Dr Conor Brady and hosts Nick and Brent examine the British Veterinary Association's cat and dog diet policy, arguing it downplays contamination in dry pet foods (35 of 35 European samples tested positive) while overstating raw food risks. They critique missing label requirements for carbohydrates and sugars, and question industry bias in the guidance.
Chapters
No, the other one I was thinking about at the time.
Sorry, we are back. So Facebook, can you do a thumbs up or unfrozen? And Ethan and Michelle in Oregon, can you— I think Ethan, not sure where you are, but if you can just give us a yes, we can see you all animated and jumping.
That doesn't look good. It's always the way, isn't it?
Just when we've got something meaty to talk about as well.
Yeah. It's not registering it, you little— We cannot connect your server. Good evening, YouTubers.
Okay, Ethan says all good on YouTube. Edwin says happy face. So YouTube, that's good. Valerie says all good on YouTube. That's great, guys. Where are you from? Because YouTubers, I reckon you're going to be from far afield.
Yeah, let's have a little look.
Yeah, do you say Hugo the Frenchie? I'm saying good. Lynn, is he moving? Where are you from, guys? Tell us, tell us which interesting part of the world you are. And then we'll get on with the show, I promise.
Lynn's saying you're moving.
There we go.
Bear with it, guys. Bear with it. What we'll do is we'll just whiz through what would have taken us like 40 minutes, we can do in 30, I think.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to do some jiggery-pokery. Let's have a little look and see if I can—
Oh, Edwin's from Surrey. Ethan's in Michigan. Fabulous. Kath's in sunny California. Very nice. Yvette is in YouTube works again land. Oh no, she's in Dublin. She's called Yvette.
Oh yeah, Yvette is, uh, I've just seen Yvette all the time. She's in my membership there and I, I chat with her all the time. She's, uh, she's awesome. Yeah.
Okay, Judy Zajac is in the US of A. That's great. Valerie just outside Glasgow. That's fabulous. Glasgow needs some natural conferences in Scotland. Ain't that the truth?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'd love to in Edinburgh or Glasgow or—
it'd be great.
Michigan is in the US, Ethan, my friend. I know Michigan's in the US. These guys—
ouch.
Oh, this, uh, I can't wait to get into this BVA.
Come on, let's do it.
Oh yeah, I really can't. I've just found that study now. I'm just pulling it apart.
Okay, so I'm going to start. We're starting on page 2, you guys. You can find this, or, you know, if you go to BVA policy position on diet choices for cats and dogs, if you Google that, you will probably get to it. So we're going to start at the bottom.
We're good to go, Ben.
We are. Just you get going. I'm just gonna get this pinged so that the Facebook can join us too. So hopefully this will go live. Don't you just love it when a plan sort of comes together?
Will that knock us off Judy Morgan's platform now that we've changed the link?
I'm about to reboot it, it'll go on to the other platform. So bless them, bless them. You guys on YouTube get to see what's going on.
That's great, I love seeing people Because we can—
you love people seeing people stressed. Thanks.
Carol's moved over from Facebook because it wouldn't restart, which is interesting.
Let's have a look.
Lynn is falling asleep.
Oh, bless.
We could We could just crack on with the BVA statement and Facebook people can see as we're recording it, we might as well get cracking. We're 17 minutes in, so we might as well just get cracking and then we'll always have the audio and the people can listen later for them.
Okay, that's so true.
It'll come. Wonderful. Great to see you on YouTube. We get to see everything you're saying, so it's wonderful. And so does everybody else.
Okay, hopefully bottom of page 2, boys. Starting with feeding with the correct amount. Who wants to start with that? I've got a few things to say about that.
You go.
All right, that was the right thing to say, Conor. Thank you. This is all predicated, and they've been, they've been talking about this for a while. I remember having a, a back and forth with, uh, uh, Mike Davis, and, and he was saying it's all about how much you feed, and I was saying if it was easy, it was easy as that, there would be no obesity or overweight problem in the UK. People would go to their doctor and the doctor would say, oh, just eat 200 grams less of this, this, and this, and they would be cured. It is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Obviously, if you eat 14 kilos a day and, you know, you're a small dog, yes, that will. But in the subtle play in the middle, it's more about the quality of the food, the nutrient density of the food that you're eating. And above all, if you're eating a high carbohydrate diet, if you're eating as a human a 2000 calorie diet per day and it's a high carb diet, that's going to have a very different impact, i.e., going the wrong way. And it's going to be more obesogenic than just if you're eating, you know, a high protein steak based diet at 2,000 calories. The science is there. There's more to it than that, but that is the meat of the matter, as it were. Okay, so this idea that you can moderate obesity with quantity is just— it just doesn't really—
well, to play devil's advocate there, Nick, the Mars reps would say 'But that's because you are in control of your diet and you can go to the fridge as often as you like and you can't control yourself.' Ever since 1970, apparently, people stopped controlling themselves. Before that, everyone was controlling themselves perfectly. And then 1970, obesity crisis, everyone just stopped controlling themselves around, you know, it's funny that we have a date. But so to counter that, they would say, 'Well, that's people. People are idiots and they're buying lots of junk food. That's their own fault. Pets get what you give them and you are just loving them to death, Nick.' No, I disagree with that.
If you— it's a great book by Jason Fung called The Obesity Code, and he goes through 5 areas to say that a calorie is not just a calorie. For example, if you cut down your calories dramatically as a human being— and they did these studies after the war because they wanted to work out how to treat people who were starving in concentration camps— if you cut your calories, your body slows down and therefore that lack of calories has a lower impact on you. If you then go back to the calories you were on before, i.e., you are measuring very, very, very, very well because your basal metabolic rate has dropped, you will balloon on exactly the same calorie intake that you were having previously. So there's a whole lot more to it. He has a list of 5 things. Have a look at the book. It's a great book.
And, and, um, yeah, I think that's the one that quotes that you can actually get yourself down to surviving on a third of the amount of calories. So your basal metabolic rate can go down by two-thirds if you're in starvation.
If you're in starvation, which is very wise if you're a caveman or cavewoman and, uh, it's December and you've got another 3 months to go before you're even gonna see a rabbit or some fruit or honey or whatever. It's all mammals. That's how we survive.
Yeah.
So I think, I think that whole thing basically, first and last, is—
and of course they negate to talk about the addictiveness of the food. So, you know, what are we terrible at doing is that when we see our dogs polish off a bowl, you know, we always think, well, have we fed them quite enough? And we're always tempted to put more in the bowl. If they're finishing it. And if you're giving a substance which is addictive into that bowl, rapidly digested, then drives hunger, you know. So you're then in that driver for— you're almost forcing the caregiver to fall into the same trap that they're falling into for themselves quite often.
Totally. They've actually done that study in 2019. They did ad-lib ultra-processed food McDonald's and KFC and God knows what versus chef-made real food at exactly the same calorie density. Yeah. So each group and they did 2 weeks on high protein, on high, on ultra-processed. And they found that there was a significant, probably I can't remember, 12, 15% increase in calorie consumption in that human group versus the real, the real food group. And they were eating exactly the same food. So the quantities would have been similar. It's more addictive, guys. Yeah.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine, like, you know, listen, you've got 3,000 calories to consume today, which is a little bit more than the average person needs. And if you're hitting the gym, it mightn't be enough, but it might be a bit more than the average person needs, 3,000 calories. And imagine if they said, you, you're eating 3,000 calories from cabbage and you, you're eating 3,000 calories from jelly tots or, you know, chocolate. What do you think would be the difference in the shape of those people? I mean, can you consume 3,000 calories of cabbage? I don't even know, because your body will be saying after about 1,000 calories worth, just stop, don't bother.
You know, after 3,000 calories of cabbage, your body won't be saying anything. It'll be just going, oh yeah, it is.
Yeah, it'll be speaking at the other hole. So like, this is so like, that's the thing. Like, cabbage is extremely difficult to get through and there is calories inside it, but you got to get to them. And that takes a lot of digesting, a lot of fermenting, and, you know, it's just not realistic to think that to compare chicken breast to cabbage, it's just not the same thing, you know. So obviously foods have different effects and that kind of— and studies of dogs show the same thing, you know, rapidly digested carbohydrates drives hunger. So the weight loss dry foods are known to drive hunger in dogs, and you're calorie restricting them on top of that. You're giving peanuts to a bear, you know, a Labrador designed to eat 10% of his body weight, you know, and you're giving them this. So of course, that's just a missing normal. And, uh, that whole paragraph just drives— makes me—
and of course, this also highlights that terrible mistake that is made by AFCO and FEDIAF, where they put your nutrient values against calorific intake. Um, you know, what are those standards? Well, it's all based around, you know, how many, how many calories you're consuming. Um, it's not just on dry matter of food. And when they do that, they're not really taking into account the different metabolic rates of different individuals. And indeed, whether they're starving, which is where we come then back to when people suddenly go, oh, well, weight loss is all about calorie starvation, let's reduce the calories. All of a sudden, they've not remembered that all of those nutrient values are based on the calories. So you're then creating a deficiency for those. So what you do is you just increase the paucity of health for those poor individuals. So it's really important to understand, look, if you are going to go down that route of cutting calories, you need to fortify the nutrient content of your diet so that you're getting enough nutrients in.
Yeah, it's clearly not a myth. That's just a ridiculous waste of a page. Let's skip on down to page 3 because we want to get to page 4, the hazardous microbiology. Pet food labeling. Okay, pet food labeling. I like the line in the first paragraph here it says, uh, and we all know that everyone on here knows the tricks and stuff they're doing with pet food labeling, and of course none of them are mentioned in this, but I like the way they say pet food product labels must legally include certain details. And I just thought, including the species name of the animal that's intended for and that kind of stuff. And I thought, certain details, that's a key bit because they leave out a hell of a lot of information because it's just so obvious. They don't write carbohydrates or sugars on the label. Why wouldn't we Why shouldn't we know that? Why shouldn't we know the salt content of the food? I mean, do you not think that's important for us? It's legally required on a human food product for a reason, because carbohydrates and salt are up there with the top, you know, 4 or 5 criminals that are bothering us. And yet you're not allowed to have them on a pet food label. So it's just, this is just smoke and mirrors. It's legally required to have certain details. Yeah, like it's for a dog or a cat. That's important. We must do that. You know, it's just, it's just such nonsense from the BVA. They know bloody well the labels are a waste of time. And then they go down with a few examples. To give them their due, in the very next paragraph, something good happens from the BVA, which is not often I'm going to say that, in my opinion. They say, another example of some of the confusing terminology, confusing terminology is the prescription or therapeutic diets. Ooh. But no prescription is required to obtain them. And they cannot legally claim to treat or prevent disease. These terms are misleading and should not be used. And I just thought, oh, that's interesting that the BVA state that. Now, they haven't done anything about it and aren't doing anything about it, and it's still going on, this misleading, and it's up in court for the second time in the US. So let's see what happens. But, you know, their money's made, they'll get a slap on the hand. There's a million fine, but they have been on that for 15, 20 years. They have pushed that hard through clinics. So whatever little fine comes out of it doesn't matter. But, um, it's interesting the BVA flags something that we are all painfully aware of, that selling the prescription diets is nonsense.
And I think lastly on that, from my point of view on that bit about nutrient values, is really there is, it's a really poor level of requirements on the label. And in this day and age when you can link quite easily through to far more detailed information about what's in the food, help your pet nutritionist help you if you're feeding your own pet with understanding and not, you know, to highlight the issues, the downsides to just formulating and making assumptions that the formulator has got it right for the ingredients you're using. Yeah, I can't stress this enough, the amount of work that I've put into looking at matching formulation to actually output and understanding the seasonal variation and what can impact that. And then, you know, seeing companies that are willing to say, oh, we get over the line by just using natural ingredients. No, using farmed ingredients actually is what you mean. And also, I know that you're using a formulator. You have not checked that food to know that there is exactly what there should be. Not just getting over the line as a minimum, but actually optimizing health with nutrition. There is a universe of difference between those two. And, you know, a great friend of ours gave a great speech back in Barcelona about why not just kibble foods, but even some raw food companies out there are not really engaging with saying we're food testing and we can release to you the nutrient values of our food. And that it, yes, it varies seasonally, but we will maintain you in a healthy optimum. You know, I think that's really what we should be asking for this day and age. You know, we want, we want people, or at least to accept that, look, if you've got variance, that where is that variance? So that there are people who want to reach for a supplement to optimize nutrition. I mean, some of these companies also make me smile because they sell supplements to optimize their food. Well, if they were truly giving a healthy excess of nutrients within that raw diet, why are they selling supplements? They shouldn't need to.
Yeah, that's a fact. Yeah, that's true. The, uh, yeah, and people want to talk about supplements. They want, they want their natural products to be doing everything from their ingredients. But yeah, like you said, any company that is doing that is rarely if ever, you know, putting those through the laboratory and making sure that they're hitting their bits and pieces, or maybe they are, but yeah, that is a very interesting conundrum that shows, you know, shenanigans all over the place to get over the line. But the problem is that people are holding these AFCO profiles up and complete and stuff, and raw dog food producers who are far more learned in my opinion and care more about nutrition, I would say, of course, they look at these AFGO profiles and they know it's nonsense, but they've got to play the game. And so then a little bit of nonsense can come into it as well. So that's definitely a problem. Can we get down to the hazardous microbiology bit?
We can. I think so. I'd agree with recommendation 3, which is we all need to lobby food companies to be better with giving us information about what they put in their food.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Hazardous microbiome.
Page 4, safety of ingredients.
Safety, safety of ingredients.
Brady, you're chomping at the bit.
I am, I am. It's like, uh, listen, safety of ingredients. Did anyone think that they might mention dry dog food in this, in any of these paragraphs?
No, no, it's completely safe. Yeah, please be safe. Never had vitamin D issues, never had melamine issues, and it hasn't killed tens of thousands of yeah, dogs aflatoxin on a regular basis and nutritional deficiencies and excesses and oh yeah, all the time.
And also the fact that more humans get infected from some, uh, with salmonella from dry dog food than they do raw dog food. We're up at about 140, most recent case there last year over in the US, 7 children in 6 different states, all from dry dog food, different dry dog food products. None of these are raw-fed dogs. So we know that the body count doesn't back it up either, sadly. And they keep on warning people about raw dog food. So it's stinks. And again, guys, this has nothing to do with the fact that the BVA is cash sponsored by the biggest dry food producer on the planet, okay? It's nothing to do with that. They are generally concerned about fresh food and forgot to include the more dangerous product statistically. We've gone through that quite a lot.
It's easy to forget, you know, how many people on the committee? There's probably 8, and the number of advisors, not including me because I wasn't asked, It reaches what, 20, 25? Right, so they all forgot to talk about the extra goodies that sometimes you get in kibble.
Yeah, here's this one.
Hold on, sometimes? Let's look at the page.
36 out of 36.
Yeah, that's right, well, 35 out of 35, but you know, numbers, it's just a case of, you know, that was what, 5th of November 2023, you know, that paper, there was the one at the end of October, you know, they're testing, these are European foods, not just the US, so we can't just say it's about US.
European dry foods, was it?
Yeah, it was. And they found all of them were contaminated, not with everything, but all of them were contaminated. So, you know, if there's a kill step, then post that kill step, something has managed to get back into the food and people have made enough risk to humans.
Was not the kind of term.
Yeah, so, so that could be either multi-resistant bacteria or it could be salmonella or it could be sugar toxin-releasing E. coli. You know, that they were all in one form in there. I think there was a few where it is more than one. There was, um, you know, uh, Clostridium difficile. There are a few other, you know, of the nasties that will cause, you know, vomiting and diarrhea.
Why 35 out of 35, that seems like a remarkable failure rate. How come the BVA didn't report that in this document?
It's amazing, isn't it? It's a little bit like they didn't report the whole thing about the balance and the fact that most of the complete foods weren't complete.
Yeah, Mike Davis, 2017, University of Nottingham.
Yeah, that's it. Such a guy that's anti-fresh, it's an interesting study that he put out because it completely annihilated his own His own thing.
So I would like to say, look, everything in life is a risk. And Nick loves his underpants story, and I'm not going to let him say it again, but I think everything in life has a risk. Absolutely. But somebody even asked me this just the other day, and actually their dog was more at risk of traveling to the surgery in their car than it ever would be from being fed raw.
Nice.
Okay, so can you back that up?
Can you back that up with figures?
Look at the number of road accidents that there are, and then you look at the percentage of— you know, from a point of view of where do you go with that? You know, if you're looking at the national, um, you know, health and safety does its whole listing of what's most likely to kill you, um, you know, from climbing a ladder to DIY to putting your underpants on.
7 a year in the UK.
There you go, 7 a year.
7 a year are injured putting pants and underpants on.
I think initially I thought you meant—
it's not just boys.
I mean, initially I thought you meant a microbiological concern from your underpants. That's a really good study to be doing. That's an interesting PhD. Look, this is this paragraph from the BVA, okay? An issue which is particularly concerning vets, reference And that was a BVA survey of vets. Yeah, I'm not surprised vets are concerned about hazardous microbiology because groups like the BVA, who are cash-funded by Mars Inc., and RCVS, who are also cash-funded by all the usual cronies, they are pushing this very hard. So vets are alarmed about hazardous microbiology. So that bit is one of the first truthful things they said. It's just why the vets are worried is the concern. Is that an increase in raw feeding could pose a risk to animal and public health due to the potential presence of pathogens and bacteria which would normally be killed during the cooking process? But as Bren just said, 35 out of 35 dry foods completely failed. So that is completely not accurate. They have left out vital information to say dry foods are failing all over the place. And then they say many studies have highlighted potential risks, potential risk factors of raw feeding, potential. And they go with raw meat diets can harbor pathogenic and zoonotic bacteria. And they list a few studies and fair enough, they do. And some of the studies, you know, some of the products are quite high in hazardous microbiology and you go, bloody hell, that is crap. That stuff. I mean, that company should be contacted and they should have to recall and all the other usual things that go with that. Nobody's standing over that. So yes, they found 5 or 6 studies. I could drum up 10, 15, 20 studies showing E. coli when it's tested for salmonella. It's one of the top reasons dry food is recalled more by weight. It accounts for over 90% of the dry food recall or pet food recalls in the US by weight is salmonella in dry pet food. So it's— you can Google anything and you will find that there's this hazardous microbiology, but they leave all that out. Their second point is the most telling. They say, as always, they've got to say a link to humans because we know humans are being poisoned by dry dog food, 140 of them, half of them toddlers under 2 years of age. So they need to come up with a human example, and they list this doozy of a study, a link with a UK outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing STEC, we'll call it from now on, producing E. coli in humans. Now, STEC is the one that'll lay you on your ass. And they're suggesting here that raw dog food is, uh, poisoned a human. Okay, let's just cut to the abstract of that study. Okay, please just let— just listen to this abstract.
Okay, which is good.
So, um, it is absolutely glorious. In August 2017, a cluster of 4 persons infected with genetically related, uh, STEC was identified. E. coli. These strains possessed the STEC Shiga toxin subtype, uh, a toxin known to be dangerous. Interviews with cases revealed that 3 of the cases had been exposed to dogs fed on a raw meat-based diet. Specifically tripe. So 3 of the 4, so one of them wasn't, okay, so there goes one. So specifically tripe, 3 of them were exposed to a dog, they didn't live with the dog that was raw fed, 2 of them met the dog down the road, okay, and it turns out that they're fed tripe. So it's tripe, tripe, tripe. In 2 cases, the tripe had been purchased from the same supplier. So now we've got 2 cases from the same supplier, this is getting really close. Now it doesn't explain the other 2 cases, of course, we've got 2 cases of tripe from the same supplier. They sampled that product to see if it contained this Esztek species, and it didn't. And that's the end of it. Esztek was isolated from one sample of raw tripe, but it was different from the strain causing illness in the humans. So that is the end of it. It's like they tested tripe, they tested the tripe, and they found no tripe had this, the, the Esztek, the exact species causing sickness in the humans. But the 4 humans, which they didn't mention— okay, so the title, just to read out the title of that study again, so So they tested the tribe, they didn't find a link. Only 2 of the 4 had any even touched a dog. And it says the title again, a cluster of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli highlights raw pet food as an emerging potential source of infection in humans. No, it doesn't in the slightest. It completely said it didn't. They tested the raw dog food, it didn't have that toxin in it. And but what all 4 people did have in common is that they were all eating raw carrots. And studies show in the UK Escherichia infections from food. The top food source of that? Raw carrots. Raw carrots is one of the top food sources of Escherichia infections in humans. So they tested the raw dog food, they found no link. All 4 of these people were eating raw carrots, one of the top causes of Escherichia infections, and they didn't mention that at all in the abstract. The abstract was raw may be dangerous. That was there.
You know what is really annoying is that actually And we talked about this previously, but the fact that they covered that with the wrong title means that actually those people that got seriously ill, hospitalized, and I believe there was a fatality from eating lettuce which was infected with E. coli, could have been prevented if they'd have taken note of the fact that the carrot could have been the source of that. And they should have changed the farming, they should have changed what happens to that salad. But no, because they were beating up on raw meats, they missed an opportunity to save lives, really save lives, and actually change how we treat our salads, you know, yeah, with a view of, you know, what are we putting on them? Are we putting a positive, a probiotic wash in there? You know, all of that has been missed because of this inane. I want to just nail raw food.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, raw meat.
So that's their— that's the one study they look at. It's so— it's such a weak study. It's so useless. It says itself in the abstract, they tested it, there was no link made, and they found it was carrots. And for that to be the example that that's why raw fresh food is dangerous to humans, stinks. And for them not to include last year, the FDA warned 7 children in 6 states. Kids are getting poisoned by dry dog food still. We know it's kids are getting poisoned from dry dog food. They're going into the bags and They don't mention that in the article. So for the BVA to go on about, we care about sustainability, we care about the environment, we care about people and dogs, it is utter bullshit. Tens of thousands of pets being killed by dry pet food, lots more humans and kids getting harmed by dry pet food, and it doesn't even make their little bullet points. They hold up the one shitty example that doesn't link raw dog food. Not that raw dog food won't— eventually someone's going to get harmed by raw. It's raw meat, of course it might happen. We're not saying it won't. But to leave out the other side, you know, stinks from the BVA who are cash funded by Mars Inc.
But it should be, it should be a real risk. It shouldn't be this could be a risk. Yes, they should be looking. And there's some great surveys out there, you know, the 95,000 years of experience and you've got the 6, you know, possible links to foodborne pathogens over millions of meals. And we're then sort of like, you know, there are surveys out there, they've used surveys. Why won't they use the surveys that give them real risk, not possible risk. Okay, and actually, you know, whenever they're reporting on any future bacterial risk, I think it should be actually a requirement of those people scaremongering to actually say, however, in real terms, this is the actual risk, and compare it to something that the general man on the street or woman on the street could understand, you know, such as getting in a car or, you know, oh yeah, or, you know, putting their underpants on in the morning, you know. Yeah, whatever it is that they think that the normal man in the street can compare it to.
We should totally do that. We should do the list of risks and we see if we can— if we see where the risk from that study, uh, that was by Helsinki University, 16,500 respondents, millions of pet meals, because I was looking back over, have you ever had an issue in all your dogs? Uh, and so incredible. And the the figures that they came up with were replicated by New York when, uh, Tessacrantis and them did it for 2,500 or so people. Similar figures, incredibly rare. We should totally do that list.
And that, that point being that actually that risk, that real risk for those studies, for, for the surveys, was actually multiple factors. So it wasn't just one E. coli, it wasn't just one salmonella, Okay, you know, it was— it combined all of those, and that's what made the 6. So we don't know what single issue was, was the main, uh, problem within those, I don't believe. But, you know, maybe it's written in the small print. But I think from a point of view of when somebody comes up with Legionnaires is a risk from— because, you know, you're feeding your pet from the tap, well, what is the real, you know, what is the real risk of Legionnaires in pets? You know, yes, of course it could be a problem. It's a bacterium that's found in water. If you're not using your water and flushing the system regularly, then of course it could be there. But realistically, how many cases are we seeing a year? And realistically, what could they do to mitigate those risks? What is it that is about that that we should be looking at? Is it the that there should be changes in the slaughterhouses that would make a difference? Is there a change in the farming structures? You're coming up with a positive solution, not just waving a flag and scaring people half to death about a possible risk that actually they're more likely to win 4, um, lotto on the trot than they are actually to come down with this disease. I mean, it just becomes insane.
Totally agree with you, Brent, but that is the next section, which is the environmental sustainability of ingredients. But just before we, we finish, I cannot let us go with— this is the Shiga toxin, uh, paper, which is by Kane, K-A-I-N-E-D-A-M-A, Kane-Dharma. And just put in Shiga toxin, uh, I'll share it from the Facebook page. Yeah. Okay, it's called, just for the, for the podcasters, A Cluster of Shiga Toxin Producing Escherichia coli Highlights Raw Pet Food as an Emerging Potential Source of Infections in Humans. What they don't highlight in the abstract, or it is a line though, it's one of my favorite lines in any of the studies that I've read over the years, and it says that that one of the people who were harmed by the Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, which is a nasty one as Brady says, was sharing his toothbrush with his dog. He was brushing his teeth and then he was brushing the dog's teeth and then he was brushing his teeth and then he was brushing the dog's teeth. And I think he must get a Darwin Award.
Award.
That's a Darwin Award there.
Yeah, I, I think most owners allow their dogs to kiss them in the face. Yeah, you know, what's no great shakes. How many times does that tongue slip inside your mouth, Nick, when the Whippet's licking you to death?
The other way around. Yeah.
Oh my goodness. Uh, yeah, even do you— okay. Here's this game, bit intimate. Do you share toothbrushes with the rest of your family?
I have been known to, if I can find one.
But you don't on a regular basis? Most people don't, even if they're in the same family. Yeah, there's just something, it's quite bacterial in there. I don't think I want to share them with anybody else. I'll share my kids' ones, I'll share Ellie's if we're camping or something, I'll use anything. But generally—
rephrase that. Yeah, in the toothbrush holder.
In fact, fact that we have never, ever, ever cleaned the dog's teeth. So I'll tell you that, with a toothbrush. We use chews and all sorts. So, um, yeah, but so that is just a stunning line, and I hope you weren't having your dinner when, when we said that.
But, uh, let's get into the sustainability, Nick, because you start us off there at the sustainability. We, we start—
no, no, 1948.
I know, but we were messing around for 10 or 15 minutes without even speaking to people. So maybe we should just do 5 more minutes here, or do you want to go over and do it on Patreon?
Let's do it on Patreon.
Let's do it.
We will, we will gather all of the video evidence from this evening. We will republish it so that everybody can see it, whether they're on Facebook, across the pond, um, over on our side, even down under. You know, we're going to make sure it's out there for all of you guys. Um, thank you for watching. Uh, hopefully you've taken some stuff from this that means that you will get a safer food for your pets and actually feel that what you're feeding is already safer than a lot of stuff that's out there in sort of plastic packaging and sitting on ambient shelves. So let's have a little look at the rest of sustainability over on Patreon. If you want to know how to join us, please look at all the W's, patreon.com/rawpetmedics. For the price of a pint, okay, a nice drink, I don't know, maybe Connor's on a G&T these days rather than a pint.
I had a glass of wine before I came on, that's why I'm red and sweating. I can't drink red wine before, it just makes me glow.
Then just join us over on Patreon and support us there, and we look forward to seeing you back next week. And what have we got next week? Can you remember?
I really want to get that vet on to talk about the tick, the tick products and how long it takes for ticks to infect you when they bite and how long it takes the products to kill the tick. It's awesome. Our slides are great. We need to get on that.
That's really good. And Karen Reed, what does TMI stand for? Am I a bit behind the times?
Too much information.
Too much information. On that note, see you over on Patreon, guys.
All right, see you on Patreon.
See you all.
