The trend towards feeding raw meat-based diets (RMBDs) to pets is growing, with sales increasing annually and a significant percentage of dogs and cats now consuming raw food or having raw components added to their meals. This shift presents veterinarians with a complex scenario, requiring careful consideration of the various types of raw diets, their potential benefits and drawbacks, and the crucial safety implications for both pets and their human families. This article explores the multifaceted aspects of RMBDs from a veterinary standpoint, focusing on the decision-making process, available options, and the challenges and opportunities they present in veterinary practice.
When advising pet owners on diet, a veterinarian’s priorities are clear: the safety of the family and the pet, ensuring a complete and balanced diet, identifying a food the pet thrives on, and ensuring the feeding plan is practical long-term. Recognizing that no single diet suits every animal, a comprehensive nutritional consultation considers various options, including high-quality commercial foods, home-prepared cooked diets, commercial raw diets, and home-prepared raw diets. Recommendations are tailored based on client desires, family circumstances (such as the presence of young children, pregnant individuals, or immunocompromised members), the pet’s specific health needs, financial constraints, and time availability. Ultimately, the final decision rests with the pet owner, with the veterinarian providing informed recommendations and safety precautions documented in the pet’s medical record.
Types of Raw Pet Foods Available
A range of raw pet food options are available to discerning owners, each with its own characteristics:
- Home-prepared RMBDs: These require careful supplementation with calcium, vitamins, minerals, and taurine to ensure they are complete and balanced. Veterinary nutritional consultations are essential for guidance.
- Commercial raw diets (not complete and balanced): These often consist of meat that requires the addition of bones, vitamin and mineral mixes, and sometimes fruits and vegetables.
- Commercial raw frozen complete and balanced diets: These are available with single or multiple protein sources. Freezing can reduce, but not eliminate, microorganisms.
- Commercial freeze-dried complete and balanced diets: This process removes moisture under vacuum, preserving much of the food’s original state and reducing bacterial counts.
- Commercial dehydrated complete and balanced diets: While heat reduces microbial numbers, some pathogenic bacteria can survive this process. The impact of low heat on nutritional quality remains uncertain.
- Commercial high-pressure pasteurized (HPP) complete and balanced diets: This method uses high pressure to kill most bacteria, including Salmonella and Listeria, without affecting nutritional quality.
Generally, raw pet diets are positioned as premium products, often carrying a higher price tag than traditional kibble due to the quality of ingredients and additional processing. However, for pets with specific health issues, resolving dietary problems can be more cost-effective than managing chronic conditions.
Potential Advantages of Raw Meat-Based Diets
From a clinical perspective, RMBDs can offer significant benefits for certain pets:
- Management of Food Allergies: In veterinary experience, commercial or home-prepared raw diets, particularly limited ingredient diets (LIDs), are often instrumental in managing food allergies in dogs and cats. These allergies commonly manifest as gastrointestinal upset, recurrent ear infections, and skin issues. The controlled protein sources in LIDs and the absence of common allergens like grains can lead to marked improvement, especially in cases resistant to other treatments.
- Addressing Carbohydrate Intolerance in Cats: For some cats, particularly those with diabetes, diets high in protein and low in carbohydrates, characteristic of feline RMBDs, can be disease-reversing or stabilizing. The feline digestive system is not optimally adapted for high carbohydrate loads, and excessive undigested sugars can lead to colonic acidity.
- Subjective Improvements in Dogs: While peer-reviewed studies are limited, many owners and some veterinarians report subjective improvements in dogs fed RMBDs. These can include increased activity, weight loss, improved breath odor, shinier coats, and more normal stools. When such changes occur in the absence of other interventions, they can be highly convincing.
Potential Disadvantages and Safety Concerns
Despite potential benefits, several disadvantages and safety concerns are associated with RMBDs:
- Nutritional Completeness and Balance: Ensuring RMBDs are complete and balanced, meeting AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) standards, can be challenging, especially for home-prepared diets or those from smaller manufacturers relying solely on whole food ingredients. Achieving the correct calcium-to-phosphorus ratio and adequate vitamin and mineral content without synthetic supplements requires expertise.
- Cost and Time Commitment: Raw diets are typically more expensive than conventional pet foods and often require more preparation time.
- Safety Risks: Raw meat can harbor pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli. While pets’ stomach acidity often mitigates risks for the animal, these bacteria pose a significant threat to humans, especially young children, the elderly, pregnant individuals, and those with compromised immune systems. Safe food handling practices, akin to those for human consumption, are paramount.
- Inappropriateness for Immunocompromised Pets: Pets with weakened immune systems due to illness or immunosuppressive medications should not be fed raw diets due to the risk of bacterial infection.
Veterinary Concerns and Client Communication
Veterinarians face unique challenges and opportunities when clients opt for RMBDs:
- Staff and Veterinarian Safety: Veterinary professionals must assume all pets, regardless of diet, can be carriers of zoonotic microorganisms and maintain rigorous hygiene protocols.
- Client Education and Risk Communication: It is a veterinarian’s responsibility to inform clients about the potential risks of RMBDs to both their pets and human family members. This advice should be thoroughly documented in the pet’s medical record.
- Professional Association Guidelines: Major veterinary associations, including the CVMA, AVMA, WSAVA, and AAHA, have issued statements discouraging the use of RMBDs due to safety concerns. They typically recommend that veterinarians advise owners on minimizing transmission risks.
- Building Trust and Credibility: Clients who choose RMBDs may sometimes have lower trust in conventional veterinary advice. A veterinarian who approaches the topic with knowledge and a supportive, yet informative, attitude can build credibility. Dismissing RMBDs outright can lead clients to withhold information or seek care elsewhere, potentially compromising the pet’s overall health management.
Navigating the Raw Diet Landscape
A significant number of pets are now on RMBDs, yet owners may not always disclose this to their veterinarians. This highlights the importance of thorough dietary history taking. Veterinarians who are knowledgeable about the pros and cons of RMBDs are well-positioned to serve this growing client base, offering essential guidance and care. While not suitable for every owner or pet, RMBDs can be effective in managing specific medical conditions, such as gastrointestinal disorders, and can contribute to overall well-being in some animals. Comprehensive client education regarding safety, nutritional balance, cost, and time commitment, alongside meticulous record-keeping, remains fundamental to responsible veterinary care in this evolving dietary landscape.
