat. Somebody said last week, we thought you were vegetarian. I was until I heard this book, Deep Nutrition, Catherine Shannon, which was a lightbulb moment for me with that. You know, she just said, where do you get your glucosamine and chondroitin from? You know, you get these surgeries and you— and I'm like, oh my God, I got 3 surgeries on my knee and I never gave it the building blocks, which is one of the criticisms of vegetarian pet food. It's like, okay, are you adding in glucosamine and chondroitin and collagen and all the things your joints need? So these things aren't added into dry food and I wasn't adding into my own food and that's why I moved. I think it was Sally Lawrence that said it. So yeah, that's why I'm back to eating a little bit of meat, but clearly I'm out of the swing of it and cooking it is just not my forte. I bet you guys are great at cooking it.

I'll tell you who's a good cook. You need to talk to Ellie. She's got so many little tricks.

Oh yeah.

I look at the fridge and it looks empty. She looks at the fridge and half an hour later there's some fantastic food on the table. You know, it's absolutely crazy. But there you go, guys. I've got a competition. Uh, Bren, have you got any, any, anything to bring to the table? Just—

no, no, I, I'm not going to interrupt the flow tonight because I know I've already had umpteen messages on Facebook. Thanks, guys, uh, for the reflection. I actually— do you know what I just want to say tonight? I think was set up by Conor. Thanks, Conor, for an exercise in checking whether we're in cognizant, cognizant dissonance, which is basically cognitive dissonance from a point of view of are we just shouting into an echo chamber, listening to what we want to hear, and not actually reflecting on science that's evolving around us and actually thinking, you know, oh, we need to deal with that and we're not, and we're well out of the loop. Because yeah, we've got lots of vegetarians in our audience, and quite rightly so for various reasons, and we love them all. But we also want to make sure that actually, you know, what we're talking about is right up there with the science that's current and out. And I think it's always a good exercise. So there are some goods and bads in some of the papers that we've been looking at, and we just thought we'd pull this one because it was an interesting little paper. And There are some woeful things in it, and there are some little bits of interest, but so please bear with us out there. Don't give Nick a hard time because he's taken a beating this week being anti-vegetarian.

I'm not anti-veggie. No, I'll tell you what really gets me about this paper. Okay, so I've said my piece and everybody knows I'm not anti-veggie.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

But I tell you, if what gets me about this paper is it's bad science and it irritates me because it's bad science. If this paper was about raw food, I'd be even more furious than I actually am because it paints science in a bad light. Okay. And if they want to do that about vegan food, Fine, that's their thing. But if they did it about my thing, our thing, which is raw food, and they were damning raw food with bad science, I would be really upset about that. If they had some good points and the science turned out that actually raw food was actually not as good as we thought it was, we would have to change our story. A man who can't, or a person who can't change their mind can't change anything, as I I think Abraham Lincoln once said. Yeah, so move with the science. If the science changes, then the narrative changes. That is the way it should be. And that's something that maybe we haven't seen over the last 3 years.

So yeah, I think we're in a good position to do that because it's not like any 3 of us are stuck religiously to one particular diet. I mean, you ask any of us how much veg should you use and neither of us have an answer. It's like, oh, I don't know, 5, 10%, whatever suits, but not too much, you know what I mean? But So like, it's this vagary that we have that, you know, we think he's a meat eater, but he might have a little bit of veg. And if you're going to give him veg, then you might give it to whatever. So we have that advice. But like, we would vary if somebody turns around with a study and says, lads, it's pretty definitive, a 50/50 meat and veg diet is way better for the dog. I would hands— I would just jump straight in. I want my dog to live as long as possible. I am not wedded to anything. I don't have this career that's based on he's a prey model eater or he's vegetarian. And I think this is one of the main problems with the guys that are bringing out these papers. They are are invested in this. So you've got, you can name the two scientists that are always involved, two guys, stalwart vegans, and they have a career built on pushing veganism and that it's fine for dogs. Now once you bet in on that principle for 20, 30 years, you have to understand there's quite a lot at stake to keep that point going. And so it's very hard to move away from that point where, okay, you know, shit, you are right, there is like CLA, DHA, EPA, B12, D3, K2, all these nutrients that aren't in plant matter. And it's like, oh yeah, maybe that was actually quite important. And so it's hard. So instead they keep coming up with these, as Nick says, atrocious studies. And if they forget all the evidence, all the solid studies that show this probably isn't a good idea, and then they have this one crap study, and then this one crap study, depending on the feel of the day and whoever's putting money where, and the Vet Times will happily put it on the front of their magazine and say vegan dogs may live 2 years longer, you know, after interviewing 100 vegans. You know, so what you think they were going to say. But anyway, so crap science seems to just get to the top. They'll find a crap study and then they'll hold it up. We found one. And it's like, but what about— no, no, no, forget about all this. Look at this one. Don't look at that. You know, and so yeah, it really is dire.

Look over here. Look over here.

So if the vegan lobby, if the vegan lobby came out and were actually able to prove to me that I would live longer, be happier and healthier and everything else, I would go vegan. I'll tell you now. Okay, and I would feed my dogs vegan food if the science proved that. I would go that way. I'm just going to say that for the record. Okay, so if, you know, Andrew Knight, if you're out there, I'm really open to be converted, so please do come along. By the way, um, we do— we, we want to thank our patrons, patreon.com/rawpetmedics, and we really want to thank our the people who listen to us on podcasts. So hello, if you're walking the dog and getting rained on and everything else and you can't find the dog, we are with you all the way.

The soothing sounds of RPM.

We are, we are.

Let's get into it, Brian. Pick out something. What was that? What's on your list?

I dare you, guys. I'm just gonna dare you. I'm gonna say let's have a little competition. Who can find the biggest glitch? Okay. Start with the small ones, who can find the biggest glitch, and we can out-glitch each other with this. I think that's going to be an entertaining way to look at this paper. There it is.

That's still—

I think I got into introduction 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 lines in, and I was like, yeah, um, there's a little bit about phylogenetic and, um, anatomical physiological, uh, traits which make our dogs no longer carnivores and turn them into omnivores. I think that's 6 lines in from the word introduction. Yeah, I think that was probably my biggest— hold on a moment. Now, they, I believe, are quoting in those references the stuff about amylase and genetically being able to— but however, And there's a whole thing— one of our wonderful followers got sent something by these guys saying how, well, actually their back molars are flatter than wolf molars so that they can grind plant material. And I was like, um, hold on, there's two great carnassials that stop aside to say— and in fact there's a joint at the back of their jaw that stop them from moving their mouth from side to side. All of those bears, all of those other omnivorous creatures have the ability to move their jaw from side to side to grind. That includes us. And that's— and literally dogs cannot do that unless you break their jaw, of course, which is not what we're advocating, and please don't. But so they are, you know, just the start point there, let alone gut length. Yeah, so, so that, you know, big blooper, I think, 7 lines in.

Yeah, I can beat you. I can beat you on that. The first line of the abstract. Can you see that?

Yeah.

First line of the abstract.

Oh, the abstract doesn't count. You should never encourage people to read abstracts of papers. That is the worst way to read a paper, by the way. I had this argument with somebody.

You mentioned it to me.

Please do not. Do not read a summary and think that that is the be-all and end-all of a paper. You should always read everything, including method and the results.

Did you ever see the study of the, of the guys jumping out of airplanes with parachutes? And they said that parachutes, with or without parachutes, it didn't affect— everybody lived when they hit the ground. And that was the summary: parachutes are not important when you're jumping out, or have no effect on mortality. And so the study, and the whole study, it's such a great study, and the whole thing is perfectly done. And only when you get into methods, and at the very bottom of methods they're showing here's one photograph to show you what sort of and how we were jumping out of the plane, and the plane is sitting on the ground and there's a lady jumping out of the plane jumping about that height. And so the whole study was done very seriously to show people that are reading abstracts and summaries and introductions, it's all nonsense. You get to the nitty-gritty of how they do it and they're all jumping 2 foot from the plane onto the ground, so it didn't matter if they were in the parachute or not, and the parachutes didn't deploy in the results and stuff, you know. So yeah, abstracts and summaries, very crafty, you can get all sorts of bullshit in there. Nick, go on, your first line.

Okay, yeah, the abstract is just a summary and it just gives you a little pointer. Do you want to read this or not? Okay, but it's not the whole thing. But the first line says domestic dogs can maintain health on complete and well-balanced canine plant-based nutrition. So they are stating their position. They're stating what they believe even before. They're not saying, here's our hypothesis, guys, we would like to investigate whether they can or not. They're saying, this is the fact, this is a fact, going to prove it, we're going to prove it. Okay, which is what we're all guilty of doing because we all have our biases. But science is about saying, I wonder about this problem, let's set up an experiment to investigate it. You know, we'll get this bunch of people doing this, we'll get this bunch of people doing this, and we'll compare the two and see what the reality—

what—

see what nature teaches us. That's what we should be doing.

To, uh, to Bren's point here, when I picked out the same first paragraph as well, to that irritated me, and the line is, in comparison to the carnivorous wolf, the domestic dog is an omnivorous species based on phylogenetic context and key anatomical physiological traits. Key traits. Now that would necessitate ignoring all the key traits that make them a carnivore. I mean, all the key traits, you know, that as you're saying, the shape of the jaw and the forward-facing eyes and the taste buds adapted to carnivory and the really short, fast intestinal tract with no cecum, really acidic, that they only choose meat and meat-based trials, like the state of their gut flora. Everything about this animal screams carnivory. The hinged jaw with no sideways movement, it's just carnivore, carnivore, forget about the diet studies and everything else, but what they say is there's key, key traits. So the key traits mean a bit of selection has to go on to find what are the key ones, whether what we tell you they are. And the key trait, as Bren said, is about this amylase production. Dogs have— some dogs, some breeds, not all, not all breeds have, but they still feed them high-carb diets. Some breeds have extrapolated out this gene a bit more because they've been living beside farmers for 5,000, 6,000 years, and that is interesting. But as Doug Newman says, just because I can digest ethanol and sucrose doesn't mean half my diet should be rum and cookies. Just because dogs have taken this tiny evolutionary step, which is interesting, Darwin would have loved to have seen that, just because they've taken that and a couple of others, they've taken a code that they make hepatic glucanase and true carnivores, owls, trout, cats don't. So they are better at processing glucose than cats ever so slightly, but that doesn't mean you can feed them twice the amount of ultra-processed carbohydrates you'd feed a human kid. You know, it's just this nonsensical, we found something, We found something. No, no, don't look at all that science. Look at the thing we found and focus on that. And that's just classic misleading. Key physiological traits say he eats plants.

But can I just— guys, can we just go— no, before you do that, I've just got to pull him on this point because actually Nikki Cammack— and thanks Nikki Cammack— I believe this was back in Barcelona. Yeah, she brought this up, was that actually they've now done the studies to show that although there is that genetic possibility that they could produce amylase to help with this digestion. When they actually came to study whether it was actually physiologically capable, they then found that it actually negated itself. It wasn't actually something that occurred. There was a wonderful paper, and I hope Nikki's listening, but I'm pretty sure that's where she was at. There was this, there's now a series of other papers showing that that particular genetic change was not appropriate for making dogs being able to actually digest those carbohydrates better.

Yeah, so guys, let's have a look at the Axelsson paper. We've been saying that we would do it again probably the last 2 years. Let's do it really in some real depth like this, perhaps in May when I'm back.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That'd be cool.

Brilliant.

In the same paragraph, Ben, they go on there and it says Another statement that they leave hanging unreferenced. Evolutionary adaptions have resulted in a digestive system that enables dogs to maintain health— that needs a reference— on nutritionally complete omnivorous diets, including those free of animal ingredients. That really needs a reference. If you're maintaining health, what, what's your definition of that? And they could do that on free— on animal ingredients. And there's one little study that could have referenced there. It says demonstrating dogs have nutrient not ingredient requirements. And I think, honest to God, that is the crux of this whole thing. You know who wrote this paper when they make a statement like that. Do not look at ingredients. It's all about the nutrient panel. It's all about protein and carbs and fats and amino acids. That's all. That is Mr. AFCO. That is the Mr. Pet Food. That is Mr. Corporation telling you, forget about ingredients and the stuff your mum gave you, you bloody caveman. Just look at the ingredient panel because it's working out so well for the West. Look how healthy we are. Living off that way and counting calories and all the other bullshit they sell you. That stuff doesn't work, but they need you to focus on the ingredient part on the nutrient panel because the ingredients are dog shit. You wouldn't give them to the mother-in-law. So that's why they want you looking at these percentages. So when somebody says something that dogs— dogs are unique in the whole world demonstrating dogs have nutrient, not ingredient requirements. I mean, what utter bullshit scientific Nonsense. The fact that this got peer-reviewed, although it's not published yet, it's on Medivix, isn't it? It's not— it hasn't been published yet. It hasn't been peer-reviewed yet.

It is not peer-reviewed. However, it has made 11 cases, 11 posts on Twitter already. People who are keen on a certain narrative are putting it on Twitter. So again, be careful, guys.

What's your next one, Nick? What's your next one?

Okay, really, really, really basic. They don't mention the ages of the dogs. All they did was they went around the faculty and they said, right, has anybody got some dogs? We'll give you free food and free treats for a year, and we just need to take bloods now, 6 months, and 12 months. That was it. So no ages, range of dogs, we don't know what they were eating before. So this is the basics.

No, they had to eat a meat-based diet for at least 12 months before.

Okay, but what does that mean? What does that— no, it's a commercial meat-based diet.

What does that mean?

Is that a raw? Is that a fresh? Is that a kibble? I think that, that, that is— that should be noted because it's very easy to know. So it's a small point, but they're not starting off from the right place for me.

Yeah, I have—

in, in some of the people, some of the tweets, I think they said— no, one of the articles that Arunas, who's here this evening— Arunas, hello— he's Mr. Rocketto. Yeah, um, he sent me an article and, uh, he was saying that the ages from 2 to 9 years old, but actually in the paper there's no mention of the ages of the dog. So this is fundamental— age, breed, and sex, surely. You know, we don't even know the sex of the dogs.

They've mentioned a mean age. Fiona Murray says a mean age of 4, if I remember.

Yeah, what's that? That's the mean age of us 3 is 48. What does that mean?

Yeah, you can still top it all up and have a baby in there.

Yeah, just horrendous. Okay, and I've got a lot to say about mean and median, okay? Because they talk about weights, they say, they say the average weight of all these dogs, meaning some of them are overweight, some of them are underweight, and here's the average weight and it doesn't change. Does that— so does that mean that half of them got even fatter, or the fat ones got thinner and the thin ones got fatter?

Yeah, it's Yeah, really, for 15 dogs, for 15 dogs you can easily display that information in a table, really easy. 15 dogs, by the way, the fact that they're using 15 dogs, big warning sign, big, because they can run that experiment 3 times and then pick the results of the best one, and that is what big corporations do. They've been caught at it. Uh, look, the meat-based diet things, as you're saying, meat-based to— in pet food land, particularly, uh, the, the, these sort of guys, meat-based means with beef or with chicken. Okay, that's been in previous studies that these guys have used. So their definition of meat-based can be a cereal-based pet food. I've made this point loads of times with 4% beef bone meal in it. Okay, so not meat, bone meal. They call it meat and bone meal. So 4% bone meal from a render is that is the meat addition in their meat-based dry food. God forbid they actually compare to real meat-based dry food, because when that's done, we know that kibble loses badly. So in essence, what they've done is compared their well-made vegan dry food— sorry for using these sarky comments, I hate them— they've compared what they've made, what could be good quality vegan dry food. Please, none of this. Yeah, they could use good quality vitamins, good quality mineral supplements compared to the standard cereal-based pet food which uses crap, right? So they can make small improvements to their vegan dry food, hit the nutrient contents properly, and make an effort at actually providing the dog some optimum levels as opposed to minimum. So I don't doubt that they can make this vegan pet food as good as a cereal-based pet food, which is largely plant material with 4% bone meal in it. That's vegan pet food. I mean, they're comparing their products, which is— this is a classic and false available comparison. They're comparing plant-based pet food to plant-based pet food. There is almost a difference between hair and fur between them so that they do as well as what we consider level 1 of 10 pet foods. Cereal-based pet food is the absolute worst thing you can be feeding your pets. And they are saying our vegan pet food is as good as that stuff after a year. Oh, well done, lads. That's just fantastic. I mean, what a success. But they use the word meat-based and they don't give you the ingredients of the meat-based. They don't list that. So that's a massive problem. So your control population, we don't get to know what they were eating. I mean, that's a huge thing. And what they tell us later on, that huge—

no, no, there weren't even a control population. It was a meat-based diet.

Correct.

It was a meat-based diet before, and then they've just taken this Yeah, we've not got a concurrent running control.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, please don't say it's a control.

Yeah, so it throws into the scene—

no controls is fundamental.

Yeah, they throw out this word omnivore because they've got to get the word omnivore in that, because if that's true, if you're an omnivore, well then 4% bone meal, sure, that's a meat-based diet, because if you're an omnivore, it doesn't matter if you eat 90% meat and 10% veg, okay, or maybe largely plant matter and a tiny bit of meat now and again, which we like say your black bears, 20% animal matter. So like You know, it does matter whereabouts on this scale of an omnivore. To suggest that an omnivore's diet is largely plant material and 4% bone meal is idiotic. And if you call that a meat-based diet, you've got massive nutritional problems going around your little head. So, yeah, the meat-based diet. Brian, what was your next one?

So, well, we've covered so many just in that one rant. We keep going. I think, you know, from a point of view of Then the interesting bits about, you know, there is no control. They certainly don't bring in a lot of the markers that we would normally look at, which is, you know, what are going on with the ages within those dogs, what's happening within— so that's the glycation end products, the inflammatory markers, all of that. It just started to get into a little bit of 12 months. Is that sustaining life for a whole year? There's, there's levels. So there's another thing of what your plasma levels are, but then actually your tissues act as a resource. Your body effectively will mobilize stuff out of your tissues. You know, many people will end up with muscular weakness, muscle mass loss, you know, reduction in their hemoglobin levels. If they're on long-term plant-based diets purely and simply because of that amino acid mix eventually gets drawn out of the reservoirs and then ultimately they start to then become deficient. But that can take years.

Years. You can store enough B12 for 5 years. So like, yeah, I mean, it is just— it's like to be B12 deficient takes a SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, eating the B12 or some other disease that I don't know about. But to be nutritionally deficient in B12 when you just have the tiniest bit of meat in your diet is almost unheard of. It's very, very difficult. So this— so what Bren is saying is that you store a lot of different types of vitamins and minerals in your body. So if you're just testing the blood all the time, well, your liver will say you need more copper, take it. You need more copper, take it. So that you test this after a year means nothing. And then they just tested vitamins and amino acids. They didn't test minerals. I mean, if you tested the vitamins and amino acid profile of smokers versus nonsmokers after a year, do you think they'd be vastly different of vitamins or obese people? So if you measure the blood concentrations of vitamins and bloody— and amino acids in obese people, do you think they'd be vastly different? Probably not. And so does that mean obesity is a healthy state to be in? Absolutely not. It's a disease state. So these are just things that they've picked out and, as Brian said, left out the critical bits that we know would have been— oh, that's a little bit telling. Yeah.

Oh shit, Fiona Murray rightly says that 60% of the dogs had urine crystals, which is pathology, and yet they, they, the, the authors— thank you very much, authors— were saying that the dogs were healthy. They also said that something like 20% were obese, and yet they were healthy. Sorry, inverted commas. Okay, and, and if you look at the detail, 20% had, uh, uh, heart markers which indicated damage to the heart tissue, 20% of the 15 dogs.

Is that— do you want this bringing in at this point?

No, not yet, that's for later.

Oh, he's saving it, he's saving the big one. Oh, it's a goodie. Hold, hold. Yeah, in relation to that, in relation to crystals, listen to these stats. Now these are dogs, these are fed complete dry food, don't forget, so they should be really healthy. We identified crystals in the urine from 60% of the dogs, 9 out of 15 Uh, and so, and they could— and a lot of them continued on, and that was it. And they're just, um, they didn't mention where the crystals are coming from or what point at the end who had crystals or whatnot. Like, that sort of vaguely is like, oh, they just have crystals in their urine. Totally normal. Mother Nature designed these guys to get absolutely excruciating stones in this young age, median age of 4. Crystals in your bladder? Why? With your urine? It's staggering that that stuff goes into the paper and it's like, so that was fine, you know. Um, oh my God, it was— yeah, that was a big one. That was one of my big ones, actually.

Um, I've got another big one here. Yeah, uh, the Wiggle biscuits. The, the dogs were fed the kind kibble. Yeah, i.e., the kibble. So, so number one, it all came from one batch, so it means that after a year, that's probably wasn't quite as shiny and new and, and fresh and brimming with fresh vitamins and what have you. Okay, we'll talk about vitamins in a minute. Okay, so, uh, so there was that and wiggle biscuits, which is a significant part, especially for smaller dogs. They didn't even mention the, uh, the food, the nutrient content, the nutrient— that's the nutrient profile, okay, for the food. Yeah, the main part of the diet, but not the things. So they missed out an entire section of that which the dogs were eating.

Yeah, and these dogs weren't living in a cage in a laboratory. These dogs were house pets, and as house pets pick up bits and bobs, they go foraging, particularly if they're vegan, you know. So it's like, are you going to control how much cat poo did that dog eat just there, you know? How much grass, how much berries? How much— when did your, you know, your mother-in-law come along and give them some sausages, you know? Was any of this controlled? That's why these These studies are like bottom-tier science. This is like a— this is essentially the same as the other vegetarian diet, which was a survey of 100 vegan-fed dogs. And so like, this is like the bottom level. This is like something that will be an indicator for need of a new study of something else. It'd be like the setup for a bigger study. It wouldn't be evidence that we need to shift dogs to vegan to save the planet, which alone is a big, big hurdle.

So I think— rewind. Rewind, come on. You can't just do that throwaway, you know, vegan to save the planet. It has to be mentioned. Nick, you've got to jump on that one right there.

Yeah, okay. There are two, there are two main arguments for feeding your dog a raw, a vegan diet. Number one is that the dog is going to be healthier and live longer. There are studies and studies and studies looking at, at humans, for example, and there is no evidence to say that vegan humans live any longer. When you take all the confounding factors, the fact that vegans tend not to drink as much as your average healthier lifestyle vegetarian or omnivore human being, and they tend to be much more careful about, you know, and they may go to the gym more and what have you. They're just more conscious of these things. So when you look, they don't— a vegan diet doesn't make humans live any longer. And I don't think it would make dogs live in fact on the country. The other thing is, um, uh, hang on, what was I gonna say? Oh, is it gonna save the planet? No, it's not gonna save the planet because most vegan food comes from monocultures, monocultures of wheat and corn and, um, soy, soy, which is—

they have to burn down chemical Amazon rainforests to use the soy. So save the environment.

And, and in the States, 7 billion creatures every single year die in order to produce just the, the arable crops. Okay, that's a very vague figure, but it might be 4 billion and it might be 9 billion, but it's in the bees, it's in the billions.

So, so the idea that you're giving your dog a vegan diet in order to save animals made in the US, the planet, packed as a big plastic box flown from the US to your doorstep in the UK and you're saving the planet? Give me a break. What they do with the cattle stuff—

Can I just say, this study was done in California.

Let's just say so.

They were, you know, it was low food miles for the study in California.

Yeah. Like, I just think that the cattle stuff— look, the cattle thing, we've gone through it a few times. And guys, if you're under any illusions that cattle are the problem for greenhouse gases, you're not reading the right stuff. And read The Omnivore's Dilemma and and the Great Vegan Con and a few other bits and pieces. Like, yeah, yeah, great book. So like, there's lots— the carbon thing was what actually pushed me eventually to make a proper leap at that a bit, maybe 10 years ago. I said, oh, that makes perfect sense. But you were looking at the carbon production from a CAFO-reared cow that's fed wheat and corn. And that is one carbon energy hungry beast because you're feeding them wheat and corn and they're belching and farting all sorts because it's a backfiring engine because cows don't eat wheat and corn. So we know this. But when you look at grass-fed cattle, what they take out of the equation is the fact that cattle eat grass and then poo it out into the soil, which builds the soil, which sequesters carbon. So they are carbon sequestering while they're farting at the same time. And then you get to eat the cow, which is incredibly energy dense. So when you talk about the nutrient content of plants and whatnot, that pales in significance to good quality meat or liver or eggs, because you only have to eat a little bit of that to hit so many vitamins and minerals and fats. Whereas if you want to try to get that from plants, you have to eat a huge volume of plants which come with calories and carbohydrates. So we have this big con about carbon, which is nonsense. And you got to remember, guys, that they tried to tell you eggs were bad, and we now know that's nonsense. And still they go on about it, okay? You need as many eggs as you want. It was bullshit. They tried to tell you that about saturated fat. It was bullshit to sell more margarine. We now know that's not what the case is, although doctors still today are going on about saturated fat. They try to tell you a bit about cholesterol so they could sell you Statins and all the other crap. Statins, the world's most successful drug. Billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of this drug. Is it useful? Almost certainly not. It adds 1 in 40 days to prevent heart attacks, 1 in 80 days to prevent death. But then it's got these massive side effects. Listen to Malhotra on YouTube and he just destroys the statin industry. He's one of the UK's most prominent cardiologists. You have just— you've got every single drug. It's just dizzying. I'm just getting annoyed now, so I'm losing my mind.

Okay, I've got another one. I've got another one.

I would just like to say, Fiona, absolutely, in that section where it starts to go on about nutrients, it does talk about the allowable daily intake for glyphosate for humans, actually given as a, you know, that this is a good thing. Yeah, you can give glyphosate, they'll be fine.

That's the optimal level.

There's no liability going on in the States right now for glyphosate levels.

Prove it's bad for you. That's what you got to do. Good luck proving tiny bits of glyphosate are bad for you. You never will. You know, so, um, Nick, you, you had another one because, okay, my big one's coming next. I'm just getting annoyed.

Okay, uh, let's have a look.

Is that your 10 minutes? Do I have to start you now because then we finish on time?

Okay, I've got, I've got one.

Judy's page is getting really worried.

This is, okay, this is deception, guys. So, uh, uh, Brent, if you can put up my, uh, my slide, that'd be really, really good.

Let me just shift things.

Can we make that big so that we can—

yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just hide our videos for a moment so it's just you, Nick, with your wonderful slide.

Quite right, a bit of quality.

We can— no, in fact, actually, I'm going to take you off so everybody can see it and they can hear you.

Okay, uh, can we take the banner off because we need to be able to see the bottom of the slide, please? Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, guys, okay, so really simply speaking, you don't even need to know anything about cardiology, you don't need to know anything even about vegan food, you don't need to know anything about anything. You just need to be able to read. So at the top we've got these two things which look like they are supposed to be talking about cardiac troponin and NT-proBNP. Okay, these are markers of happy or unhappy heart markers. Okay, and then when you read the Figure 1, it says— it says— it doesn't say anything about cardiac troponin or NT-ProBNP, it talks about the body condition score. And in fact, the figure on the left is just about body condition score, nothing to do with cardiac troponin. Okay, take your time, have a look, but actually this is misinformation, and they would not get that through a peer-reviewed process. So, um, yeah, you know, if this— if we were in a court of law, they'd be thrown out immediately as presenting false evidence. There it is in front of you. So, um, that's one of my really big ones, and I like it because it's so simple. They say it's A, but actually it's B. They say it's day, but actually it's night.

And so it would be quite telling, Nick, then that if this paper goes through, based on what you're saying, people believe each paper, you have to sit in front of a court of people, but you don't, you sit in front of a few buddies. And, and the peer review process is in disarray. So what you're saying, Nick, is that if this does go through, this is just a massive error. And if it doesn't get corrected, you kind of start to smell a rat, really, when mistakes like this go through, don't you?

I've given them my email so that I can follow any changes that they make to the paper. So I'll keep you posted on this, guys. I'll keep you posted on any changes and what the final peer-reviewed paper looks like, because I think it's going to be great. Yeah, yeah, this is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Yeah, the person who's asking there, the statin study, it's Malhotra, M-A-L-H-O-T-R-A, is the cardiologist. He does YouTube videos, he's written the book on statins, and it's shocking. Anybody taking statins, everyone's mom and dad is on them because it's the most profitable drug next to opiates, which also destroyed the world. So check out the statins, but just let him go through that because I wouldn't have the biochemical knowledge to help you out with that. It's not really the podcast. Bren probably could. Bren, have you got the image of the pet food they used in this this study because they wouldn't tell us about the meat-based stuff. This is V-Dog. Okay, so this is the stuff. And if you can make it large because the bit I had to highlight was so small. That's the ingredient panel of Kind Kibble. Okay, so kind to the animals that weren't killed, but not so kind to the animal eating it. And you can see the ingredients there at the start. I mean, you know, you could go on, but this is low protein, high carbohydrate pet food. Okay. And all those ingredients that you can't pronounce, half of them, okay, they are all the vitamins and minerals they add into the mix on the belief that this George Jetson kind of mineral supplement pill is the way to health, even though the science on that is very conclusive that it is not working out for us, guys. You cannot vitamin mineral supplement your way out of a bad diet. You just can't do it. Like, you know, Calcium supplements are linked to cancer, natural calcium isn't. Vitamin A supplements don't improve cancer, natural vitamin A, if you're high in it, do. And you could do that with all— we could do that with all vitamins, minerals, you know, from your zinc oxides and that kind of thing. There is like some positives in that they use zinc sulfate in this, which is way better than zinc oxide, but these are the small little changes that would make this pet food slightly better than the cereal-based ganks that they probably compared it to. So that's all well and good, But this is a key quote from the paper, okay? They were talking, as we touched upon it earlier, but the absolute state of the dogs that they were using at the start of this study makes you question where the bloody hell did they get these dogs and what were these dogs eating? Some of them were obese, a lot of them had stones. Vitamin D levels were insufficient in 47% of the dogs going into the test. 7 of 15 were deficient in vitamin D going into this test. So all they have to do to show some sort of healthy, is eat food with a bit of vitamin D in it, ideally natural vitamin D. Theirs comes from a conical flask in the belief that that's a good idea and it's not. So this is— that's the first thing they say. And then they go on about folate and they just casually mention here the number of folate insufficient dogs decreased by 50% at endpoint. So not all of them decreased in being deficient in folate, first of all, on your vegan kibble, but lots of them went in deficient in folate. And this was, this is the quote, after switching from a meat-based diet to the vegan kibble without supplement use. So I'll read that again. Here the number of folate insufficient dogs decreased by 50% at endpoint after switching from a meat-based diet to vegan kibble without supplement use. When you look at the picture, I've just highlighted folic acid. They've added folic acid into the pet food. So they say like, oh, we didn't need to add in folic acid. And it's just like, If I was V-Dog and I wanted my product to look good, and I'm not saying they did this, I'm just saying if you wanted to be a little bit nefarious, you might say, guys, make sure you add a good bit of folic acid into that batch because we're going to be comparing it to folic deficient dogs. How do we know that wasn't the case? To say that you didn't supplement the dogs, you're feeding them supplemented food. And so it's just absolute nonsense that you would pick these nutrient deficient dogs that were already fed pretty much a vegetarian diet and put them on this vegan food full of vitamin and mineral supplements, and I have to admit some of them are better than the cereal-based gunk. Well, yeah, some of their nutrient levels improved, but some of them were still a bit deficient in folate. How is this being held up as this is going to be optimum health for your dog? This is like, we can just about get there on a few little measures. That's what they're telling you, and you're going to go off and And the vegan movement is growing not rapidly as they pretend it is. It really isn't growing rapidly because the number of vegans on the planet is still quite, very, quite low, 1% of the UK. So like, it's not, it's not nothing too worrying, but that this is held up as like, this is how to make the perfect dog. I mean, Jesus, I just thought that one reeked.

If you look at that slide again, Bren, if you just chuck that slide up again. Okay. So you know that within a— when you look at the label on a pet food, it goes from the most, uh, the, the highest inclusion to the lowest inclusion. Okay, and down there, look, if you go, uh, you can imagine how much L-ascorbile-2-poliphosphate is in there. Tiny, tiny, tiny amount. That's your vitamin C source. Okay, beyond that, in the microscopic, probably nanoscopic, you then start putting in celery, dried blueberries, dried— yeah, cranberries, dried beet, yucca.

Yeah, they're a chon of cranberry.

Yeah, dried lettuce, dried watercress, dried spinach, and rosemary extract. Maybe that's just so that it looks really nice on the label. Call me old-fashioned.

I mean, a cranberry weighs a pack of the dry food on the way out of the factory. I mean, look how— I mean, chemistry set would not find that. The reason lots of that stuff is in there, guys, is because meat. There's just— I made a list of them here so I remember them all. Meat is full of preformed vitamin A. Plants don't do that. Meat contains B12. Plants don't have any. D3, plants don't have any. K2, plants don't have any. Heme iron, which the body loves, doesn't like plant iron, absorbed 10 times, 5 to 10 times better. Taurine, carnitine, creatine. So studies after study after study show meat builds better lean muscle mass than plants. People will say, did you ever see a gorilla? He's a plant eater. So yeah, it's a gorilla, it's a herbivore. That's what they do. They convert that stuff because they house the right bacteria and in the right way build muscle from it. That's not what a meat eater does. He doesn't house that bacteria. The stuff just shoots through. So, uh, and then all the essential fatty acids— CLA, EPA, DHA— that only animals produce. And this is the microalgae. So these things come from meat. To suggest that meat is suddenly bad for you— people try to say that meat gives you cancer. Guys, listen to that first statement, that meat gives you cancer. We have been eating meat for eons, millions of years we've been eating meat, okay? Some meat. And we know that because we need B12, D3, K2, haem iron, taurine, carnitine, creatine, CLA, EPA, DHA. We need those nutrients, and you wouldn't have got them if you weren't eating meat. So we've definitely been eating meat, and only since 1970 has meat started causing you cancer. That's what you're saying. If you are saying meat causes you cancer, you're saying before 1970, 1960, before cancer kicked off in the human population, it was not meat and now it is meat. That's the sense you're making. It is everything about the whole push and anti-meat is anti-farmer, it's anti-small business, it's pro-big business, pro-industry. Bill Gates buying up half of America and owning Beyond Meat burgers and pushing it through the WHO, who are still pushing erroneous statements. The USDA are still pushing veg oil over butter. They're still saying to choose refined veg oil over butter. Like these, the nutritional message are pure garbage and it's pro-industry and it's not pro-little man. Believe me, it's pants. This thing reeks.

And within the ingredients, they're using canola. Oh, which Shanahan would be very, very, very angry.

In this product?

In this product, canola is the oil that they use.

Yeah.

Oh, that's the nail in the coffin. Sorry, guys. Um, guys, let's carry on, uh, on Patreon because we could go at this all night. Let's just— let's get another few, one or two little nails in the coffin.

I've got another doozy.

Have we got any positives? Come on, guys, we said this is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Come on, give us one positive to leave these guys on to say how wonderful you felt about this.

I think the packaging looks really pretty.

Ah, that was a good one.

That's what happened, they become necrotic and then fall off.

It's like, yeah, I actually think, uh, I actually think that this food could be better than cereal-based pet food with 4% bone meal in it. That's what I think. I think this could be better than a lot of pet foods that are sold in vets. There you go, 4% bone meal, except that the canola oil is gonna poison your dog because it's absolute refined crap. But then you compare that to the animal fat, in inverted commas, which is rendered mess that comes from, particularly if you're in the US where they're stewing up all sorts, you know, perhaps if the product contains animal fat and it's made in the UK or made in Europe, I'd go with cereal-based pet food with animal fat sprayed on top of it and chemically preserved and all the other crap that this product also is. But if it's made in the US, I wouldn't be reaching for my animal fat and thinking that the 10% animal fat inclusion and 4% bone meal is actually beneficial to the dog in any way, because these guys at least have good quality vitamin and mineral supplements out of it compared to zinc oxides, copper sulfate, all that kind of crap, you know. So they have made a tiny bit of an effort to go with the slightly better vitamins and minerals. That was my only plus I could possibly say about this product, but that doesn't sound like much.

Oh, well, bless.

So, Ben, what about you? What's your point? What can you take from it?

Your final words.

Hmm.

What can I take from this? The most frustrating read I've had.

No, no, what's a good bit? Good bit. What are your good bits?

I'm trying to find a good bit. I just really can't. I mean, you know, just the fact that it's a processed food.

Why?

I mean, what, to say that it's better than some of the other high-processed? Oh no, I can't.

No spelling mistakes. There was no spelling mistakes. That's it.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that was very impressive.

I'll tell you what, if you had a door that kept on swinging closed, you could use it to prop the door open.

That's a good idea. Yeah, that would be good.

Yeah, there's a positive. Yeah.

Oh, they went through a review with the university for ethics.

Oh, that's good.

They've not actually said what the ethics were, but they have quoted an ethics review right at the beginning. Did you look at that?

Do you know what you've just reminded me of? Do you know why they did this in the US? I was going to say this sounds like a joke. Yeah, the reason they did this in the US is because the British Veterinary Association wouldn't approve them to do it over here because the lady in charge— fine, is this who's in charge at the moment in the BVA?

RCVS.

RCVS. She was— it wasn't— didn't she say recently that, uh, it's you're not allowed to feed dogs? Uh, what was their quote? Feeding vegetarian dogs, and she said it was a welfare issue that you can't feed them vegetarian diets. So you wouldn't get an ethics committee over the line over here. So that's why you would do it over the US, where, you know, ethics only costs you a fraction of the price. Let's move on to Patreon and get to this pet crayon piece, which is really interesting.

Yeah, so if you want to join us on Patreon, it's patreon.com /rohrpetmedics. You'll see us in about an hour when we've recorded and posted it. We love to see all your comments tonight. Thank you so much for everybody who's been having their own mini rants. For all of those people in support of vegetarianism, absolutely, we love you still, and it's great for yourselves. Have another think about for your dogs. But certainly, you know, we love to see your comments and we love to hear from you all.

Okay, so, and I'm on holiday, guys, so I'm going to miss you for the next 3 sessions. I'm really sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, believe it or not, I'm away for 3 weeks with the family. The first long holiday I've had since 1990. Think about that, guys.

You go on a fair few holidays, Nick. It adds up.

Brady, you were probably wearing nappies in 1990, I would imagine.

Yeah, and actually Actually, talking of nappies, so all of you guys out there around the world, we're hiring paparazzi to find Nick and take corporate photos.

Yeah.

And there are going to be some doozies over the next 3 weeks.

Oh yeah.

Speedo Nick.

I will be, I'll be sending you some foreign correspondent material to play, chaps, or maybe I'll put it on Patreon or something. But so I'm not going to disappear. I will be thinking of you and hugs to everybody. See you in April.

Yes, cool. Very good. All right, brilliant. Enjoyed that. Toodle-oo all.