Anyone else feed an all RAW diet?

[wolfsoul]

I'm surprised nobody has brought this up since so many people are being educated by this thread. Processed meats are worse than kibble. None of that plastic wrapped stuff on the grocer's shelf. That's pumped full of chemicals that are unhealthy for people and shorten our lifespans and the same goes with dogs and cats. I try not to eat processed meats myself. I am in no way ready to switch to raw until I find out which bacteria can be transmitted to dogs. I also hope all you raw feeders do a lot of cleaning of anything the meat touches. I prefer the utility diet of cooked meat and raw veggies, eggs, and such. You can give a balance of nutrients with a cooked meat diet too.

The stuff RAW people feed is not processed -- processed meats are the aame thing as processed cheese, or Spam. It's the fake version of the real stuff. Processed meat isn't really meat -- it contains high amounts of sodium and preservatives. The stuff you are talking about it just inorganic meat, which isn't nearly as bad as kibble -- most kibble doesn't only use inorganic meat, but diseased and rotten meat as well. I'm not picky about the kind of meat I buy -- I try to buy as organic as possible, but it is far too expensive to rely on organic foods altogether. I am certainly NOT careful about washing everything that meat touches. I believe that in order to stay resistant to bacteria, your body has to build a resistance to it by being around it as much as possible. I'm not careful about washing my hands and counters after handling raw meat, never have been, and I have yet to get sick. My friend who is absolutely paranoid about bacteria and washes and Lysols the heck out of things became very ill after she first started cooking meat in foods class in highschool. As long as you know what you're doing, none of the bacteria in raw meat will harm your dog. If you mix kibble and raw meat together, there is a much higher chance that the bacteria will affect your dog because the kibble is harder to digest and takes hours longer -- it can hold back the raw meat. Raw meat alone is easily digested and passed through the body quickly enough that the bacteria doesn't harm the dog. There are exceptions of course, some dogs with genetic digestive problems and such may not have the right enzymes in order to digest certain things, such as raw meat. This is mostly because some dogs have been thriving on kibble so long that they continue to bear puppies that have digestive problems and can ONLY eat kibble. Dogs with pancreatitis are a good example of that. The majority of them can only eat kibble or their pancreatitis will act up if fed anything else.

[PinkSunshine]

I believe that in order to stay resistant to bacteria, your body has to build a resistance to it by being around it as much as possible.

ITA. We don't switch our dogs over to an all RAW diet until they are 6 months old. We feel it's best for them to build up an immunity towards bacteria by eating kibble for 6 months.

Wolfsoul has explained it much better than I could

[cali]

really? we switch pupps to raw as soon an humanly possable, its MUCH better for their growth, if I compare moth my BCs one who grew up on kibble and one who was started on raw at 7 weeks the builds are very differnt, and its not hereditary, there is not one single dog in Happys entire pedigree that has a structure that even remotly resembles hers. Misty is smaller, better filled out, better muscled and had an overall better growth rate. Happy was not switched till around 6 months, she is tall, lanky, and if I shaved her she would pass for a greyhound lol she grew in huge sprurts, about 3 inches a week lol