Dr. Conor Brady, Nick, and Brenda answer raw feeding questions live. They discuss fluorescent green dye found in some raw meat, whether dogs get depression, the best way to give probiotics, and diet for dogs with cancer: high fat, moderate protein, low carbs.
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Brady's still marketing.
Hello everybody, I am— so gentlemen, good evening. It's Q&A. We are Raw Pet Medics and we're delighted to see you. I wasn't here last week because I was on holiday. We got absolutely cooked for about 5 days and then we had drizzle and wind, which is not much fun. Wind of the meteorological variety, not of the gastrointestinal variety, I hasten to add. And so we got either cooked or we got drizzled and rained upon and wind, the wind, you wouldn't believe it. We had to tie the tent to the car to stop it flying away. But all good. And so I'm doing my surfer chic today. You guys are in your shirts looking very cool. But I thought, right, I'm just going to carry on the Cornwall cool surfer dude thing. Any news, you guys?
Very little.
I'm doing my results for my seaweed competition and at a horrible last moment I realised I think I might be confused on one of the seaweeds. So I was about to announce it one way That would have been Jane Rosser, but Heidi Dixon has thrown some chum in the water here, and now I'm a bit confused because I was thinking number 3 was— I'm going to go through them again, guys. I'll do them up online afterwards. I'll give you the names of each picture, each seaweed. But I did think number 3 was sea spaghetti myself, and then I googled Cordophyllum, which is one of the species that Jane Rosser came up with, and it also looks like the exact same seaweed but a different species. If there's two different types of this seaweed on Dune, because it just looks like long spaghetti and I won't be able to tell the difference. So I just need to have a think. And I'm so sorry for leaving it so late, but I didn't really see Heidi Dixon's message and it was incredibly accurate. Well, thanks everybody for playing. I will announce the winner after this. Give me a second to hit some Google searches and then I'll announce them.
Karen, I'm so glad to see you on here. And, you know, just support him, sort him out, will you?
Karen is a godsend, I'm telling you. I don't say thanks to her enough. She just keeps my whole life on track. And then it was like, are you sure you got to all the messages? I said, I haven't checked the messages in a while, but I think they're all done. Then it's like, oh no. So yes, I was in a bit of a panic, and then a couple of good right answers near the end. So look guys, let me sort it out. I'm terribly sorry, I'm terribly disorganized in that respect, but I will have it done by the end of the show. I'll go straight on to Facebook and I'll announce the names of the seaweeds and the winners. So very sorry about that. Let's change the subject. Bren, What have you been up to?
Quickly.
Moving on.
Yeah.
Well, that's my arty with pirates. She's arty. So therefore we— yeah, I know.
I love that joke.
We went all over the world. We drove past you on the day after the roaring hot day, just because it had cooled off down in Land's End. And we thought we'd go for a little tour around. But I didn't fancy visiting a family that had just been in a red-hot sweaty tent with sweaty dogs. So I went to the pub instead.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Not pretty and didn't smell too good either, but would have been nice to see you, but there we go.
Guys, you know, if you want to see Nick's report there, it is still up on Patreon there. Have a look at the video. Very much information about udders. So take a look on our Patreon. Okay, that's coming across the bottom down there somewhere. I'm going to get rid of the pirate. We don't need the pirate anymore.
You don't see much udders actually. Now that you say udders, you don't see many udders for sale from raw dog food suppliers. Who would have thought that'd be a thing? Udders, where do they go?
Yeah, good thought.
Connective tissue, and they're probably half of them, uh, um, don't forget they're not going to be full-on cows going in because anything over 3 years is pretty much then designated as, um, not fit for human consumption.
They eat dairy cows, don't they?
In cheap TSEs, they're not allowed to process them in the same way anymore.
No way.
Not in the UK. So I'm sure everywhere else it just goes into a big mincer and off like that. But yeah, everything's under 3, isn't it? So there's not as much udder material on there.
Okay. It would have been a cool little treat, like little udder sausage. Udderly gorgeous, someone's going to be naming that.
Speaking of—
Oh, Jane, you can't. No, look, come on. I've got to shoot.
That's another story.
Lads, stop, that's enough, don't go down that road, we've just started. I saw a very worrying picture there from a raw dog food group and somebody had posted up, what's all this green dye on my food, on my raw, on my meat, on my beef raw dog food? Very, very, very, very, very reasonably priced beef and everybody wants to think that their raw dog food supplier has managed to beat the market price you know, cheaper than Tesco's, and just because he buys more than Tesco's. So like, you know, people want to buy, spend a pound a kilo on beef, and there was green dye all through it, fluorescent green dye. And guys, for those of you that don't know, because not many people did, but when you're in the meat industry, you know well what that is. That is to contaminate the meat so humans don't eat it. And it would be something you don't want to eat. They're not allowed to use proper poison anymore. They used to use creosote, which is the stuff they tar telegraph poles with. but it's so carcinogenic that you're not allowed to do that anymore. So they don't sell that for painting fences anymore. Our shop used to sell it. But, so yeah, so that green dye, that's what it was. And so everybody had commented, there was a few comments that said, yeah, that's green dye. But that just goes to show that supplier had been handling beef that was not fit for human consumption. Where did they get it? Because it didn't come from a factory. No factory would ever let that out the door because they'd be slaughtered, I was going to say. So that means that And I'm not— I don't mean to put— I don't have to name any names of these companies because the image is up online and the company's name was mentioned, but that beef had to come from somewhere else. So when I was a raw dog food producer, I used to have people come on to me with like, you know, 6 or 8 dead deer in the back of his van, and he'd say, do you want some dead deer? I'm like, what? You know, where did you get them? And they just shoot them off the mountains and bring them down to you, but they bypass that veterinary inspection, weaken the cold chain hassle, kind of doubles the price of the meat for you. And so it's very tempting to take in venison, particularly because they're virtually vermin here in Ireland. There's no hunting of any real magnitude. It's not managed like Scotland, who have a bit of an industry over. So, um, the temptation is there. So I just thought I'd pass it on. If you see fluorescent green dye on your meat, that's not what tripe and beef meat's supposed to look like. And I would report, report, report that company, because that is God knows what state that cow was— dead, diseased, dying, disabled— coming into them. You know, that's how nasty stuff happens. And, uh, you shouldn't let companies away with stuff like that because they ruin it for the rest of us.
Okay, I'm going to jump in with the first question. Chantal has asked a question and it's really, really interesting question. Uh, gutted I forgot to ask my question in— to put— to get my question in. I was going to ask about dogs getting depression. I groom a dog whose parents, parents have split and he's just not been the same since, so not as happy as he used to be. They share him. I wondered dogs do get depression. I think there's about 20 answers to that, and I'm going to start by saying I once treated a cat homeopathically. This cat was regurgitating probably about 3 or 4 times a week, and so we treated using Nux vomica and various other more inspired remedies than Nux vomica, and the cat was about 80% better. The owner rang me a couple of years later because one of the other cats was, was ill, and I said, oh, how was the first cat with vomiting? And she said, oh, he stopped completely. And I said, oh my God, how did you do that? And she said, I divorced my husband. And that— so that completely— so that's a really good example. I could give you 10 others, uh, to say, Chantal, I think you're absolutely on to things. Do dogs get depression? Yes, they do. They've got a nervous system, they've got, they've got a thought process, they can, they can rationalize these things when people are fighting and angry and unhappy and what they can— they can soak up that. I am absolutely convinced of that. And, um, so that would be my opening, uh, um, gambit there. Have you guys got any thoughts on depression before we start talking about what you do? What you do?
Was that the Rachel Meadows that you just read the question out for? There's people going nuts on the comments, getting worried about divorces suddenly happening as I sat right next to them.
Ah, I thought she was a behaviourist and she wanted to answer the question legitimately. Rachel Meadows would love to answer this question. If there is any behaviourists and they are there and they want to comment, please, we'd appreciate your insight. What about you, Brand? What do you think?
Oh no, no, you go, Conor, because I've got so many other questions we've got to get through. We're not all going to have a comment and everything.
I think Nick probably started that spot on there. Like, you know, there really could be 20 answers to this question, and if you're going to get into the whole behavior side of things, it's like, you know, depression and trying to categorize that. And, but you definitely see dogs feeling down in the dumps when things happen. Some dogs, if you they could be living with their life partner dog in the house and the dog dies and you wouldn't see much of a difference in the dog. Other dogs, it markedly affects them. You hear it all the time. IBS kicks in, all sorts of stuff, but just down in the dumps, just missing their partner. So I definitely think that goes on. I think it happens in loads of animal societies. We know elephants mourn their dead and that kind of stuff. And so I think it definitely goes on, but a huge amount of debate goes on in all that world about what that actually means and why it's happening happening and how much of it is a reflection of what the owner is feeling and that kind of stuff, because the pets absorb any stress in the house. So yeah, the divorce thing, that's a classic. We— I've heard in training days where the dog would wee on the bed, they'd wee on the— on the— on where the stress was happening, you know. And it's like, anyway, like, so I believe there's a whole lot in that for sure. I totally believe in it. And I, I think they probably do suffer a bit of that. I think they suffer most emotions that we get. So most of them, not all of them, but yeah. So depression, I totally believe in this, and I would say it's for the same reasons we get it. And yeah, I totally believe in this, but that's about all.
I think you're right there. So just because it sounds like Brenda's got a list as long as your arm of questions, so just, I'd see a homeopathic vet. That's for me, that would be the quickest way because modern medicine does not do emotions. Yeah, they can suppress them, they can zonk your dog out and what have you, but they will not treat at the level of the emotional energy. And so I think seeing a homeopathic vet, if you go to the bahvs.com, British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons, there's a list there of vets. B-A-H-V-S. Or nowadays you can just do a Google on homeopathic vet. So off you go. That's really, really good. Brent, you've got some questions for us.
Yeah. Okay. One from Jane. Conor, in On your fantastic podcast on behavior, mentioned that there should be given, the probiotics should be given without adding to food, in a liquid medium. I've heard this once before. Is it true for all probiotics? Nick, I think you should go first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just before I do that, I'd just like to say very, very big thank you to all our Patreon. We have just increased our Patreon supporters enormously. So thank you very much, guys. I'm not sure what we did. Maybe did somebody change it? Aftershave or something?
It was my seaweed competition.
My seaweed competition. Yeah, everybody loves seaweed. Yeah, so just to say thank you, and you can find us on, what is it, patreon.com/rawpetmedics.
That's the one.
Okay, so thanks a lot. So that gets me into Pete's good books as well. Pete, that was me. So There we go. So I always give probiotics where possible on an empty stomach because an empty stomach has less acid. Yeah, when you get excited about food, you produce acid, and acid is there to kill bacteria. Now, if you're using a spore form, it's going to be less affected by acid, but why go there when you can avoid it? So I tend to give Probiotics on an empty stomach. When people say, oh, when do I give it? It's like whenever, you know, 2 hours away from food, whenever you like, just before bed if you fancy. So I think it's as simple as that. I like simple answers, and that's where I would go with that. Conor, you got anything to add to that one?
Exactly, it's the dog's very low stomach acidity. Ours is about pH 2, let's say, when it's getting going. Dogs would be pH 1, let's say, and round in there. But that's a 10-fold decrease, you know, so it's a huge difference. And it's a battery acid, so life like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium will get zapped in that. So you're not— you don't want to throw the troops into the lava. So studies show when you put them in liquid form, they get through better because the stomach doesn't hold on to liquids, it only holds on to solids and processes them. So it sees the liquids like shoot through, and you go straight through the duodenum where you get a big release of life, up to 20 times the release of life they reckon when it's done in liquid form between between meals. So I agree with that. I think the soil probiotics, a lot of them are yeast-based, and yeast are encapsulated in cellulose, and they're very difficult to digest, and we don't have any— they're pretty, pretty— they're just bulletproof, and they don't get digested by our body because we don't produce cellulase. So I think they probably get through to a degree, and then they hang around for a few weeks and they head off. I wouldn't— but like Nick said, why would you risk it with any of them when you would just give it in liquid form? I like a little bit of full-fat probiotic yogurt, a bit of water, make it liquidy, and then I put the probiotic in. So just even better. Or just a bit of broth or anything, whatever you have handy, whatever makes him drink it, uh, is the best way to get through. So yeah, easy peasy.
Yeah, definitely, uh, a last thing at night, um, probiotic liquid, um, sort of supper, you know, good, um, 2 to 3 hours after food. Uh, I would absolutely agree with that, um, or definitely before food and give them a break for half an hour if you're going to give it first thing in the morning. But just, yeah, just look at that and look at sporulated. That's the whole point of the sporulated probiotics is to allow them to get through, give the handshake of the right acidity as they go through into the small intestine. They hatch out of the spore that's been protecting them and go for it. Absolutely agree with Nick. We've used things like Phytospore in the past for that, and that's the point of going for those sporulated ones. Rather than the live probiotics that Conor, I know you love with your Bio Cults and stuff like that. Conor, you had some really good questions that you were popping up on our WhatsApp group.
Yeah, Nick's got a question written all over his face though. What is it, Nick?
No, no, no, I'm just looking forward to my dinner, that's all.
Okay, he's already going.
Come on, I've just got a bit of wind Dr.
Conor Brady, that's what it is, that's all it is. Yeah, you get to that age, you don't even have to apologize, Nick, we're grand, it happens. So listen, I was doing a nice 2-3 day seminar there over the weekend on feeding dogs, right, the role of carbs and insulin and cancer and feeding the dog if you have a dog with cancer. Very learned people on there, let me tell you. And so one thing came up where, you know, it's not going to be much of a revelation for most of us on here, but you know, when you have this dog with cancer, I'd be recommending real food. And a couple, two top questions came up. The first one was, can you give real food to dogs with cancer? Can you give raw food to dogs with cancer? And I would say like, outside of the terror times, like let's say he's annihilated and he's, you know, going through terrible chemo and he's very sick and you're worried and concerned, don't be worried about that. If you want to slightly cook the food or buy a slightly cooked food product, that's fine as long as it keeps within the rules of take it easy with the carbs, no carbs, because carbs are going to be the problem. So don't worry about that then if that's going to keep you happy and your vet. But outside of that, I would say it's paramount that your dog gets fresh food. And the thing is, when you compare the two products, you don't really have a choice because this product here is also recalled heavily for salmonella and contains mycotoxins and terrible fats and chemical preservatives and napalm, the good for, and all the other things that are going to aggravate cancer. So it's not like you have a huge variety of options. Fresh food is vital for people with cancer. You just need to take care, choose good quality raw dog foods. As we just mentioned at the start, RawSafe is going to come online soon, and that's going to be even better for— make it even easier for us to do that. So I think that is— that's the first. And the second thing that came up, if I could— the second thing was everybody asked— I'm going to ask you guys this— everybody asked So the diet that you would recommend for a dog with cancer, and I'm simplifying greatly here, please nobody act on this, but it'd be a higher fat, moderate protein, more adequate protein, and virtually zero carbohydrates. Okay, a bit of veg, dark greens, you get a bit of carbs in there, not a lot, no starchy stuff, okay, nothing that punches the insulin. So quite higher fat, bit of protein, and when you convert that to energy, you get way more fat from the energy, so it ends up being this ratio of 25-70%, who cares, quite fatty. Okay, so quite like a fatty beef mince kind of level of fat in the diet. And everybody said, but won't that blow out the dog's gut flora? And I was like, this isn't, this isn't that unusual a diet. I'm just saying cut out the carbs completely. So guys, have you heard of this thing about blowing out a gut flora? And where would that be coming from? What is that?
Yeah, so can I, can I go in for that? There are two parts to that. So the very first one about this whole thing we've got to come off raw if they're on chemotherapy or if they're on steroid dosing. So we've got a question on the Facebook post with regards to my dog's been on high-dose steroids with IMTP, so immune-mediated thrombocytopenia, a problem with attacking its own platelets, you know, oh my God, do I have to cut out this risk? And I absolutely say, look, if you're going to be giving, if they're going to be giving drugs which are going to knock your immune system so far out of kilter that they're worried about bacteria they may come into contact with. They should be telling you to isolate your dog in the home. They should be telling you to kill off all of the gut bacteria that that dog has because there's shed loads in there. No tennis balls, no playing in the garden, no possibly scavenging anything from the head. Definitely nothing out of your fridge, guys. Okay. Because that was one of the biggest sources of inappropriate bacteria is waste human food, even that hummus. Okay. And just really do not give anything like that to your dogs. That's just craziness. Realistically, in the veterinary world, there should be nobody that is using that level of chemotherapeutics to knock out your dog's immune system to that extent that you cannot feed responsible raw. Now, I'm not talking about stuff that's been rotting on your fridge shelf or rotting on the local store shelf. Conor, I know you're smiling, but I know you love that stuff. With yellow label, but you're not going to be feeding that in those circumstances. But guys, there's some great companies out there producing good food that is properly sourced and produced and delivered to your door or into stores locally for you. I would not be worrying. In fact, actually, for their own health, I would be saying move them to raw to improve their nutrition. The second thing about their blowing out their gut flora, you know, high fats, if they're not used to it. I've heard it before. You know, they're sort of talking about, well, they're going to get the energy out. There's maybe a bigger move through of gut flora. There's not enough fiber within the diets. And if you go back to our fiber discussion back a few months back now, I think it was, you know, we talked about that's really the feeding the gut flora. We're not feeding animal fibers within those diets. We're just reducing it when you're increasing the energy in the fats. There are bacteria out there that can cope with that. There may be a change in gut flora, but, you know, is that a bad thing? Is that actually more towards what we should be aiming for? You know, these people are comparing gut flora to omnivores, to us, to horses. Herbivores, that's not necessarily the right way to be going. There was a bit where I was looking at a really good varied gut flora would be the ideal because it makes them adapt to anything that they may get passing their lips and going into their gut. It may give better resilience, but actually, the more I looked at different gut floras in different species, you wonder whether that is the way that we should be. Is that actually because we've contaminated their diets that we've corrupted their gut flora and made them less resilient because there's so much variety in there? So I think there's still questions to be answered. I think we're very much at the novel end of gut flora understanding. Nick, go for it.
There's a couple of things that I just want to chip in there. Guys, I like what you're saying there, Bren. I would just say that this, this whole idea about the energy in food needs to be— we need to be really clear about that. If you've got a pound of pure sirloin steak and you've got half a pound of pure dripping, okay, just to be extremes. Yeah. So you got a pound of, a pound of pure, pure protein, more or less, and you got a pound of pure fat. More or less, the amount of energy that you get from those two things, if you burn those two things, the amount of energy you would get would be about the same. So when we're saying this diet is a high-fat diet, it isn't that there's lots and lots of fat in the bowl. There is more fat than you would have normally in a diet because otherwise the dog's probably going to put on weight or get a bit squitty or something. It's just going to be increased so that the amount of energy from fat is slightly more than the energy from protein. Okay. And it's about a 2 to 1 ratio. That's the first thing. If that's, if that's not clear, guys, please do say, because I think then therefore we need to do a show on metabolic energy and doing those conversions things. It's really easy once you get your head around it. The second thing to say was blowing out the gut. How do you blow out the gut? Does that mean that if a lion eats a zebra, they're going to blow out their gut? You know, I think Mother Nature is a whole lot more clever than that. I think if you're feeding anything vaguely resembling a good, responsible raw food diet, you're not going to blow— what does that even mean, blow out the gut?
You know, I think it's about reducing numbers of species within the gut. And there was a question came up on the Facebook feed with regards to a puppy that had had chronic diarrhea having been fed an inappropriate diet, and they're trying to resolve its chronic diarrhea even though— and wanted to know about moving it back onto raw. Is it safe to move it onto raw? Because when they've done the the gut flora checks, there's literally loads of Shigella, which is really unusual in those sense. And I think Firmicutes, something like that, that was in that. I can't see the post right now. And that is all that they were really seeing. And so I'm guessing that, you know, in those cases, those are the ones where I would be saying it's not so much blown out as being corrupted by an overgrowth of inappropriate bacteria. Those are cases where I would actually use the Atrantil we talked about in previous ones to really reduce those overgrowths before even attempting to put in probiotics, because otherwise you're just peeing in the proverbial wind because there's just nowhere for you to seed out those new probiotics.
Nick is holding up Atrantil there, so tell me, what's Atrantil do?
This is Atrantil. It basically helps to to rebalance. If you want it really simply, it kind of kills— it, it reduces the bad guys and encourages the good guys.
Okay, there's 3 herbs in there, isn't there, Nick? It should just read them out. It's horse chestnut.
It is quebracho, which is heartwood extract. There is horse chestnut, uh, in there, and there's peppermint leaf. So really simple, but it's just, it just gives the bad guys a hard time and encourages the good guys.
I love it. God, that's such, that's so cool. Horse chestnut.
Atrantil.
If you are asking about that, I think Atrantil is actually made in America, so I would be really surprised if you can't get it in Canada. I think it's something that we tend to import over here, but it's used for a lot of people. With intransigent irritable bowels, you know, and especially if they've got methano bacteria. So if their irritable bowel is giving them everything from constipation all the way through to diarrhea, excessive gurgling and gas and bloating, and bloating can be a really—
Oh, I love that. I'm going to take that tip and pass it off as my own to numerous clients. I want to add two bits So I just want to come back to what Nick was saying about the fat and protein, the way I explained it to the people for the cancer diet, because Nick's right, people think it's like a really high fat diet. It's like, that's not what we mean. Fatty beef mince in the shops has these percentages on it. 5, less than 5% is lean, is classified as very lean. You're not allowed to call it lean and have 10% fat, for example. So there's certain rules to the words you use on it. But the cheapest fatty beef mince you can sell for humans in the shops in Europe is about 26% fat. That's high VL, so it's like high visible, high visible, what was the, um, anyway, what the terms are, about 26% fat. So when they say 26% fat, there's only about maybe 16, 18 grams of protein. So there's 26 grams of fat and there's about 18, 20 grams of protein. So there's not as much protein as fat and the rest is water. Okay, so it's a bit more fat than protein in the fattiest beef mince you can sell for humans. Now dog beef minces begin after that, let me tell you. But anyway, so when that's just on a pound for pound basis, but when you burn that for energy, fat gives you 2.5 times more the kick than the protein. So suddenly your fat ratio goes way up here, the protein is down here. So you end up getting a lot of your energy from fat. That's what this keto kind of buzz is focused on. But really when you're looking at it, it's nearly, they're nearly the same amount gram for gram in the food. So that might put your mind at ease about, the fatty content, like Nick says, we can come back to that. Here's another question off the back of it. People are worried that, yeah, when your immune system is down, you're going to be more susceptible to the life in raw dog food. Of course, there's nasty life in dry food, but let's say raw dog food. What role does the immune system play in all this? When I would have thought acidity, a stable gut flora, which is your first line of defense to keep the— is that not like, why would you jump to a chemically preserved food that eliminates or annihilates your gut flora, which is your first line of defense. Is that not what protects your immune system from having to get involved? Is your immune system constantly involved in keeping pathogens at bay, or is it only when defenses are rattled?
Bren, could you kill Mrs. Doubtfire?
She, uh, I would love to. Don't worry, no, it is, it is a YouTube phenomenon, and I don't have access to that at the moment, but somebody will just—
okay, I'm sure.
Sorry guys, it's not us, and we don't— we're not happy with that at all.
No, we're not. So, but fortunately, most of the Facebook guys are just ignoring that because they won't see that comment. So, yeah, from the point of view of the immune system, I loved Ansah's view to this of putting really good loads of friendlies in there. And let's face it, the majority of bacteria that are out there, we're in a symbiotic relationship with, where we are constantly, you know, using what they produce for us and we benefit from them. So having lots of friendly bacteria out there on the earth, in carcass material that you're eating, in whatever, in itself is actually the pre-pre-defense, the pre-hitting that stomach acid, because it's already outcompeting those horrible pathogens that could cause a problem. And the longer those ferment in carcass material, ants has found, the better it made their food. The safer it made their food is probably the better way to put it. When we come to, you know, what's going on using antacids in the stomach, just in cats and dogs, just doesn't work. I mean, there's so many systematic reviews of the drugs that you know, try and kill off stomach acid in dogs and cats that have just turned around and gone, what are you using them for? It's just not going to be effective. And let's face it, reflux, the GERD problems, so gastroesophageal reflux disease, is actually more down to inflammatory processes going on in the gut than it is ever about the acid that you're producing. You know, you can try and kill the acid, but if you're still refluxing, it's because you've got a chronic gut. Issue. So yeah, just come away from thinking that stomach acid needs to be controlled to effectively be that massive area of protection for the carnivore's gut. And I think having a stable gut flora that is already populated is also a big defense, pre-defense, before you're even touching on the immune so, you know, we've got those 3 things that I would definitely say. Nick, for you, what's the other bits that you would add in there?
Oh, well, sorry, I'm looking at the comments here, so I haven't been listening to you for the last 2 minutes. It's been quite pleasant, actually.
I would have thought that the immune system is used less. I mean, you can take— your immune system is so huge, so expansive, that you can try and repress to some degree, and we all do it, various bits and bobs, but it still functions. And I would have thought a stable gut flora is known to release compounds that outcompete all the baddies because they're like friendly parasites. They just take— they say, this is our host, and they're not going to let gut infections and stuff come in too easy because they want the host producing food for them and all being well. So they produce compounds that keep the baddies at bay. But I just thought it was interesting that suddenly with— I think there's a big push online bit of conspiracy theory, I believe they push this one as a hot— to highlight how dirty real food is or can be, and you're best off serving this chemically preserved, hazardous microbiology-containing dry food product. And so it's just a ridiculous— I think it's a way to kind of highlight you can feed that food, but when the chips are down, you better jump to a real clean product, you know. And it's like, I think that's— I feel that's what's behind it, you know. I agree.
Just jumping back into that, I think if you're really worried about bacteria— I saw a really great quote the other day, actually. If you've got a problem with bacteria, then this planet is probably not for you, just by the way. But which I thought was really good. But I think the whole raw food for chemo dogs or immunosuppressed, you know, strongly immunosuppressed, if they're really, really desperately immunosuppressed, then your vet or your specialist, your oncologist, they're going to tell you be really careful about X, Y, and Z. Most regimes won't get you there, and therefore you should be okay. If, if your vet says to you, don't take your dog for a walk in the park because I don't want any soil on your dog's feet going into their mouth, then that's the time when you might consider not feeding raw food. If you're not getting that kind of information, and let's say I'm being facetious here, but that's really what I'm saying is that in the real world, dogs live in a fairly dirty environment and they are absolutely fine. And your average raw food, good quality raw food, is going to be 20 times more clean, less pathogens than walking to the park and then coming home and licking your feet. So there's the context, that for me.
Yeah, how would you give Tarantino?
I know, I thought this was brilliant, but actually She just went, I'm really sorry, stupid spell check. It was a Trantil.
They're in capsules, you just put them in, follow the instructions. The instructions are for 70 kilo human, and you'll just like, just mark it down. If it were me, I wouldn't just go and buy some Trantil and whack it in the dog. I would talk to a raw feeding or a herb vet and be guided. Yeah, yeah, in the States, in Canada, in the UK, in Australia, wherever it might be. That's what— that's a good idea.
Somebody's saying with Quinton, or is that—
oh, that's good. Lynn Hobbs is saying that she uses slippery elm for reflux. Yeah, like, I actually find that German chamomile is fantastic for reflux. It's actually mentioned in a few of the studies. I'd be interested to see if slippery elm is in there as well, but I think German chamomile is great for reflux, but like everybody's going to say, it's why does the dog have that issue? But German chamomile is the mother of the gut, they call it. It's fantastic for acid reflux. It really, really works. It's a— you'd swear it was just an elixir. It's really good. What other questions have you got, guys?
Oh, so we've got one about hormonal treatments and treatments of long-term incontinence. So, Nick, Your view on, is it a problem for dogs with long-term incontinence, so having been neutered, to have either propylene, okay, or a hormone in order to help that incontinence?
Okay, great question. Can I jump into this? Yeah. Okay, so my thought would be, so this is something, the statistic is something like 15% of bitches who are spayed will become incontinent either within days or within years and years and years when they get older. They will get a bit leaky and classically they will lie down, wake up in the morning, there'll be a little puddle there because there's been a little bit of pressure on the bladder and their bladder's been filling overnight. So that's the context. I wouldn't be going anywhere near propylene or incurin until I had done some acupuncture and some homeopathics. Causticum 200C can be very, very useful. There are numerous other remedies. Also, some bitches— and this is mainly bitches, not in the males, not unknown in males, but it is there— some bitches will only leak if they've had really excessive exercise. So sometimes you just need to just taper the exercise a wee bit, and that can help with those things. Also acupuncture. See your local acupuncture vet. That can be super, super, super useful, and I would really go there if I was going to go. If none of those are working, I don't have a problem with long-term propylene. I think it's a relatively benign— technically they say it will make you, some dogs, aggressive. I have never seen an aggressive dog on propylene. And in Curin, I will only use if the propylene and nothing else is working, because I don't like mucking about with synthetic hormone.
You had some really interesting stuff on hormones and sort of contaminants of the water courses and environment.
I did actually, that was a doozy because I wasn't going to be able to add that incontinence bit because that does come up, that incontinence thing now and again. It must be a right pain. So yeah, I was talking extolling the benefits of, you know, some various different types of seaweed you can use for when you've got cancer because it contains all these really potent anti-cancer chemicals. There's huge amount of studies behind it, which kind of annoys me, you know. You know, the science isn't there. How many studies do you need before somebody would recommend including something like this in somebody's life or diet? It's so potent, anti-tumor, anti-proliferation. Like, anyway, look, So I'm just winding them up a bit, and then I'm saying, look guys, you know, go down to the coast, you don't need to buy supplements from anybody, but if you had to buy them from me, and then you would go to the coast and just pick your own. Go, stay away from the marina, stay away from all that, go to a nice— and here's how to pick it, and aim for the brown ones because that's where all the Fucoxanthin is. And everybody just comes in, pop, pop, pop, no, not here, not on the west coast of the States, not on the west coast, not California. I was like, no, surely not. And I'm Googling as I talk to them, and sure enough, And yeah, the seaweed was one thing, but they had the isotopes from the Fukushima disaster had taken a hammering. And then straight away I go to my next item saying, what about mussels? And I said, oh no, our mussel industry, no. And then he goes, actually, we've got a big problem with the opiates that are being released by the sewers works. And it's like, what? So they have this, you know, everyone is aware of the opioid epidemic and the wean, and then into the sewers works, and that's being pumped out into the sea, of course. And that is now going to be a contaminant of their food chain as well. I just thought, my God, between the two of those things and then the outlets from the CAFOs, because they don't put the poo and stuff from the intensive hogs and cattle, they don't put that into anywhere, so it sits in swimming pools until eventually they just get rid of it or it leaks out or a big storm washes it out. It just sits there. Think how radioactive that is half use of antibiotics, poo. I mean, that would just be— you just dip your finger down, and so that leaks out. And so you can see in the Gulf of Mexico, there's big dead zones around the— so yeah, I just thought, wow, you can't even pick your seaweed from your own seashore. We don't know how lucky we have it over here in Ireland and Britain, how we've got— we've got seriously clean waters. And, you know, you kind of just expect that's what's going to happen. And even like this, they couldn't get fat because they didn't want to use the fat from the cave whales. Because they thought it was so contaminated and filthy that said, no, we're not going to buy that fat. Finding organic beef fat is hard. I was like, wow, what? You produce the most cows in the world and you can't get decent quality cow fat? I mean, my God, you know. So it was a real eye-opener. I didn't realize things were that bad.
But Conor, what's a CAFO?
A concentrated animal feed operation. So it's a way to rear animals in mass production. So just millions of cattle and stall-fed wheat and corn. It's a way to not feed them pesky grass and feed them wheat and corn. That's where most of our cereal, the majority of our cereal, is grown to feed these animals. Terrible environments, very sickly. Keep them on low-dose antibiotics to keep them alive for the 11 months until you can slaughter them. Mass slaughtering, you know. I think a chicken can be from clucking to a packet in less than 10 minutes. And like, it's just crazy stuff. And so when you talk about contamination of meat and salmonella, E. coli, that's where the stuff comes from. The rapid mass slaughtering and the spraying of the internal bits, that's where E. coli and salmonella come from. The internal digestive system of the animal is badly handled and it just sprays everywhere. And, you know, so it's not a good thing, these CAFOs. It's the worst way possible to raise animals. Dreadfully inhumane. The massive methane from the wheat and corn you're trying to feed a ruminant they don't want to eat that crap, but it grows them big and fat quickly. And so that's the main thing.
You know, it's the, the CAFO is, if you like, in Europe we'd call it battery chickens, battery, therefore pigs, pork and battery beef. Yeah. You cram them in, you feed them crap, you grow them quickly and you slaughter them before they die themselves. That's essentially what the CAFOs are all about. Really bad quality, contaminated hormones and and in the States, hormones and antibiotics. In this country, just not great quality.
Yeah, and they fatten quickly because of the inflammation that those feeds give them, you know. And that's, you know, isn't that the ultimately bad thing? Oh yeah, you know, so it just— yeah, we know that through all of those hormones from insulin and through the how they convert fats, uh, even the toxins on the aflatoxins on that corn feed you know, all of those things, they don't mind feeding substandard grain to those animals. It's not because, you know, it's, oh well, we can't use it for humans, we're going to use it for animals. At least it's not wasted. No, actually, there's a benefit to having a slightly moldy grain and it kills the animals quicker. Wow. So, you know, at the end of the day, yeah, we're not in for CAFOs. Lots of risk of contaminants. All of that, you know, if they just controlled those animals properly, all of that soil building that could be there. And, you know, Nick, you could tell I've been with Maudie and Charlie for the weekend. Yeah, all we were talking about is soil building. Oh, and this is a really good point. So for you, for those of you viewing, don't know Maudie and Charlie. Maudie's just a trike queen. She works with Conor and Nick as well, and she's just a brilliant lady for company. And we did some recording while I was down there and had lots of conversations. Her husband has an army background but is so into regenerative farming at the moment. I mean, it's just glorious to hear him, you know, talking about his experience And then all of the stuff that I think Nick's put him onto, he's off down little, you know, moleholes of information to try and cram into his brain. But he brought up a really, really interesting thing. So when they go out to Afghanistan or they're going out to the Gulf, what do they do? They, as soldiers who are highly trained, super fit, need 2 weeks to accommodate to the new environment. And for all of those people that were making comments about, ah, we're in the States and we've got temperatures up at whatever for so long. You know, if it takes 2 weeks to acclimatise to that new temperature, that's great if you've got a seasonal change and you're expecting it. But for the UK and places similarly where it just rockets up and then goes back down and then rockets up. That's why we warn people about stressors, okay, for your pets, you know. Now, so they absolutely see it. They've done this for decades and decades now, recognizing that if they don't acclimatize those soldiers, they will fail in the first 24-48 hours, okay. So just, that's a little point that good old Charlie, I'm gonna give you a shout out.
Yeah, hi Charlie, hi Maudie. Yeah, fantastic. Guys, I'm really sorry, I've just read this and I cannot— can you read that?
Yeah, sounds like a good one.
Rooted by Sarah Langford. Sarah Langford, yeah, Rooted by Sarah Langford. It's by Penguin, so it's a good publication. And she, she spoke at the Sustainable Food Trust. She's a barrister, mother of two, farmer. And I was just so impressed as she was talking. I ordered the book on Amazon and it came through on the 7th of July when it was released. Worth every penny. Absolutely fantastic. She goes and talks to regenerative and organic farmers in the UK and finds out what's the reality of this stuff in the UK. I've done a lot of stuff in Australia, but this is in the UK. What is the reality? Is it Is it possible? Can we do it? Can we feed the world using these regenerative models? So super interesting. I just want to share that with you.
I was just going to call out Rachel Max Collins. Oh, another book. It's just deadpan and a picture of a book. Oh, another book. It's not like happiness, smiley faces. It's just like pressure. You haven't done your homework.
So last year they were hungry for it. Now it's just, oh my God, will you stop reading?
Constant reminder that everyone's reading more books than me. I want to make one point. We said about that this is a really— that the factory farms are really efficient way of making protein. Ironically, terribly ironically, they're not. They're compared to— this is what Salatins was saying on his TED Talk, really good TED Talk, Cows, Grass and Something— Cows, Grass and Carbon— Cows, Carbon, Grass, something like that. Salatins his name is, isn't it, Nick? Salatins? Joel Salatin. And he said that his farm in Georgia, he's been been doing it for 60 years, never used a chemical, never used anything. It just— and his farm produces 10,000 pounds of animal protein per acre per, let's say, year. And a factory farm does 2,500 pounds. So he says we can produce— or 10,000 pounds of biomass, excuse me, 10,000 pounds of biomass of the grass. Anyway, whatever the comparison was, his land does 4 or 5 times more, he says, and all he does is just walk them over at the correct time, pass them over the grass when it's long enough, not keeping the grass short all the time. So the terrible irony, he said, is that I can produce way more meat than you guys can with your horrible, inhumane concentration camp meat, is what he calls it. And so that's the irony. It's so, so sad that there's better ways to do it, but the 2 or 3 mega companies that own the rights, uh, it's a big lobby, very hard to take that out of take that out of their hands. And that is now 10 to 8, guys. That is a fairly packed FAQ. Is there anything else burning your— is there anything else you need to get off your chest before you go on to whatever it is next week?
Oh no, there's probably a million things. Yeah, that was, that was a real goodie. I really enjoyed that, guys.
Thank you. Yeah, you love anything with sustainable farming in it, Nick, you're happy. As long as I'm happy, I'm very easy to keep happy.
Yeah. My friend, when the revolution comes, you're going to thank me.
Yeah, true. Until then.
Oh God, thank you so much. Yeah, and if any of you cat lovers are out there, we did do a cast last week on Friday. Thanks, a big shout out to Amaya and Julianne that joined me on that. Most entertaining. Entertaining. We've got another one coming up in August, 19th of August. So for cat lovers out there, do join us on that. Would say there's— I'm gonna comment about things like dimethylglycine. People are asking about whether there's been any side effects. I haven't really got time right now tonight, but we will mention that on the comments when I'm commenting later. So do look out for that. And yeah, next week, guys, I think there's so many things that people have asked for us to run through.
I'd like to have a summer party. What's happening? Our summer parties are not going to happen.
Summer party, barbecue.
Oh yeah, barbecue.
Can we do barbecue? We're going to do barbecue live at the grill.
I think, yeah, I think some Hawaiian shirts and a sombrero.
And okay, let's do Hawaiian shirts and have a summer party next. And what should we talk about? How about regenerative agriculture?
Oh, Jesus Christ, Nick. Don't invite Nick to any parties in your house. My God. What about not doing it on Tuesday and doing it on Thursday? So because then I could take my Friday off.
He wants to be able to recover afterwards.
These are very heavy. So, okay, look, we could do a Tuesday, but it'd be nice to have a few summer tipples. Wouldn't it talk a bit of wine? Okay, what should we talk about?
Why don't we talk about liver? If we're drinking a little bit of alcohol and I'm going to eat before this, I promise you guys. But why don't we talk about liver? Because we're talking about alcohol. Or we can talk about alcohol and the effects of it on the liver.
And yeah, wine and cheese. I know nothing about wine. I know very little. Wine and cheese.
Wine and cheese. Wine and cheese. And meanwhile, I'll have the steak barbie going in the background. Yeah, actually.
Delicious.
Lovely. Sorry, somebody said there's actually sensible ideas coming up, but no, I think we're hooked on the summer party now.
Connor wants a party.
Tails are wagging now. So look, we could do it on Friday or Thursday. There's a guy in the States who calls it Eff It Friday, and I thought that was kind of funny.
He's calling you out, Nick.
Thursday? No. Thursday's health and safety.
We can do Friday. We can do next Friday. Why don't we do next Friday?
Thursday or Friday, just change it from Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday so we can have a couple of drinks and I don't have to worry about them. My next day being unblocked off.
Okay. Okay.
So next Friday, should we do it in addition to RPM on Tuesday?
No.
We'll have a few little posts for you guys on Tuesday that we'll just stack up so that you've got something to watch. However, the live is going to be on Friday, I think.
Hang on. Is that Friday the 5th?
Uh, yeah. Why? What's happening? I haven't—
Okay, uh, we're at Wilderness Festival. We're at Wild— We're at Wilderness Festival together and we get zero, zero, um, signal. So I'm sorry, that's not gonna happen. So I think summer party, great idea.
Yeah, we'll be doing a summer party. Watch out, guys, you're just gonna have have to keep viewing our Facebook page. Yeah, exactly.
Sorry, we'll start to work.
We'll come to you. You could tell we put this together in advance. Yes, absolutely.
Next week, next week, cheese and wine.
Yeah, cheese and wine.
Yeah, not for dogs, obviously.
Okay, okay, cheese and wine and me. Okay, right guys, we'll, uh, we'll announce all over Facebook.
Awesome, awesome.
All right.
