Ruined by Excess, Perfected by Lack: The Paradox of Pet Nutrition

177 Pages·2011·4.254 MB·English

by  R. Patton

Contents i
RUINED BY EXCESS,
PERFECTED BY LACK
The paradox of pet nutrition
Richard Patton
ii The Paradox of Pet Nutrition
Nottingham University Press
Manor Farm, Main Street, Thrumpton
Nottingham, NG11 0AX, United Kingdom
NOTTINGHAM
First published 2011
© Nottingham University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced in any material form
(including photocopying or storing in any
medium by electronic means and whether or not
transiently or incidentally to some other use of
this publication) without the written permission
of the copyright holder except in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright
holder’s written permission to reproduce any part
of this publication should be addressed to the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Ruined by Excess, Perfected by Lack
The paradox of pet nutrition
ISBN 978-1-904761-72-3
Disclaimer
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the material in this book is true, correct, complete and
appropriate at the time of writing. Nevertheless the publishers and the author do not accept responsibility
for any omission or error, or for any injury, damage, loss or financial consequences arising from the use
of the book. Views expressed in the articles are those of the author and not of the Editor or Publisher.
Typeset by Nottingham University Press, Nottingham
Printed and bound by Latimer Trend & Co Ltd, Plymouth
Contents iii
CONTENTS
1 Early paradoxes as an animal nutritionist 1
PART ONE: NUTRITIONAL PARADOXES
2 Adaptability perfected by lack: The eloquence of lack 11
Billions of years of dealing with lack have made mammals good at it 11
References 21
3 The primordial diet: Always something to eat 23
In the beginning there was food 23
Who ate who, and what 25
In the science of nutrition, enough is plenty 27
Chemical analysis of foods eaten 29
Dry pet food—a source of excess soluble carbohydrate 35
Summary 40
References 41
4 Nutrition and animal behavior: How pets train people 43
References 48
5 Horse nutrition - the paradox continues 51
The feeding strategy of the horse 53
Forage 54
Protein 58
Carbohydrate (grain) 59
Fats 63
Major minerals of horse nutrition 64
Vitamins 65
Supplements 67
References 70
iv The Paradox of Pet Nutrition
6 The cat: paradox at its extreme 71
Canned diets 75
Raw diets 75
References 76
PART TWO: BASIC NUTRITIONAL SCIENCE
7 Major dietary components: Important big things 79
Water 79
Energy 80
Energy requirements 82
Energy consumed 83
Dry matter and digestibility trials 89
Protein 92
Fat 95
Fibre 98
Carbohydrates 99
References 103
8 Vitamins and nutricines: Important small things 105
Vitamins 108
Nutricines 112
Micronutrient differences for dogs and cats 116
References 117
9 Minerals: From rocks to nutrients 119
Macro minerals 121
Micro or trace minerals 126
Chelates 129
References 130
10 Anatomy and digestive physiology: Design and layout 131
Immunity and bacteria, friendly and not 131
Contents v
Anatomy of a single stomach animal 134
Anatomy of plant eaters 137
References 141
11 The feeding and support of microbes (probiotics and prebiotics): 143
Tiny beasts with big effects
Probiotics 144
Prebiotics 147
References 148
12 Labelling and regulations: How we know what we feed 149
Regulations in the USA 149
Regulations by Individual States 152
Labelling and Melamine: How the system works 152
Regulations in the European Union 153
References 154
13 What to feed: Looking after your pet 155
Index 165
Dedication
The time and place of one’s birth, and the accompanying DNA, are entirely
the mischief of others. Regarding these others, I had all the good luck one
could need for an entire life, just by virtue of whom I call mother anda fther.
to my parents
Stu and Colleen
Acknowledgments
As books go, the one you hold is not lar ge, but it has been the major
preoccupation of my after hours life since 1998, when the first words were
put on paper. The ambition to undertak e this task w as enabled by the
confidence shown in me by v arious superiors in my professional career .
Paul Chandler, Mark Morris, Meyer Luskin and Hassan Kassem were quite
simply my professional mentors. It is my hope that this book in some small
way validates the judgment and patience of these gentlemen.
Nottingham University Press was most charitable to align themselves with a
first time author, and to the editor Cliff Adams I am indebted. RosW ebb and
Sarah Keeling were kind and supportive to a fault, as well as consummate
professionals at their job. Every author should have the benefit of support
such as theirs.
Despite years of formal education and training, just about veerything I know
of any real application to the care of animals was taught to me by animals
and their owners.
Early paradoxes as an animal nutritionist 1
1
EARLY PARADOXES AS AN ANIMAL NUTRITIONIST
Enrolled at Virginia Tech for my Ph. D. I researched the feeding of insects
to cows. This was driven by my premonition that the exoskeleton of insects,
containing chitin, could be digested by the bacteria in the co w’s rumen
(paunch). It proved to be so. My thinking, dismissed with a patronizing
smile by most of my colleagues, was that insects represented an overlooked
reservoir of quality nutrition. Society spends billions to eradicate insects
because they eat or destroy one third of all food produced in the world. In
industrialized countries, if people are aware of insect costs, it is in the form
of insecticides used in agriculture, or the friendly exterminator. People of
emerging economies, or those living in the tropics, encounter insect damage
on a more regular basis. At any rate, I was proposing, with this demonstration
of the utility of insects as feed for co ws, that society consider spending a
few million dollars to harvest insects, rather than billions to eradicate them.
I thought cow manure would be a w arm feast for a cockroach, and the
symmetry of this recycling (cow waste feeds insects that are fed to co ws)
seemed full of potential.
My first professional employment following my formal education was
with an animal nutrition research laboratory founded by the Mark Morris
family to continue the pioneering efforts of Dr. Mark Morris, Sr. in the dietary
management of disease in companion animals. Dr. Morris was the first to
propose a low quantity, high quality protein diet for kidney failure in dogs.
Prescription Diet k/d as it was called, was the flagship product in a line of
such diets, that afforded veterinarians and their clients a very useful dietary
tool to help with specific afflictions in pets. My assignment at first was to
oversee the research trials, and subsequently in the front ofcfi e as an assistant
in professional education. I was given wide discretion in zoo animal nutrition
research, and I had many rare experiences for an animal nutritionist. In the
chapters that follow, reference is made often to my experience with exotic
animals to illustrate principles common to all animals.
I had a position where it was my responsibility to arrange the matings of
the cats so that we had a steady flo w of litters of kittens. This was because
1
2 Ruined by Excess. Perfected by Lack - The Paradox of Pet Nutrition
our function as an organization was to provide an Underwriters Laboratory
type service for the pet food industry. Companies would hire our facility to
prove their diets did as they claimed, for example maintain adults or grow
kittens. It was my job to oversee these tests and ensure that our conclusion
was unbiased and scientifically correct.
One particular female cat w as usually a superb mother to her kittens.
On her milk, kittens gained weight at the proscribed rate and looked great.
However three weeks after birth of one litte,r she got an ear infection, which
affected her balance and caused obvious discomfort. Of course we had vets
on staff and she had the best of medical care, and she continued to care for
her kittens and try to nurse them, but her milk nearly dried up and the kittens
stopped gaining weight.
The infection was cleared up in a week or so, and soon it w as time to
wean the kittens, which by protocol was six weeks of age. I found I had a
dilemma on my hands. The kittens were barely half the weight we expected
at weaning, and as such disqualified for any test measuring the ability of a
diet to support growth. Should I leave them with their mother, whose milk
flow seemed to have revived, or wean them per protocol and hope for the
best? I decided that they be weaned on time at six weeks of age, and follwoed
what ensued with anxious concern.
There is a v ery predictable growth curve following weaning, which
always starts out with a sharp decline in growth as the kittens deal with the
stress of weaning, the most traumatic thing to happen to them in their young
lives. Much to my amazement, my prize litter of kittens never even noticed
weaning. When removed from their mother and placed on dry food (the
same as their mother had been eating) they gained weight at an accelerating
rate, never showing any lessening of gain or evidence of stress. In three
weeks (nine weeks of age) they were in fact ahead of the standard curve for
growth rate.
When discussing my amazement at the litter’s performance with the
person in charge of the day-to-day care of the cats he did not at all share my
bewilderment. “Oh, they were weaned at three weeks,” he told me, “back
when their mother got sick.” When her milk diminished and they got hungry,
they learned right away to eat her food. I went back and looked at the food
consumption records routinely collected on all our animals. There it was
in black and white. The mother’s food consumption appeared to increase
when she got sick, but of course it was her kittens eating the food, not her.
When we weaned the kittens at six weeks of age, the y had already been
weaned, and as I thought about it, in a f ar less stressful way than normal.
They had the care and nurturing of their mother as the y went through the
stress of weaning.
Early paradoxes as an animal nutritionist 3
This experience had a profound effect on me. First of all, as my father
taught me early on, you never know for certain when you are winning or when
you are losing. What seems at the time like the worst possible development,
may prove the best thing that could have happened to you. The other lesson
the kittens brought into v ery clear focus for me w as the near miraculous
adaptability of animals to harsh or cruel conditions. T his is a theme we will
encounter in detail in later chapters. Most importantl,y this episode with my
favorite mother cat and her kittens was the beginning of a career-long truth
for me. Despite a lot of formal education, nearly everything I learned about
animal nutrition I was taught by animals and their owners.
I learned early on that animal nutrition problems were almost al ways,
on close analysis, people problems. As a result, I developed a method of
questioning my clients and their emplo yees that helped us get at the root
cause of problems. The need for persistent questioning became evident to
me when we were test marketing a new diet for raptors (birds of pre y) in
zoos. I was of the growing suspicion that mother eagles regurgitated their
food for the young, and in so doing, added enzymes that aided the chicks
in digestion. The curator of birds at one of our test zoos w as gifted with
great powers of observation, and raptors were a deep professional interest
of his. I felt lucky to have such a cooperator on the project. After the trial
I asked him if he had e ver seen the mother eagle re gurgitate her food for
the chicks. He replied “No, never: Only seven times.” With this, I had the
answer I wanted, which was an accurate counting of how often it happened.
But what amazed me w as that this v ery important behavior by the eagle
mother was inconsequential in the mind of the curator , and so to him his
records of it were irrelevant. The curator was way above average at looking
and really seeing what he was looking at. I was struck by the thought that
if I had been dealing with a person of normal po wers of observation, the
answer would have been merely “No, never,” and an opportunity to further
my hypothesis would have been lost. I question clients carefully to get past
their interpretation of what they saw.
Recently, I was explaining to another animal nutritionist one of my pet
theories; that constant excess soluble carbohydrate is not good. She politely
endured my pontification, then ask ed how I could explain the fact that her
cat died at 19 and ate dry food its entire life. Dry food of the conventional
expanded type, so common in the market, must be 30% to 50% soluble
carbohydrate, and cats can handle some carbohydrate, but also can survive
just fine without an y. I admitted, recovering as best I could, that this w as
unique and probably made possible by the fact that she had the cat adapted
to self feeding at will. A few minutes later, as I stood by, she admonished