A Little Criticism for the Raw Diet

As Mark says, canines are omnivores. Vegans, however, are not. (Actually not all canines are omnivores; some are exclusively carnivorous, and some eat mainly insects.) The biggest flaw in the vegan dog argument is the proposed leap from omnivore to herbivore; being an omnivore doesn't mean you can eat one or the other, it means you eat both, and it also doesn't mean that you eat equal amounts of each, or that one is as important as the other. In the case of dogs, meat is of the utmost nutritional importance, and fruits and vegetables are supplementary. We feed an omnivore diet here that includes raw meat, raw organs, and raw fruits and vegetables - the stuff that wild canines eat. Unlike some bears, which might be found eating an entirely vegetarian diet in the wild, nearly all other members of the order Carnivora, including the wolf, Canis lupus, of which the domestic dog is a subspecies, eat other animals. And the farther one gets from the equator, the more meat-eating one finds, so that the Carnivora species living near the poles eat only meat, while those living in the temperate zones might eat an exclusively animal-based diet in the winter and a more omnivorous diet during the growing and fruiting seasons.

If we're to base our decisions on what is most appropriate for an animal to eat on the dietary habits of its wild counterparts, then certainly we have to conclude that dogs need meat in their diets. Truthfully, the only way one would ever draw the conclusion that a dog should eat a vegan diet would be for that person to begin his/her study of nutrition with the foregone conclusion that dogs should be vegan, followed by the gathering of data to support it. No nutritionist with any degree of objectivity would look at the pool of data available and conclude that dogs don't need meat in their diets, if for no other reason than the fact that every wild dog in the world eats some kind of meat, and the nutrients that are vital to a dog's survival are all found in meat.

The life of a predator is dangerous. Every time a wild dog goes on a hunt, it risks injury and death. Scavenging dogs risk being attacked by other predators. Even their preferred food itself can kill them if they don't eat it carefully, the splintered bones of ducks and other wildfowl being common culprits. It's not an easy existence. Herbivores, on the other hand, while still at risk of predation, don't generally have to fight for their food and risk being killed by a potential meal. If wild dogs could survive as vegans, I'm pretty sure they would try, being supremely adaptable and opportunistic. Imagine a pack of wolves that could survive on vegetable sources alone - they would be essentially invulnerable to predators, thanks to their intelligence, social structure, and sharp teeth, and never having to risk their safety to hunt, individuals might live into their 20s before dying of old age. You never see that, though, because a dog can't survive on a naturally available vegan diet; it can only survive on one that's formulated for it by a human being, either in a laboratory or in the kitchen.

And let's look at that diet: the vast majority of commercial vegan dog foods contain various forms of wheat, corn, and soy - things that are indigestible and toxic to dogs, that have been linked to numerous cancers and other health concerns, and that don't, by themselves, provide a complete and balanced diet. A dog can live a long life on nothing but meat, because while dogs are behaviorally omnivores, they are anatomically and physiologically carnivores. Feed a dog only wheat, corn, and soybeans, and you won't have a dog to feed for very long; the vegan dog food manufacturers will be quick to tell you so. Dogs require all manner of nutrients in their diets that naturally occur in meat and animal fat, but for vegan dogs these nutrients have to be manufactured. Studies are showing that the metabolism of these laboratory ingredients is less efficient and more physiologically taxing than the metabolism of the same ingredients in their natural sources. Simply put, consuming lab-manufactured nutrients is not as healthy as simply eating foods that naturally contain them. Add to that something I discussed in a previous post, the fact that the vegetable forms of certain nutrients, like Omega-3 fatty acids, are not the specific ones dogs are best able to process and utilize, and you have foods that, frankly, are just all wrong. Close, perhaps, but no cigar.

In a survey of the ingredients of some of the top, commercially available vegan and vegetarian dog foods, as a caregiver who relentlessly vets ingredients and researches nutrition to ensure that my dogs are receiving the best diet I can provide them, I have a difficult time finding any ingredients I would want my dogs to eat unless I had no other option:

Avoderm: out of 40 ingredients, only carrots, peas, and dried kelp

Evolution: out of 52 ingredients, only carrots and kelp meal

Natural Balance: out of 45 ingredients, only carrots, peas, parsley flakes, and dried kelp

Natural Life: out of 46 ingredients, only dried kelp

Nature's Recipe: out of 36 ingredients, none

Next to Nature: out of 44 ingredients, only organic apples, organic peas, organic carrots, organic kelp, and organic cranberries

Three Dog Bakery: out of 33 ingredients, only carrots and peas

V-Dog: out of 37 ingredients, only beet pulp, peas, rosemary, and parsley

Wenaewe: out of 36 ingredients, only organic carrots, organic red beets, and organic broccoli

Wysong: out of 55 ingredients, only dried kelp and artichoke

Of the above listed foods, none has a minimum protein content above 28%, with the possible exception of V-Dog, which claims to be a high protein food, but doesn't provide the minimum percentage on its website. Six of the foods surveyed were under 20%. In contrast, most grain-free dog foods have minimums above 40%. Most of the surveyed foods also have minimum fat percentages below 10%, compared with the typical 15-20% found in grain-free foods. Natural Life, one of the worst of the bunch, is 17.5% protein, 7.5% fat, and has up to 7.5% ash. Yes, your dog could be getting equal amounts of fat and ash in this vegan diet. Nature's Recipe, possibly the worst of the group, has the same percentages, minus the ash. Wenaewe is the best brand surveyed, and the only brand that lists the 'good stuff', carrots, beets, and broccoli, among its primary ingredients, while all the other brands have them buried amid the various laboratory compounds needed to mimic the benefits of real meat and fat. Three Dog Bakery's peas and carrots come second and third-to-last in the ingredients. And by the way, of all those supplements that these foods require to make something that approaches the nutritional completeness of a true omnivore diet, some of them, like vitamin-A and vitamin-D, come from animal sources; more than half the foods surveyed aren't even truly vegan. And Next to Nature has powdered eggs. It seems even the manufacturers who tell you your dog doesn't need food from animal sources have a hard time making their products without going to animal sources, the truly vegan exceptions being only Evolution, Natural Balance, and Natural Life.

There are some vegan foods that I might consider feeding as a supplement or to a dog with digestive issues (we did this for one dog for several months after his immune system had essentially shut down in the aftermath of a major surgery; he teetered on the brink of starvation, and eventually we weaned him back onto meat and he's much better now) but there are far more drawbacks than benefits. But as I said at the beginning of this post, no one would feed a dog a vegan diet if it was about proper nutrition, so it must be about something else, and it's pretty clear what that is, as demonstrated by Mark's comment: "Disgusting." It's not about nutrition, it's about feelings, and feelings have their place, but they are, in my opinion, one of the biggest obstacles to an effective animal protection movement.

I find myself wishing that discussions of veganism and vegetarianism would center around ethics and stay away from emotional value judgments, because the 'he didn't want to die' argument is absolutely hollow. I don't want to die either, but someday I will. Everything dies, it's the way life works, you can't change it, and it totally sucks, but it's also fascinating how life has developed in such a way that the death of one organism, be it a single-celled algae or a water buffalo, is necessary for the life of another to continue. Far-removed from the horror of the modern factory farm, death sustaining life is playing out more times per day than we can hope to count, and there's something to that, because it's a little piece of the Law of the Universe, which was well in effect long before a small percentage of the human race decided to break with thousands of years of history and cultural development and millions of years of evolution and go vegan. We would be fools to look at the ecosystem around us and suggest that wild predators have no right to eat meat, but do our domestic animals, with the same anatomy and physiology, not also have a right to the foods they are most ideally suited to eat?

The question we should be asking, in my opinion, is not whether or not it's acceptable to feed a meat-eater meat, but rather, how should that meat be obtained? Is there an ethical way to produce meat commercially? Are there acceptable trade-offs? Does an animal's ecological niche have any relevance to its role within human societal constructs? And in response to those questions, there is ample room for differing opinions and vibrant discussion while maintaining a focus on ethics and setting emotions aside, lest they reveal us all to be hypocrites. After all, that vegan diet probably spent some time in the back of a truck, and that truck killed thousands of insects, maybe some rabbits or even a deer, and spewed all kinds of toxins into our atmosphere and watersheds in order to deliver a more humane meal to a local grocery store; those insects, rabbits, and deer didn't want to die either, and no one asked for more pollution. Vegans kill animals too, but at least my wolves eat them after their dead.

I once drove to eastern Washington to rescue a dog; I saved his life, but on the way there, I hit a deer. So did I save a life that day, or was it canceled out? Bogart is glad I made the trip, but that deer might still be alive if I hadn't. A lot of animals have died to feed our dogs; do the math and it's clear that far fewer lives would be lost if we simply destroyed the dogs. Even on a vegan diet, the damage done by agriculture and shipping would almost certainly outweigh the societal benefit of keeping these animals alive, so what should we do? There are no easy answers, but I will never stop asking the questions, and in the meantime, I'll continue to place a priority on the lives entrusted to me, and hope that, as I believe, I am doing the right thing.

And besides, who asked you, anyway? I like vegans, but self righteous vegans can eat me.

-Steve

Posted on February 9, 2011 | Link