Letters to the Editor
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Vets hawking Science Diet bothers me
When I was a kid we used to feed our cats raw beef hearts that we bought at the grocery store. My dad was a health food nut who owned the entire Adele Davis library, and I guess he figured that was the best thing for the cats. We'd slice it fresh every day. They were healthy, lean, energetic kitties. Then one day when we'd brought them in for their annual exams, the vet asked what we were feeding them. When we told them raw beef hearts he suggested, gently, that this kind of monochrome high protein diet wasn't the best for them and we switched to canned food. They quickly got fat and lazy.
I guess we were idiots but it was the 70s, and none of this raw food stuff was out there and we just figured the vet knew best. I have since been told that the folks at Science Diet develop relationships with vet students and vet schools, donating lots of money to school programs and basically engendering a lot of good will early on that benefits them later when students graduate and start their own clinics. Vets may not be raking in a windfall of cash from the Science Diet folks but there are other ways of showing the love -- donations to an alma mater, perhaps?
Much as I love my current vet, I have to say it's always bugged me that she will recommend a Science Diet product to fix some health problem, but she's never recommended the brand of dog food I actually use -- Nutro Max. Since switching from Science Diet and IAMS to Nutro Max my dogs and cats have much softer fur, the cat poop is less stinky and both species poop less often. The joint problems that forced one of my dogs onto medication have completely gone away. She's off Deramaxx now and hasn't limped in months.
I realize Nutro Max is just a higher quality of kibble and I'm considering playing with raw food, perhaps with the cats. I appreciate this article, however. Good "food" for thought.