Evolutionary Nutrition

By now I realized that most of the disease problems I was seeing in cats and dogs were due to nothing other than poor nutrition. I could see most of those diseases did not have to occur. They could be eliminated with correct nutrition. To me, this was both a revolutionary thought and an incredible revelation. I wanted to tell everybody! The only problem I could see was that my fellow vets would not accept this feeding philosophy because they rely heavily on ill health in their patients for their daily bread.

Dr B and George By the mid to late 1980's, these revolutionary thoughts on nutrition and disease in cats and dogs had taken over my thinking. I had become obsessed. By the end of the 1980's, I had spent years questioning the owners of both healthy and unhealthy pets about their pets' diets. I was told continually that healthy dogs lived and thrived on raw meaty bones. In Australia at least - Raw Meaty Bones were the major contributor to health in both cats and dogs. It was commercial dog foods that were the major cause of ill health.

I should point out that during our undergraduate years; I and my fellow veterinary students accepted the proposition that disease in cats and dogs was inevitable. Rather like human beings! We accepted without question the idea that disease was not something that was in any way preventable. There were a few exceptions such as the small number of diseases we vaccinated animals for, and a limited number of specific deficiency diseases. Those aside, our training did not involve looking for the root cause of disease. Our job was to diagnose disease and begin treatment using surgery and drugs.

It was not part of our training to seek out basic - for example nutritional - causes of disease, and follow that up by using sound management such as dietary regimes as a preventative measure. The idea of trying to prevent the vast majority of the diseases we see in cats and dogs via nutrition was unheard of.

In contrast, the concept of disease prevention via nutrition was - and is - well accepted in farm animals used to produce meat, milk, wool and eggs.

Disease prevention via nutrition is still considered a strange concept in small animal veterinary circles. However, by the mid to late 1980's it had become obvious to me that those - never discussed - basic causes of disease had their roots in poor and inappropriate nutrition. I was also aware that while most medical practitioners and veterinary surgeons had no idea of this concept, many of the patients and clients of those two healing professions, had begun to embrace this approach to health for themselves, if not for their pets.