Becoming Obsessive with "Balance"
This is my 20th year of fresh food feeding, and I'd say, every year has looked different in relation to what I fed. This is a longer post...
Like many people, I started out with an animal protein, cooked veg, and cooked rice, and the dogs LOVED it!
It takes a fair whack of de-conditioning from the kibble world to even start adding fresh food, and we generally start adding the foods we see on the front of those packs, so we're still pretty conditioned, but we're...detangling from it...
As I went on, I became far more rigid and far more judgmental of others on their journey. Like many things in life, we can be very black and white about how something should be done, especially when the trusted information at the time points us to that.
Some things we forget or refuse to acknowledge are that in the human world, there are so many different forms of feeding ourselves, many of them have names such as Paleo, Vegetarian, Carnivore, Low Carb, Slow Carb, etc. Different ways of feeding work for different people.
One thing we commonly see is that someone who has been eating a pretty crappy diet goes on one of these new models of feeding, they can feel amazing! They'll lose excess weight & get their bio markers under control, but then as the years go on, they're not so amazing anymore, and they just can't figure it out.
What happens is that any new healthier mode of feeding was better than what they were eating, but in time, that feeding program may not be right for them, it might even be deficient....like what the animal protein, cooked veggies, and cooked rice diet is for dogs...it's not a highly processed diet (mmm other than the rice) and the dogs love it and they may start improving many aspects of their life but after a year or so, that may not do the trick any more as it's lacking nutrient wise.
The pet parent at that time often starts to learn more about nutrition, ends up in many rabbit holes, and becomes quite strict and regimented about what they feed their dog i.e. it MUST be fully balanced! They may even professionally study nutrition.
I did that.
Which is crazy because I wasn't doing that for my own diet. I was eating deviled sausages (which has rice) and would absolutely not give the leftover rice to my dog because OMG that is just pure SIN in a dog's diet,
It's literally fear that fuels this behaviour.
Since we were old enough to understand the words and the imaging from our TV and radio sets, we were being conditioned by the pet food industry that if we loved our pets, we must feed them a complete and balanced diet, even if that was sad brown pellets (thanks, Lyka) that were balanced with synthetic nutrients because if we didn't, we'd make our dogs sick or even DIE! Our Vets were then telling us the same thing because their education was often coming from the pet food industry, and they were not taught how to formulate fresh food diets.
I've personally found that Vet Nurses are amongst the worst when it comes to judgemental behaviour and rigid views on dog nutrition, and this is because their education also comes from the pet food industry...I know, I did that nutrition module, and it hurt my feelings.
When we're asked to challenge ourselves as to why "balance" means something different in dog nutrition than it does in human nutrition, we can feel quite defensive and uncomfortable about that, and often the answer I hear is "because dogs are different".....but no further explanation than that when pressed.
In human nutrition, you know what a balanced diet looks like: it's taking different whole foods from different food groups and giving some food groups preference over others. It's about trying to get as much variety in our diet as possible. Some gut health experts even suggest we eat 20+ different veggies, fruits, spices, etc. every week!
In human nutrition, the level of micro-managing we are encouraged to do in dog nutrition to "get it right" would be called an eating disorder.
In healthy human nutrition, we don't look at a piece of food and ask how much Zinc it has in it and compare that to the recommended daily intake.
Within the last 6 months, one of my dogs, at nearly 6 years of age was diagnosed with lymphoma - I guess like someone who has a crisis of faith in religion when they lose someone they don't think had enough time, I got to that point somewhat. I also saw a public nutrition advocate I respect a lot, Rodney Habib, lose his dog to cancer. If Rodney, who had so much knowledge and was doing all the right things, could lose a dog to Cancer, then why are we going to all this effort?!
It sounds silly saying it out loud, but when you dedicate the last 20 years of your life to supplying your dog with amazing nutrition and then you think you don't see the payback, you feel a bit ripped.....in saying this, I have a very healthy and vibrant 15 year old dog so it's quite ridiculous to have these thoughts but they have challenged me to think different.
Diet is only one part of the equation. I cannot control the environment, I can't control cancer-causing toxins, and I can't control my dog's genetics enough to be able to switch off the genes that got triggered.
I've felt in this period of time (she's still with us) that my guard really has come down in relation to nutrition, I don't blink an eye now when I scrape leftover rice or pasta into their bowl. I don't get anxious when I give an 'oh sh%t meal' (I forgot to get something out) that I know is not balanced. I don't feel weird about making a hearty and nutritious (but not complete and balanced) slow-cooked meal for my dog.
I really have now settled into balance over time, and feeding a variety, just like in healthy human nutrition, is a-ok. Our adult dogs are pretty awesome at thriving with these kinds of diets as long as we really are being thoughtful about rotation and variety. Our babies (puppies) need us to be more thoughtful in their rapid growth phases, but that also doesn't mean we need to be extremists either.
Whilst this has been a long post, I hope it has given you pause...that maybe you're at the part of your journey where you may be heading into the rigid zone, maybe I can help you not do that.
Love those furry little bastards whilst they're here and provide beautiful enrichment through nutrition without anxiety.
Sacha
Fresh Food Formulator
Canine Nutrition (Companion Animal Sciences Institute)
Animal Nutrition (Holistic Animal Therapy Organisation)
Raw Dog Food Nutrition Specialist (Dogs Naturally)
Advanced Nutrition (Advanced Pet Nutritional Advisor) (Waltham)
