g a l o d y

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve spent hours over the past fortnight researching nutrition and mast cell tumours.

Perhaps I did this because I feel particularly helpless – there was nothing we could do:  The vet did everything.  What could we, as owners, do?

Or perhaps it was because I felt guilty about not getting this particular lump checked, earlier.

Whatever the reason, I’ve learnt a lot about nutrition in general and specifically, in relation to mast cell tumours and cancer.  To be honest, it all became a bit of a headache.  No sooner had I found a way forward, but I discovered something else which meant it wasn’t really a way forwards and I was back at square one.

For example, one book stated that cheese was ok as a training treat for dogs with cancer, being high in saturated fat and low in carbs.  But then another source stated that lactose could be converted to a form of carbohydrate and another source said that fermented cheese like cheddar was high in histamines, so should be avoided.

Or:  One book stated that fish was excellent, as were tinned fish and omega 3s.  But then the same source as mentioned above stated that fish, especially tinned fish, is high in histamines, and should be avoided.

Or:  I’d conclude that raw eggs were great… only to find they contain some carbs.

OR:  I’d conclude that feeding only fat and protein and zero carbs was the way forwards, then my friend Mike emails me (with his far superior understanding of digestion), to say that protein can be broken down to a form of carbs – so, is there a point to avoiding all carbs?

Until finally I’m left wondering (bizarrely) if it’s possible to feed a diet of entirely saturated fat – before realising that this has gone too far…

If I applied everything I read, Slate would probably end up eating lard and nothing else.  Then she’d probably die of some vitamin deficiency!

So I read as much as I could and, when something was repeatedly stated in multiple sources, I went with that.  If some single radical source said something, and no one else appeared to agree, I’d override it.  If there was disagreement, I went with the majority.

Carbs are bad!

This was pretty much the first thing I discovered.  There’s a useful paper here by Gregory Ogilvie, which explains why they are bad for dogs with cancer in particular (read the bottom of p2).  For a summary of this paper, there’s a good and useful article here.

In short, cancer feeds off carbohydrates.  Cancer cannot use fats at all and – after much figuring out on my part – I believe it can only use protein in a limited way.

Unanimously, all sources I read stated that a diet low in carbohydrates, high in fat and high in quality protein, was recommended for dogs with cancer.

I was a bit puzzled, though:  Despite explaining the way in which carbs feed cancer, Ogilvie goes on to recommend only a diet low in carbs.  Not carb-free.  I couldn’t understand why this was:  There is a whole cohort of raw feeders who feed no carbs at all, giving no vegetables or grains, since they believe that dogs don’t need carbs and are carnivores, not omnivores.  Why doesn’t Ogilvie recommend a carb-free diet?  Do dogs need some carbs?

This then set me off on an exploration of whether dogs needed carbs in their diet or not.  (You can see the hours spent online, now, can’t you?)  I especially found this article from a raw feeder useful.

I would really recommend a book called ‘Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs’ by Lew Olson  This was recommended to me by another dog owner who feeds raw.  It put forth a powerful argument, from someone with a PhD in Nutrition, for the absence of carbs in any dog’s diet – not just dogs with cancer.  (By the way, by ‘carbs’ I mean not just grains, but potatoes, sweet potatoes and other vegetables.)

This book was great because it also had suggestions for cooked diets, for those who don’t feed raw – and it even had suggestions for things to add to kibble, to make more nutritious meals, for those who can’t move away from kibble.  Plus diet suggestions for senior dogs, puppies, pregnant dogs and dogs with all kinds of diseases – including cancer.  I would really highly recommend it.  (I also bought Lonsdales ‘Work Wonders:  Feed your dog raw meaty bones’ – which was terrible:  Overly simplistic and just the kind of pro-raw rant which I hate.  I threw it out!)

My conclusion was that dogs don’t need carbs.  But carbs are cheap.  Even relatively expensive kibbles are mostly carbohydrate:  James Wellbeloved is 26% meat.  Symply is 26% meat.  Joe & Jacks is 26% meat.  This is the ‘average’ amount of meat in most dry dog foods.  Visualise a 15kg sack of dog food.  Now visualise only 26% of that as meat.  The rest is rice.  People are paying something like £45 for what is essentially and largely a sack of rice.  (By contrast, Orijen is 80% meat.)

Moreover, there is a growing trend amongst dog food manufacturers to create ‘grain-free’ foods for high prices:  People who have got wise to the ‘sack of rice’ idea are quick to buy these foods.  But usually the rice has been replaced with the exact same quantity of potato.  Which is also cheap and a massive source of carbohydrates.

As for why Ogilvie recommends only a low-carb diet and not one which is carb-free…  Well, there is a little clue on p15 of his paper, where he recommends Hills Prescription Diet w/d and again on p16, where he comments that ‘the only commercially available food which meets [the recommendations for a food for cancer suffering dogs] is Hills Prescription Diet n/d’.

By the way, the third largest ingredient on the Hills Prescription Diet n/d is…. guess what…?  RICE.

Further snooping around reveals that Hills Prescription Diet n/d was developed off the back of Ogilvie’s research.  Call me sceptical, but I have to ask the question:  Who funded his research?  Was it Hills??

Calculating the carb content

I have spent many an hour figuring out how to calculate the carbohydrate content of dog foods, since these are not listed.

This article from the website dogfoodadvisor.com is very useful in that respect.  It turns out that manufacturers don’t list carbohydrate amounts on their nutritional analysis labels, but this can be worked out by deducting the other quantities.

However, before you can follow those instructions to work it out, you must first work out the dry matter basis of the food – even if it’s a dry food – since dry foods contain some moisture.

This is especially important if you’re comparing a dry food and a wet food.  To work out the dry matter basis of the food, there’s another helpful article from dogfoodadvisor.com here.

This did produce some interesting results:  NatureDiet customer service had told me that their foods contained a total of 6.5% carbs.  Yet, when converted to dry matter this turned out to be about 25% carbs.

The way forwards

I’m not sure yet what we’re going to start feeding our dogs, since I don’t think raw is an option for us – for many reasons.

For Slate, I’m looking at perhaps a combination of Orijen for one meal, and the second meal being K9 Natural (freeze-dried raw) or Ziwipeak (air-dried raw), plus the addition of:  Raw eggs, tinned fish, yoghurt, cottage cheese, fish oils and garlic.  (Not all of that, every day, obviously.)  There are some carbs in Orijen – around 18-25%.  I don’t know if we could afford to feed her Ziwipeak for 2 meals a day, but we will more than halve her carb intake through having no carbs in her second meal.  We will also use no carbs in training treats, nor simple sugars.  (You’d be surprised at what’s added to ham or hotdog sausages:  A lot of glucose and some wheat/grain too.)

Although we can give both dogs all the added extras (raw eggs, tinned fish etc), I don’t think we can afford to feed both dogs the K9 Natural or Ziwipeak.  So Grey will probably get the slightly-cheaper-than-Orijen (but still with 60% meat) Acana for both meals, or maybe Orijen itself.

Finally, my friend Mike sent me a couple of interesting articles about the effects of fasting on cancer cells.  The academic paper can be found here, but there is also a readable write-up here.  In essence, cancer cells can’t adjust quickly enough to environmental changes (such as sudden fasting) and it causes them to go crazy and self-destruct.

When I read this, I recalled that there are a contingent of BARF feeders who fast their dogs one day a week, to mimic natural feeding.  Since this would cost us nothing to do, and I can’t see how it would do any harm, I think we should probably incorporate this into the plan for Slate.