I see a lot of questions and ranting and preaching and so on about pet nutrition on this site. A lot of people say “vets (and their technicians) don’t get any nutrition education, and are only reccommending certain foods because [insert reason]“. While the preaching and ranting are HUGE pet peeves of mine, I do agree that as a vet tech I feel like I haven’t had very good education on pet nutrition. My question is: How do I go about educating myself in an objective, factual manner about pet nutrition, so that I may answer others’ questions AND make sure my own pets are getting the nutrition they need?
Nutrition education?
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Unfortunately, there is not yet much of anything real or objective about pet nutrition. Pretty much any study out there on nutrition is funded by a pet food company. It’s to their benefit to prove that low end ingredients and cheap carbohydrates are great for pet food. There aren’t many real independent studies on what constitutes quality pet nutrition. Even studies that aren’t funded by pet food companies seem to be funded by someone selling a book.
Here is one interesting, legitimate appearing article about cat nutrition..
http://catinfo.org/zorans_article.pdf
I pretty much just looked at what the most similar wild animals consume in the wild. That’s why I feed my pets a whole prey model as that’s what makes the most sense to me. My pets have done spectacularly on it. I’m no longer at the vet all the time for urinary tract issues and things of that nature. But, as far as who’s right, I don’t think there’s anyway to know for sure. I do trust people more that do not have anything to sell..