RPM Tuesday Night Live: Is there a bad raw food?

He's got a little cough, and if he's occasionally muted, it's just because I can hear him coughing in the background.

Oh yes, yes, we need a mute button.

The guy on that side is fresh from going around wearing his t-shirt. Come on, show us your t-shirt, Nick. Okay, show us your chest. Show us your chest. Marvelous. You see, you could only say that on a guy's show, couldn't you?

I mean, it's just—

Look at that, guys. Look at that.

Am I to assume, Nick, that you were recently at Crufts and you were wearing the Ditch the Dry t-shirt? Did you— what did you go on?

I didn't wear Ditch the Dry t-shirts. No, I, I was at Crufts, had a lovely time. Well, on Thursday went with the good people at Pro Dog Raw and we had a fine old time. And then on Saturday went with Greg and the gang at Benefit Natural and we, uh, we did the Saturday thing. So it was good, it was busy, people were really interested did. Um, uh, lots, lots of questions, lots of good questions, a lot of, lot of really quite, um, uh, I think we've still got work to do on, on, on getting some people up into the basics of raw food, guys. I really do think we need to work on that. Maybe we need to think about webinars and, or something, not quite sure. But it was fun. Everybody was really grateful to be at Kraft if if anybody was there, I'll tell you what, a number of people came along and said, you've made— not me, but we have made their Tuesday nights. They really, really enjoy it. They've learned a lot. Actually, yeah, seriously, we have evolved. We've actually evolved their thinking on raw food, on nutrition in general. And some people, they've even taken it over to themselves. They say they eat better over the last year. They've learned about food and deep nutrition and all that stuff. So you know what? We are making a difference. And thank you everybody who came up to, to meet at Crufts. And it'd be wonderful. And I'll tell you what, here's, here's a thought for next year. How about that? Because there are about— there were 11 raw food stands at Crufts. How about next year we do an hour on, I don't know, 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 different stands? And so we'd have the Raw Pet Medics with so-and-so and so-and-so and then so-and-so. And we have good lunch, and then we stay overnight, and then we get going. We do 2 or 3 the next day and what have you, and we're just, just chatting with people because people are absolutely— they're really, really up for Raw. Yeah, 11 different stands in, in Crufts this year, um, and people were keen. People were really, really keen.

Yeah, wonderful. I remember the last time you had that Ditch the Joy t-shirt on, you were going around some, uh, beautiful garden fest and you were wearing a Ditch the Joy t-shirt, and it was angry looking. They weren't very happy.

I got told off for that. I got told off for that. But listen, Conor, how are you feeling, mate? You've got COVID.

Yeah, I've got COVID. I went to Liverpool there for the weekend, and last time I went to England, I went to Essex and Brentwood, and I came back with COVID original, I believe, although I wasn't tested for it at the time. That was in December 2000. 19, COVID-19. Um, but so I would have been one of the first in London, but now we know it was around a lot before that. So I don't know if it was COVID or not, but I was mashed with it this time. So I thought I was never going to get it again because, you know, COVID original, the, the tough version. Uh, but no, this time went to Liverpool and I came back with it bloody again. So two of the lads, two of my friends said, I've got bloody COVID. They did a test as well. It's like, oh no, I do got COVID as well. It's quite a shock really when you see it on the test. It's like, ew, I do have it.

Imagine doing a pregnancy test.

Oh my God.

Well, I must admit, if I did one of those and it came back positive, I'd be really sorry.

We'd look after you, Fred.

Don't worry, we'd look after you. And we'd give you a little paternity leave as well from RPM.

I think the first bearded lady having a baby. So yeah, I kind of felt bad yesterday going to bed, and I felt pretty ropey in bed last night. And this morning, I have to say, getting out of bed was hard. But I've been taking a couple of Panadol. I've been taking Vitsi, D-zinc, quercetin, echinacea, lashing them all into me.

So what do you normally feel like on the Monday morning after Liverpool?

That's what my wife was saying. Checking to see if I just drew in the line, you know. Yeah, so taking that and a few other bits and pieces, and I have to say I feel absolutely grand now this time. So taking, taking action, you know, so it helps. There is bits and pieces you can do, and, you know, as opposed to our HSE guidelines is do absolutely nothing. It's like, I feel like I've got the flu, I'm going to take action. So yeah, lashing them all into me, lie in bed, get a few movies in. I've started watching Parks and Recreation. I've just developed a man crush on Chris Pratt. Does anybody know Chris Pratt is— hopefully some, some of the listeners are largely female, maybe they do know who he is. But, uh, Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie I like. It's a bit of a dorky kind of sci-fi kind of movie, but he's funny in that. Parks and Recreation is a, is a really top-notch American comedy, about 20 minutes, 25 minutes long. So when you're lying in bed and you're feeling crap, that's the sort of dumb crap you want to watch. The English Office, number one for me. Uh, Peep Show, which I also love. And also now this Parks and Recreation. Absolutely.

That last 5 minutes just shows me what happens with COVID brain. It turns you to mush anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I started reading about Chris Pratt and I go, I really like this guy. He was living in his van at 19 and he just went up to someone who was an actress and he said, I'm an actor too. She goes, oh, we're looking for a guy to play this kind of hunk. And he got the movie role and he doesn't take himself too seriously. Bloody hell. Let's stop going on about Chris Pratt. Jesus.

Guys, he's not well. Just, just, just take it with a pinch of salt.

They're all agreeing with you. I'm sorry, Conor, you've got fans that are saying, you know, this is great. Yeah, he's great.

Yeah, yeah, this is COVID fever, not Pratt fever. So anyway, bloody hell, can we move on?

Okay, listen guys, what are we talking about today? We are going to be talking about— there, there is always a range of raw food you you get really great raw food, you get really poor raw food, and it's pretty difficult to tell one from the next. You know, there are the obvious things like if it smells disgusting and you wouldn't eat it yourself, then probably don't want to feed it to your dog. Although tripe always smells a bit disgusting and dogs love it and it does them very, very well. But if it smells off and just shitty, horrible, rotten, then obviously turf it out and start again. But apart from that, I tell you what, Brendan, where would you like to start with this discussion?

I think, look, you know, there's a lot out there. And I think one of the biggest bugbears for me is where people have grabbed a food and then they're just repeating that food over and over again. And it tars everybody. So, you know, maybe they've just chosen chicken mince. Okay. And they've got them minced up. It's easy to give. They've just defrosted it and they believe they're feeding raw. And actually, if anything we've done, if you've just joined us tonight for the first time, please have a look back at our whole year's worth of discussing how to bring in other things, get variety, give some balance through variety and everything. But if there's one thing that you take away from tonight, Do not believe that you can go and buy one food that's the same thing over and over again and believe that you're giving a balanced raw food to your dog or cat. Okay, you please must have a look at a range and start to do some variety. So I think rather than necessarily the obvious, and absolutely agree with what Nick said about, you know, if it smells green, if it's, you know, got the yellow labels on in the supermarket and you thought, well, that's a cheap meal for my dogs. Okay. And it's just bygone by, it's gone by date. Please, you know, that's not the stuff that you really want to be feeding to your treasured loved companion. That is just a hiding to a disaster.

I think in those circumstances, Nicholas, I would just add to that with regard to sell-by dates, and this goes for human stuff as well. If the food has gone over the sell-by date, and you smell it and it smells fine, it probably is fine. Okay, generally speaking. But if it's over the sell-by date and it smells disgusting, then just don't, don't even try. Okay, just, just a thought. Sell-by dates are a guide, that's all.

And it depends on all sorts of things. You know, I've seen supermarket aisles where you've got teenagers helping themselves to get the stuff out of the freezer or fridge department out the back. They're pulling the trolleys, they stick them up down the middle of the aisle, not in the fridges, okay? And they decide to do all of the trolley work first so that they can then stack the shelves, okay? Meanwhile, those trolleys are sat in the middle of a supermarket aisle with people going by them at nice ambient temperature. That's not how to treat good meat, okay? So just be aware when you're buying in certain circumstances you know, try and make sure that that meat is being looked after in the best possible condition right up until you buy it. Okay, and then it's up to you to keep it in good condition until you feed it to your pets.

What do you guys think is the downside to feeding best before, not bad after meat to the dogs? If you saw a yellow sticker and it's a use by date of 4 days on fresh meat and it has to be disposed of, so plastic and meat goes into the incinerator after that. I see that yellow sticker and I kind of feel like I'm doing the world a favor getting that food into Dudley. It's day 3, day 4, day 3 for the beef mince, say, and I pick it up and I give it to the dog and I say, yeah, that's no problem, I'll use a bit of that, I'll use a bit of turkey that's on day 3 or day 4. And what do you see is the real downside there for a dog on at that level, at that just on the line?

So you are playing the roulette wheel. Okay. At that point, you're taking an informed decision about Dudley's health and how he's going to cope with what you're giving him and your ability to determine what's within that food. Okay. There could be 9 times out of 10 be absolutely fine if you're willing to risk that 1 out of 10 that you could be giving him something aberrant. Now, to your Dudley, that might be absolutely fine because his health is on, on a good plane. For a dog who's poorly, for those guys out there, you know, if you've got a dog who's got renal disease or you've got a dog who's got liver disease or got IBD and you accidentally choose that 1 out of 10 that's going to have something aberrant in it, you know, Salmonella, E. coli, okay, that, that could have a lot more health implications for that issue. And look, come on guys, there are some great raw companies out there that are doing really sterling work to make sure that food is coming into them from suppliers, okay, frozen, not ambient, okay, that it's coming into them, they're actually processing it. Some of these companies are managing to process with their new grinders down at -1.5 to 2 degrees, which is meaning that they're keeping bacterial growth rates low. So they're bringing it from— you can't grind at -19. There is no way. You just wreck the machines. But if you can grind it at that sort of lower level and then get it back to frozen as soon as it's been processed, that's a way of effectively keeping bacterial numbers down. There's loads of companies that are really making efforts to do that out there. There are some, unfortunately, that if you really want to find these out. Some of them smaller makers, you can go on a summer's day, you'll see lorries coming in with ambient meat. They'll be sticking it through processors, grinding it up and dishing it out for you to freeze at home. And you're thinking, is that really what I want? Do you want bags of fresh, slightly strange meat that's gray and maybe nondescript going into your pooch. Yeah, I would question it.

I would be on the line with all that. I would say that if it's dictated, if it's deemed safe for humans in Tesco, SuperValu, Lidl, Aldi, and it's for sale to humans, and I look at that beef mince or whatever mince, I think, yeah, that looks— that's— if it's good enough for me, it's going to be good enough for him at that stage. If I had big dogs, and I think that this is a scavenging carnivore, so I wonder, the next question would be like, okay, so dogs eat carcass and they outcompete vultures. Vultures won't live near where dogs do, they outcompete them. So they're top scavengers, they've got this huge olfactory system for finding, probably let's face it, dead, diseased, dying, disabled animals. That would be their forte because bringing down big animals really isn't in their repertoire anymore. They don't have the ability to hunt and drag down prey, they're not ambush predators, they can't hunt in packs, but they love a bit of carcass, and carcass is manky. So the question would be is to vets, have you ever seen dogs suffer bad meat before? That's a really relevant question because other vets would say if the dog has GI issues, he's raw fed, oh, it's the food. And I'm always thinking, well, they can't know, anything can upset your gut, but have you guys ever seen bad bugs associated with raw dog food that has sickened animals before?

Oh, well, I'm just going to jump in before Brendan because he's basically on the front line, so he's the guy to say. But when I was in practice, we used to see— and this is, you know, I was in practice from '92 to '99, so before raw really got going— and we would see kibble-fed dogs and they would have gastrointestinal disease. IBD wasn't invented at that stage, but it happened. They just didn't call it that. But you did see gastroenteritis, you know, hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, gastroenteritis, HGE, it's like hosing this red material coming out the back. Dogs, you know, dogs, they scavenge, they eat all sorts of horrible things, and they do get intestinal problems. And my argument, and I haven't really any figures to back it up, but I've got— had a lot of conversation with a lot of people over a long time, is that the raw-fed dog, because they've got a low level of okay and some low level of pathogenic bacteria going into their gut, which is what they do designed and evolved to do, they are in a better position to cope with picking up some monkey meat from a, from a, you know, Kentucky Fried that's been there for 6 weeks in the bushes in the park, you know. So I think that dogs get gastrointestinal problems, and I think my gut feel is that raw-fed dogs go to the vets less than the the kibble-fed dogs because they've got this tone, they've got this slight immunological advantage because they're seeing real food on a daily basis. They're getting real probiotic effects from meat and veg and all these things, whereas the kibble-fed dog is being fed more or less sterilized, chemically food stuff, chemically, well, chemically, thermally sterilized. And so that's my thought, Brent. You see these guys every day. What are your thoughts on that one?

Look, I mean, just today, just today I've reported on a case. Locum, we're hiring at the moment, so we've got locum in for some of the frontline stuff. And the locum that was with us last week, you know, saw a case, chronic diarrhea. It had been fed raw. She transitioned it to another food while she waited for some fecal results. There's zero on the fecal results for pathogenics. You know, there's other issues that can cause diarrhea. Absolutely. Hands down. Okay. But I would say definitely overall there's more Campylobacter and Salmonella cases that we have got because of dry food feeding you know, in those dogs than we have ever in raw. We always suspect it because we're always told to look out for it, but we never actually have seen the numbers that are reported. And this is the difficulty we've got out there. There's, you know, that relative risk, isn't there? As you know, we've always been advised to advise even the smallest risk to people, advise them, and that almost highlights that risk, and people will get a little bit anxious because you've mentioned it, but you've got to mention it because we're told by the profession, you know, you've got to give people informed choice about what they're doing. And I would say, you know, looking at— I totally agree with you, you know, where I've got my own dogs which will pick, you know, pheasants that have been missed by the shoot and not picked up, and they'll be out there and they'll pick them up and they'll be eating them before you know it. They'll be eating voles and rats and mice and anything that's going, rabbits off the field. I mean, literally last weekend, Artie, who sat down beside me, she got herself a fresh rabbit and that was hers. No control over how that's farmed. But I would say there is a difference between that wild or extensively found meats versus the heavily farmed chicken and beef, you know, some of which is even in this country, it's fattened off in stalls, you know, with grain. And I think, you know, that's— there's a concentration of bacteria. And the reason that it's in there is an accepted— on the human side, Conor, is because they're expecting you to kill-step it, to cook it at that point, which is why they say cook this food really thoroughly. Okay. And it will then be safe. Well, we're not saying that to our dogs. We're saying take it raw. Now, if they're healthy individuals, absolutely agree. All of their physiology, all of their anatomy should lead into that being dealt with by their intestines in both dogs and cats. Okay, however, if they're ill or they're on a medication that's corrupting their system, okay, and we do that, is that an added danger that we've got to be aware of?

Brent, here's a thought to do, to do a study, and I'm not saying you must do this, but just, just a thought experiment. And if there are any vets listening, this is a really fascinating thought experiment and really easy and free, is you just take your next 100 cases of of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, i.e., bloody diarrhea, and you just ask the question, what are they fed? Is it mainly kibble or mainly raw? Okay, and that's it, you know, because you're going to have over the next 12 months, you're going to have 100 cases of HGE, aren't you? So how about that just as a thought? Any vets?

We do that. So we do that. So we do that for all of our cases now. And really interesting, wasn't it? Through this whole norovirus thing that went through, you know, we talked about back in January, you know, just looking at that spread, I mean, of cases with that, that just highlighted why it probably was not a bacterium or anything. There was a virus going on. And we do ask those questions. It's one of the first things we get all of our practitioners to ask in the practice. So yeah, absolutely, we probably could go back and look up all the diarrhea cases and look at what they were fed.

Okay, that's amazing. The first study by DogRisk, the very first thing that they did, University of Finland, University in Helsinki, DogRisk, their first study, 632 clients that were raw feeding, and for gastrointestinal issues, let's see, 145 dogs had gastrointestinal problems prior to their dietary change, so they were all dry-fed dogs, and 88% enjoyed a complete recovery following a change to raw. So that's interesting. It's only a survey, fair enough, but people do jump to raw to heal, I guess. Okay, look, this has gone slightly off topic, but it is relevant because nasty, nasty raw dog food would be expected to have higher amounts of these nasty bacteria. So it's important to people when they're buying cheaper raw dog food or that kind of stuff, that is there a risk. So anyway, that's the first thing. Okay, but let's get into the point tonight though is, okay, how do we spot a poorly made raw dog food? Can I start off with something? I see I'm on lots of the forums and you keep an eye on them and they let you in, you know, because we're all kind of pals. But now and again, raw dog food company will pop up where it's a picture taken in the back of somebody's van and they've got loads of blocks of chicken and loads of blocks of beef and loads of blocks of, I don't know, turkey. And it's in plastic sandwich bags and there's no label on it. And people will post this image going, I'm buying raw dog food from insert company name. The company never lasts for much more than a month and they sell out the back of the van. There's no labels on these products and they want to know, is this good raw dog food? And they're asking in a forum because they know that this is a very worrying way to buy meat. The problem we have in the raw dog food world is that there's money to be made here, and unfortunately grinding up chicken carcass and selling it as chicken mince is a very easy, very profitable thing to do. Chicken carcass is waste from the meat industry. When I was making raw dog food, they were selling it to me for about 20 cents a kilo. When you buy it by the ton and you buy everything by the ton, 20 cents, and you could grind it up and sell to people for £2 or £3 a kilo and call it chicken because you're allowed. But there's no meat muscle in that. It's cartilage, fat, and bone. You know, that's what carcass is. So you're not finding any muscle, and a dog needs a lot of muscle. So people are just grinding these up. They might not have the right facility. They mightn't be doing it even in refrigeration. They're doing it because maybe they're chicken farmers and they've got this spare stuff that's there or whatever. And so that's one type of chicken. We've got worrying beef being sold where people go, you know, they would criticize a good raw dog food company and say, your beef is €3, £3 a kilo. You know, that's such a ripoff. My guys give me 50 'P a kilo for beef.' And I was like, 'What's beef?' Beef, it just means cow. What do you mean? What part of beef? There is companies out there that are grinding up lung and trachea, and they'll tell you when you ask them what the beef is, it's lung and trachea. It feels like frothy mush. But if that's what you're used to buying, you wouldn't know that that's crap beef mince. I would know by looking at crap chicken mince. I feel like I would know by looking at mince if it's a high fat content or not. But most people, if you're not dealing with meat every day, like a butcher would see it in a heartbeat if it was good quality beef mince or not. But for people that only buy it now and again, it's very hard to know what we're buying. So the beef in the Dr. Conor Brady's for 50p a euro, is there anything wrong with a bit of lung and trachea? No, a tiny little bit. It seems like a very normal food inclusion, I'm sure, in very small amounts. But are these guys using cows that have been checked by a vet, or are they using a cow that they just didn't want to send for rendering and, you know, seemed fit enough to grind up and make into raw dog food? So they're the problems that we're having.

Yeah. And can I ask, so For that 20 cents a kilo for the chicken carcass, was that being delivered to you as a guaranteed— it had been kept, you know, at between 2 and 8 degrees, or was that a— no, it was just coming on a truck, they'd killed it, and effectively coming through your door?

Yeah, no, it's legit. That's a legit— like, chicken necks were 30 cents. Which is 50 to 24p. Chicken carcass was 20 cents, which is 16p. So like, how long ago was that? 2012. So, okay, but this would have been legit. I mean, Northern Ireland kills more chickens than bloody Poland. I think they're killing a million chickens a week. I think Northern Ireland is killing— it's a huge output of chickens. And the 2 or 3 major great British chicken factories are in Northern Ireland, Moy and Manor and a few others. I was getting legitimate chicken pieces from these guys. Like, I mean, these are, these are big companies, so no, totally legit. But you can see the temptation to make crap raw dog food is to buy in that and mix in a bit of liver, heart, and kidney to whatever variations suit me price-wise and call it complete raw dog food, because nobody's checking. The vets haven't a clue. They just think you're trying to kill dogs no matter what. And off your product goes. Throw in some peas and carrots and you know, and out it goes. I think companies are getting better these days, but just when we're talking about spotting a bad pre-made raw dog food, if you don't have even any company information on it, lads, and particularly with beef and pork— with chicken, you're getting chicken carcass, you're not getting chicken meat, you know. It's just ridiculous to think you're getting chicken meat for cheap from a guy in the back of the van side of a motorway. So if you, like Bren was saying, if you want to protect your dogs to some degree, you do have to make sure that the meat is at least of edible quality, you know, and you have to worry about companies that don't even go for a license. It's hard in Ireland to get a license. It's easier north of the border. It's a fact. Our Irish Department of Agriculture are just next to impossible to deal with all these things, but it should be easy enough to get the actual license and badges and stickers. And yeah, so that would be my warning from the very bottom of the, of the market.

Okay, so we've looked at bacteriology. Make sure you're dealing with a reputable production company, and many of them will say, yes, you can come and have a look and look around and see what we're doing. Okay, so that's worth asking them. So the next thing is the quality of the meat. Yeah, is this some cow who died in the field that they didn't want to render? They thought they might be able to get a few quid for it. That's not a great way to do it. Are your company doing their research and getting from really reputable meat suppliers. So my, my beef, as it were, is about the composition. You know, people talk about complete and balanced. Okay, I've talked to the guys about this and they said everybody knows about complete and balanced. And I said, I don't think that people do know. So what does complete mean? What does balance mean? So complete is the opposite of complementary. Complementary is something like winelot or, you know, it's basically just biscuit. To which you have to add something else. Yes, it's complementary. Yeah. Whereas complete, the implication with complete from the PFMA is that you could put, you could feed that food alone for life and they would be okay. Okay. Yeah. So that's what complete means. So what does balanced mean? Balanced means that you've got all the ingredients, but they are all, you've got the fat, the protein and carbohydrate in a certain proportion. Rough proportions, and you've got the minerals in certain proportions, and then it's all, it's all balanced, which is quite logical. Because you could put in— you could— I was thinking, you get, you get a sausage and you roll it in iron filings and some seaweed, and you might have all the necessary fat, protein, and minerals, but it would be way off being a balanced meal. Yeah, you with me? You've got everything, but it ain't balanced. So if it's complete and balanced, it means, it means it's got everything you need and they're in the right proportion. So there are other arguments against that, but, but let's just go with that for now. Okay, so as a guide, something that's complete and balanced. There are companies out there who are selling 80/10/10, so that's 80% meat, 10% bone, 10% offal, viscera, that is liver and heart and kidney and what have you. And they're selling those as completes. And I don't think that's right because I formulate foods and I take days to formulate these foods and you can't do it with just bone, just organ, just meat. Any thoughts on that, gents? I think 80/10/10 is a great start of a diet. It's the foundation of a great diet. Fabulous, wonderful, but please, why are they calling them complete?

So one of my thoughts about that, and it does, you know, I absolutely get where you're going, you know, one, you're balancing. If you're balancing something, generally you're balancing it to a set of regs, and if you're currently balancing it, you're probably, and if you're using one of those formulator programs at the moment, you're probably balancing to an AFCO or FEDIAF guideline. And if you're doing that, then actually you're skewed slightly because we already have seen some research into, you know, it's not the same absorptions from raw as you would need from kibble. So there's already some shift on whether that's correct, and it's minimal values too, so it's not really necessarily optimum values that's within there. The other thing is I see a lot of people that are— I'm not saying you are doing this, Nick, with your companies or whatever, but I'm seeing some companies that are adding artificial ingredients to try and top that up. So inorganic levels of phosphorus, inorganic levels of calcium to try and get those levels right within their food. And we know from what we've learned with the a lot of processed foods, that those nutrients are not absorbed at the same rate. You know, they can diffuse across the gut and increase levels within the cats and dogs that are eating those way beyond what they would otherwise absorb if they were still in an organic compound in the bone material or whatever. So I think there's a lot of work that still needs to be done to get that, and I would never see in nature or in my own diet, let alone my diet that I gave to my kids, that every meal I gave them was complete and balanced. So I feel that, you know, we're chasing a golden chalice, you know, a pot of gold. We've got St. Patrick's Day on the 17th, you know, you're chasing that rainbow with a pot of gold at the end, which isn't actually attainable or isn't proper because then you then bring in individuality of the animals and all of a sudden you blow out of the water those guidelines which is for the average dog. Who has the average dog?

I mean, so Conor, what's the history of the complete and balanced thing? Where did that all come from? Where did that concept come from if you're comfortable with that question?

That like, yeah, as you just listened to, there's an AFCO concept. AFCO, we've got FEDIAF here in Europe but it's AAFCO in the US, and AAFCO kind of set the standards in the 1970s. The NRC over in the US, they work with the FDA. The NRC is the nutrient part of it, and they were making up some rules for pet food, but they weren't keeping an eye, and suddenly pet food quality fell to the floor. They just stopped using meat in pet food, essentially. It just became all grain, and tens of thousands of cats, particularly dogs as well, from a lack of taurine started going blind and dying of DCM and all sorts of stuff from cereal-based pet foods. So NRC at the time, and soon they just sold it, soon they just went over to AAFCO, they said, right, we need some minimum guidelines to get pet food off the floor. Unfortunately, it brought good pet food down because this became something to aim for, this minimum set of requirements. So as Brandon was saying, this complete, in inverted commas, pet food now had to adhere to these minimum guidelines. And so that's where we got in the '70s, and it hasn't really changed since then. They came up with these minimum levels of nutrients based on kibble-fed dogs living in cages for 6 months, and 6 of the 8 dogs had to get there, and you could go on a bit after all night. Okay, so that they came up to— I fit feeding companies and reps and owners came up with this idea complete, and still today our Department of Agriculture insists on what to dried pet food companies, but now raw dog food companies, that you must say your pet food is complete. And the only defense I would have for raw dog food companies when they talk about using the word complete and complementary, which to every single one of them hate using the word because they're all well knowledgeable in canine nutrition and they hate using the word complete, but their vets are coming in saying, is this complete or complementary? And they're like saying, oh, come on, complete to what? And they say AAFCO standards, and they say AAFCO standards are bullshit written in the 1970s for minimum nutrition. Our product is not 'Not anything like AFCO.' And the vet's like, say, 'Not anything like AFCO? AFCO's perfect.' And instead of trying to reeducate the vet and having a standup argument with the person that has to rubber stamp your company every month, you just say, 'Okay, yes, it adheres with the very minimal nutritional guidelines of AFCO.' He goes, 'Good boy,' and you put complete in your product and off the vet toddles. And so you have to write complete. Now what people are saying is complete and beyond and whatnot. But in defense of what Nick is saying, you're right, Nick. I would struggle very hard to come up with a complete, in inverted commas, 80/10/10 mix and hit all the nutrient levels because first of all, our meat quality is not good enough anymore. If you're using wild meats that were chock full of all these vitamins and minerals and cool things that wild animals accrue, then maybe. But chickens fed corn for 11 weeks and slaughtered are not the nutrient-dense animal we hope they are. In fact, your omega-3:6 ratio would just be, would just be terrible. So like we have major problems with that end of things, but also AFGO demand huge amounts of zinc, for example. Because dry pet food uses zinc oxide, and zinc oxide is very badly absorbed, and AAFCO demand 120 milligrams of zinc per kilogram of food. There isn't a prey animal that has that much zinc in it, so ironically, even if Nick was let off the hook for 7 days to try and make an 80/10/10 that was in accordance with AAFCO, you wouldn't find enough zinc anywhere without supplementing it. So you see some raw dog food companies that don't have the level of knowledge, Nick, reach for the supplements as Bren was saying, and go, what the bloody hell, I haven't got enough zinc in this at all. And they top it up with shitty zinc. Very few use chelated zinc, good zinc, because it's expensive. So they use zinc oxide, they just use loads of it because what harm? And as Bren says, there is harm to using too much of these shitty conical fast nutrients. So it's a big problem. While dog food companies are trying to fit into this stupid framework that has been built in the '70s to promote kibble, and they have to do that because the vets believe that this framework in the 1970s is optimum, but as Brent says, it's the minimum. So it's a mishmash of an answer, Nick, but it's like 80/10/10s. I don't think any raw dog food company would stand over that and go, is that the only thing you should feed to their dogs? I'm still surprised that people still have such faith in the prey model, kind of 80/10/10 only, and they slag you off for feeding fruit and veg and seeds, and they go, you're killing your dog. It's like, bloody hell, like I don't know, has anyone ever put their 80/10/10 through a nutritional analysis and had a real good look at it down to, you know, that would be a horror show for a lot of companies, but I believe they stick the badge on it 'cause it's like, you know, we've got to get this over the line. We don't want to say complementary because this is good enough to feed to the dog every day, but they heavily push variety, varying the flavors, balance over time. These messages are coming from the raw dog food companies. So I think that they're walking a fine line of a little bit of bullshit because they have to, because they're living in a bit of a bullshit terminology world. Tough, tough time for the raw dog food manufacturers in that respect, but I think your point is very valid.

I think there's a difference between—

sorry, Nick.

No, no, after you, mate. After you.

I was just literally gonna go, and there is a difference between the ability to survive and, you know, we're seeing, you know, Forever Dog look great, you know, your things, our discussions about useful additions. You know, there are so many things that we're coming up with longevity, with quality of life, with improving health, where some of the things that you just talked about with adding these berries and, you know, other things in there mashed can add to diets that actually are not even on the scope for AFCO or FEDIAF. You know, they're, they're useful additions. That we should be looking into those nutrients. How can we get those in? Because we're no longer just talking about survival here of our beloved companion. We're talking about trying to make them thrive and be as healthy as possible for as long as possible with us. And that's a whole new adventure with raw food that we can start to embark on. I think we really want to be really starting that process of looking at nutrients and also understanding that if you give everything in every meal, the body's not designed that way. You will actually get minerals that are competing for the same pathway to be absorbed. How is that going to work? Whereas actually, if you give variety, you gain that, you know, to and fro and building up reserves that you need. And yet you can get away with feeding your dog for 3, 6 months in a relatively deficient diet and they will cope with reserves. Okay. They won't do well. They'll survive. They won't do brilliantly with their immune systems or whatever, but ultimately they will get by. And that's why we can do these restricted protein diets for looking at allergies and things like that. But I think really what we should be really pressing for is people's understanding of why there should be whole foods, there should be variety, and we start to look at the benefits of some of these useful additions and functional medicine. Okay, I think so.

I think one of— I mean, there's many, many, many reasons why the raw food and fresh food movement are superior to the kibble movement, and for me, one of the really, really important things is that we very much push the idea of variety whereas the, the kibble companies, especially the big kibble companies, the Mars, the Nestlé, the Colgate-Palmolive of this world, they will be saying this is a life stage food, you only need this food for the entire life stage. And so I think because they have at very, very best have only tested that food for 6 months, and yet they're saying about for your dog, you can feed it from a year old when they become an adult to 6, 7 years old when they become a senior. Okay, and they have absolutely no clue, generally speaking, that that is an appropriate diet for every single animal that is on that. So they're slightly clueless. The raw food community is slightly clueless because the formulation might have been using American software but we're feeding from a European source, and so the selenium levels within the beef might be completely different. And therefore, everybody is slightly blind within the whole industry. I hate to admit that, but everybody, yeah. But it is safer, I would wager, to feed a raw food or a fresh food diet where, where we espouse, we, we embrace variety, we actually say that it's, it's essential. Variety is the key. It's the heart of a good raw diet. And I think you are going to be excess and deficiency, much more excess and deficiency proof than any other feeding mechanism on the planet. I just wanted to make that really clear.

I think that's spot on. Before I want to ask Brian, but Brian has just launched the raw safe. And just before we do, I wanted to give my top tips for picking out a pre-made raw dog food. So I'm thinking that the 80/10/10 is a grand base that'll do the job. And if they do have liver, heart, and kidney in there, and there are a few other organ meats, if you can find some of the rarer organs, even better, a bit of pancreas, bit of spleen, very fancy now and again. Okay, so that is kind of a base and mixing up the flavors, we've been alluding to adding some bits and pieces in adding your own bits and pieces and, oh, I like to add in some blueberries, go for it, grind up some pumpkin seeds, all that stuff. Okay, that's a perfectly good base. I think when you go and spend huge money on raw dog food, sometimes you can find yourself just paying for the window dressing, where the things you might be better off just having yourself on the shelf and adding them to a decent 80/10/10. So there does become a difference, it's a tiny bit of difference in quality of intensively reared meat and outdoor reared meat, there is some small differences in that depending on your leaning. But even beyond all those decisions, I don't really trust a finely mushed, very finely ground raw dog food. Some companies do for reasons, very young puppies need a paste and whatever, okay. But generally I like to see something. I want to be able to, if you say I've got, you know, a bloody turkey raw dog food and there's liver and heart and so on, I want to see, I want to see the colors in it. I want to see that there is different organs meats in it. If you say, you know, so generally a homogeneous mix like a sausage, I just don't trust because of the whole chicken carcass being sold as chicken, no meat muscle at all. So a bit of a problem with that. Also, the smell, as Nick said about the start, that's really important. And so knowing the supplier, trusting the supplier, they've got all their details done, uh, are they a sound company to deal with? Have they got a few shots of their, of their premises? Have they got anything like— are they open books, or are they just completely closed unit where you don't see anything going in and out. That's that. Usually people that are open about what they're doing are bragging about everything they're doing. So there is an element of that. There's nothing wrong with a cheaper raw dog food. People eat cheaper meat and there's nothing wrong with using cheaper raw dog food as a base, as a filler. You know, that's not the end of the world either, but it just generally comes from the thousand factories, okay, caterers that UK now has, so that the meat is coming from slightly more intensively reared sectors. But what harm if we're going to be eating that meat and we feed a bit, except that there is a few studies, albeit in America, where intensively reared meat does seem to cause a bit of itch in dogs. So it's hard to say. I don't think people should be thinking, oh geez, I can't afford to feed this, you know, animal that lived in a hedge and was lulled to sleep each night. I can't do that for my dog. And I feel for them, it's hard to do. I get that, especially if you've got a heap of dogs at home. So don't feel bad that you have to use some of the cheaper brands. Some of those companies mean well, they're providing a decent service. It's just when you're meeting guys off the back of the van in an unlabeled bag. But I think maximum credit to the companies that do sign up to the likes of Raw Safe that Bren has been working so hard on. Do you want to tell people, remind people where you are at the moment with Raw Safe, Bren?

Yeah, so we started to roll out Raw Safe. So we've got some places now being inspected inspected by a well-known company that's, you know, it's A1 for inspecting human-grade food plants, you know, doing a lot of meat inspection across the world. So this is not going to be tied to the UK, but at the moment we're doing test runs in the UK thanks to some companies which have helped look at that process. There's a few things like BRC, a British Recognised Standard certification for food manufacturing. We've looked into all of those and it's looking at best practice for, you know, being able to monitor ingredients coming in, making sure that they're coming in not just ambient but they're frozen. So they're frozen at source and coming in frozen to these stores. You've mentioned, you know, working with a few companies that have already sort of signed up to those sort of agreements and some of them have ISO standards, some of them have BRC, this is in salsa, which is about being able to be sold in various stores. But this is effectively something that's inspected by vets. They're going into these places, making sure that nobody's shortcutting any of these practices. It's not just a rubber stamp of a, I've got the ability to make a raw food from DEFRA and that's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to comply that if I've got a problem, they should be able to come in and find where that meat's come from. This is actually going through all the steps of how to keep biosecurity in that plant, how to make sure that the food that's going in can be monitored, how it's going through the plant, what's coming out the other end, how it's being shipped out of that, and how you can monitor and trace all of it, okay, from start to end. So that's the start of RawSafe. In with that, yes, there's the bacteriology stuff comes within all of that certification, etc. In with that is a lot of stuff that we're going to be working at. There's countries around the world that are crying out. I saw somebody mention about Canada not having any raw pet food regulations at the moment. You know, there's Peru and Chile and, you know, some of the South American countries that are asking for some of this information. So You know, we've created a really great set of standards for people to be inspected to at that level, and that's— we're really looking forward to the reports coming back and then being able to effectively give them that certification going forwards and promoting that. So we're ruling out some of those that are just making ambient product, you know, as you say, at the back of a van, or, you know, some of these manufacturers that you would go on a summer's day and your stomach would turn for the smell that's coming off them. And then the sight of people loading into the backs of their cars ambient product that's dripping from the bags, you know, it's just, you know, that's something you really don't want to see.

It's unbelievable that companies, as an ex-manufacturer, you know, that somebody would sign up to RawSafe. That is a phenomenal undertaking because it is nothing but scary to have someone coming through your premises even when you're prepared for them and you know they're coming on Wednesday at 1 and you're scrubbing your factory down. But like, you would hope that we scrub our factories down like that all the time. But guys, we do clean down our factories. Everybody does. Everybody cares. But when you know you're being inspected once a month, you really clean down your, your end underneath the machines with a toothbrush. And so for someone to sign up to RawSafe, which is an audit by a company that is designed to check for compliance. I mean, that is a serious undertaking, and hats off to any raw feeding, raw manufacturer that signs up to something like that. That takes proper balls, and it's a real credit to them. Even if they didn't quite pass, it's like, Jesus, you thought you were good enough to do that. That's fantastic that there's more than one of those companies out there. Can I ask how many people, the brand, is there many companies signing up out of the—

so we've got, uh, cohort of 12 that are going through the process at the moment, and we've, you know, we're really impressed with that. Look, yeah, we're not— we are doing stuff, so if they don't quite make it, we're giving them feedback, we're helping educate the areas that they're lacking in to try and help them then pass the next time. You know, it's not about, you know, whipping these people and grinding people into the ground. This is about trying to lift the whole industry so that we're actually giving out much safer raw foods that people can't critique and, you know, label them all in with the people that are selling out the back of the van, you know, because, you know, if those cases are highlighted by the national press as this is the danger to your dogs, you know, we want to be able to distance ourselves from that sort of practice and say, no, look, there are great manufacturers out there, and I know somebody mentioned the PFMA tried to launch something, but it's very much been in the light of DEFRA certification, and then that's the manufacturers managing themselves a certification. So what we've done separately in conjunction with the Royal Feeding Veterinary Society is to create the Raw Safe mark, which is actually then independently inspected inspected by a separate third-party company. So we're not even coming in and guiding them, we're giving them a set of guidelines, but actually we've got inspectors coming out and actually inspecting those plants. So people can take, you know, yeah, absolutely take courage from the fact of what that mark will give to that food.

Wow.

Graham, two little thoughts there. Number one is, can any manufacturer get in touch with RawSafe and apply to join RawSafe?

Absolutely. So if they just go on to rawsafe.co.uk, there is no barriers. We've worked out the situations for those that aren't necessarily manufacturing themselves. That's in the pipeline and they're being inspected too, to the same standards. Okay. And looking at that, so there are some manufacturing plants that may get more than one inspection because, you know, as that initial inspection, because they'll be inspecting per brand and they'll be looking at how those individual brands' traceability works because that's what it's all about. It's not just about the grinding of the machine, it's about so many things to do with traceability, ingredients coming in all the way to how that's dealt with for customer care going out.

Fabulous. So any company can apply rawsafe.co.uk. That's fantastic. That's really good.

Right.

I'm going to move us on, guys, because we're over time now. Just recently, one of the younger but prominent critics of raw food and many alternative, alternative approaches has written a real slaughter piece, a real, a real criticism, very strong criticism of raw food. And we've discussed, we'd like to just go through it line by line or point by point and just say, well, actually, and give our point of view on that because we think that they do watch this. Hello, everybody.

We know you're watching.

Hello.

How many articles have we seen that have been written around the things that we've talked about?

That's right, because all these articles come out within 2 weeks of us discussing it, which is quite interesting. So hello everybody. So how about that? So there's, there's this, there's a real, a really, uh, what am I trying to say, boys? Um, so it's a really strong article. It's very anti-raw. And we would like to, to take that. What we'll do is we'll put it up on Facebook and in Patreon so everyone can see it, so they can read it first of all, and we're just going to take down each point. And, and it's for up to you to think, to work out if you think they are more logical than us, they are more scientific than us, or the other way around. And we'd like to take you on that journey, guys, if if that's good with you, I think it's a really, really important thing that we can do. Okay, and it'll be very interesting to do because it's like, these are the arguments and this is what we think of those arguments.

Yeah, I think we should call that show The Funny Pages because there's actually a few different little articles that have come out. There's one or two. There's been one on raw dog food by a major— I was going to say a major— a very vocal person that's very anti-raw. I always think anybody that's anti-anything in a very vocal way, it's always something to hide. I bet they're raw feeders in the background. So yeah, Yeah, let's go through that. There's also one on leptospirosis that we might dance through quickly and, and show to people how we would interpret the article and say, when I see that written and that's not referenced and other points are referenced, I think that's quite telling. It's like, where's the reference for that crucial point? So how to interpret an article, the bits that leap off the page for us. They're gonna make some fair points, we might make some fair points, but let's see. I think that's a good idea. Just, just guys, just to drag you back to that raw safety for one second. Somebody asked, can we see who is in RawSafe?

Yes, so what will happen is that there will be a published list of those that are in RawSafe. Obviously, at the moment we're under obligation for those that don't succeed because they've got a chance to come back and actually, you know, re-accredit if they've picked up their manufacturing process, etc. So that's— there's not going to be a 'these are the people who failed' by any means, because you can't do that for legal reasons at the moment. But there will be a list started to be generated, uh, once we've got these initial 12.

Yeah, yeah.

And you'll start to see the mark on their packaging. So, you know, that's the thing that they'll get. They'll get a license to be able to print that. Okay, that will go back into supporting, um, you know, uh, research in raw the RFVS and that side of things as well. So, you know, that's the great out of this.

Yeah. And just one more thing here, lads, that people are asking. They've asked a few times, can we get a list of raw suppliers? Guys, we can't give you a list of raw suppliers. We can't favor, you know, 3 or 4 companies. There's 100 raw dog food lines, 100 natural treat manufacturers. We can't do that. So, you know, good luck to any of them. We're not here to vilify anyone. We're not here to kind of hold anybody else up in higher regard. So, you know, that's just the way it is. So we can't kind of give you that list, but you'll find that in the forums and people will help you along with that. But on the last point there about recall and companies failing, just to knit everything together, do you know, it could be cheap raw dog food companies that are trying their best to make really good quality, cheaper raw dog food. And the problem can be salmonella, the problem could be that for any raw dog food company, but the temptation is to vilify a company when they do a recall. And I'm telling you guys, to do a recall, it takes massive guts to do that. I was gonna say, as Fiona Murdoch's correcting me, come on, Conor, don't say it takes balls. All your listeners are female. Sorry, Fiona, I've got COVID. You're not allowed to say that, but it takes real guts to do a recall. Okay, so like, it means you have to tell the public that our product isn't right, and we've released it. Now we need to pull it back in. It's incredibly damaged for your, your, your rep, and it's It's bad PR, it's bad for your brand, and it's just not good for business. But they do it because they don't want anybody getting harmed and they want their product to be tip-top. So hats off to them, because I'm telling you guys, there is more than one company at least that knows, oh geez, those results weren't great, you know, we need to make sure we don't do that process again. But they sell off that stock because they might make 10 or 20 tons at a time. I'm not saying they do, I'm not saying they don't, I'm just saying from my time in raw dog food manufacturing, this can happen. And we know that because when we sample raw dog foods off the shelf and dry dog foods, there is a microbiology problem with some of them. So like, if they were testing their products every batch, which is very hard to do, although microbiology testing is actually very, very cheap, so it is possible for them to do it. And the fact is that these issues can pop up, and when they're detected, we should help these companies out, not by saying, yay, you've made a manky product, but not being too hard on them because as that book Black Box Thinking, Brian had mentioned. So one of my favorite books by Syed, he did this other great book Bounce as well. But he was saying that if you criticize people too negatively for making a mistake, they don't admit to them. Take, for example, the health sector, they don't admit to making any, you've got to drag your HSE or NHS, whoever into court to make them admit something went wrong. You can't, they don't admit, unlike pilots who admit they did something wrong straight away, it's encouraged and everybody watches their mistake and learns. So The difference is one group doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes and the other group makes a whole heap of mistakes that's pushed under the carpet. So if you criticize a company that they were to fail on RawSafe and Brand was to publish it and say, here's all the ones that didn't quite make it, that's not good for business. We're trying to bring companies up off the floor. So there's a happy medium there for criticizing people when an issue is found. But anyway, it's very hard to get all that right. Guys, we're on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. If you like the show and you enjoy the air, please, if you have the price of a cup of coffee or a pint, we deeply appreciate that each month. It really helps our side to keep this, this show going, for us to prepare. If you can, great. If you can't, not to worry. But, uh, that's, that's, that's where you make a contribution. Uh, and other than that, I'm looking forward to doing the funny pages next week. I think that's a brilliant idea, Nick. So, uh, yeah, let's, let's talk into that next week. Cool, sounds good.

Brilliant, look forward to that. And, uh, yeah, thanks guys for all that. I've seen so much more activity on Patreon over the last couple of weeks as well. So, you know, do join us there, really, if you're enjoying what you're hearing tonight.

Yeah, absolutely.

Otherwise, guys, it's been a great evening. Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you next week.