It’s easy to forget – given how divorced from the natural world most people are – but humans belong to the animal kingdom. We have evolved, developing a completely different lifestyle even to our relatively recent ancestors. Where we live, what we eat, what we do may have changed dramatically but our bodies haven’t necessarily yet adapted to these changes.
One area where this is true relates to our digestive system. ‘Modern’ humans have been around for around 50,000 years, but huge changes have happened to our diet in the last 200 years. It’s no wonder then that diet is so closely connected to our health and wellness. Indeed, it could be the reason why we are suffering from so many diseases.
The amount of money spent on researching how what we eat is affecting our health is nothing compared to the marketing budgets of the food giants. Hopefully, over time, the food system will return to what it should be. In the meantime, there are alternatives. For example, buying food from smaller, more caring, local producers.
There is plenty of evidence regarding what we should and shouldn’t eat if we want to achieve optimum health. However, two things may prevent us from always sticking to the best possible diet. The first is that it takes real dedication to avoid eating things that are potentially harmful. The second is that the effects of even a super unhealthy diet – one awash with ultra-processed food – may take a long time to show.
Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to our dogs. Humans like to share with their canine companions (it may be altruistic or there may be some other motive such as training) which can have the side effect of conferring our likes and dislikes on them.
You can see the same thing in basic animal behaviour and society structures in the wild, too. The pooling of knowledge about what is good and bad to eat is shared across the animal kingdom from chimpanzees to elephants and meerkats.
Inevitably as our closest companions, dogs have learned to play our games. To beg for the foods that we like or those we have chosen for them. We use food rewards for good behaviour from our own perspectives to manipulate their behaviours for our own requirements. At some point in time, when our relationship developed, both sides decided that there were more benefits to be had by being together than by being apart – and food and resources will have been the main fundamental benefits of this trade. Not always an immediate food reward but this may have developed into food and shelter in trade for company, protection and so forth. Today it’s developed into things as diverse as medical detection and sheep herding and creating breeds of dog designed for that way of life.
But as our own lives have changed at a stratospheric rate away from our original way of being (towards who knows what!), so have our best friends’ lives. We believe that what is good for us is good for them but if that’s the case then alongside our increasing poor overall health, we can see that reflected in our dogs too. Their diets have veered away from the species appropriate, i.e. not the same as ours, to something quite unrecognisable.
Sadly, we can see this reflected in the wild as well. Our influence, in this case mostly our waste products being fed to animals or thrown away to be eaten by scavengers from foxes to seagulls and from turtles to polar bears. This may fill us with revulsion but sadly no one is doing anything meaningful to instigate change.
Fads, as I’m sure we all know, (as we are Honey’s friends) are all too common in the dog food industry as they are in our own. It’s an industry driven by profit that uses all sorts of tricks and techniques to persuade us that what they are selling will benefit our dogs. Take, for example, the word ‘natural’, which is perhaps one of the most overused word in the industry. Then there is the misinformation about ingredients and the misleading labelling.
The beauty of a species appropriate diet is that it is genuinely natural. It consists of (or largely of) what a species has evolved to eat. Happily, we know, because we have 50,000 years or more of collective experience and we can also see what they eat in thew wild, what is an appropriate diet for dogs: raw meat, raw bone, raw vegetables and fruits. We know, too, that a dog’s health can be improved by raw foods and that the less processed and ultra processed food they eat – the better. The best diet is one that is balanced in nutrition which gives them the best possible chance of a long and healthy life without costly visits to the vet. One of the reasons I originally changed to raw , by the way, was that my vet confided in me that raw feeding wasn’t great for business as he had lost many of his regulars because their conditions had cleared up. He is a brilliant vet, always putting animals before business.
Feeding raw is not as simple as tipping some kibble into a bowl. It takes a little more time, resource and effort. Be thankful you don’t have to go out and catch it first! Incidentally, I have several friends who are 100% vegetarians who still feed their dogs raw because they know it is species appropriate, this is regardless of their choices in life and the values they have chosen for themselves. It comes down to this. We all want to do what’s best for our family and loved ones. In the case of feeding our dogs, what’s best for them is their natural, species appropriate diet.
Dr Tracey Rich is a biologist and photographer
