Thread: My raw feeding experiment

Originally Posted by Antonia

But however tragic, anecdotal evidence is not scientific proof. Surely, you as a scientist are aware of that.

Hence the smiley I had after the QED. Of course I have never seen *anything* but anecdotal evidence supporting the safety or superiority of raw diets. Commercial diets have at least been subjected to numerous long term feeding studies and various ongoing forms of testing (that sometimes lead to recalls). In particular, our Purina Pro Plan Selects bags say right on them that nutritional sufficiency has been confirmed via feeding studies; they have actually fed the food to cats and verified that they are not having health problems due to nutritional deficiencies in the food. Now we can certainly debate whether such studies would pick up subtle issues that might develop long term, but we at least have some guarantees, which is much more than one has with raw diets.

Originally Posted by Antonia

For scientific proof you need a large-scale study, preferably longitudinal, using cases and controls. An epidemiological study, like the ones conducted on the effects of diet on people’s health.
But AFAIK there is no such study. Which I think is a great pity. Don’t you?
But again, if you do know of such a study, please tell me where I can find it.

Right--there is essentially no reliable, factual basis for making a decision--and it is very unfortunate.

The only controlled study comparing raw to commercial diets that I have ever seen is the Winn Foundation financed study noted on the Wikpedia "raw feeding" page (you can find more complete info on it if you search online). Incidentally, that page is probably one of the best sources of balanced and factual information on the Internet, so I highly recommend it:[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_feeding"]Raw feeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg/220px-Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/1/19/Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg/220px-Chien_mangeant_une_pintade.jpg[/ame]

That one study was stopped when the raw fed cats started dying, and raised as many questions as it answered (e.g., subjective evaluation was that the raw fed cats appeared if anything a bit "healthier"...right up until they began dying...so much for the value of subjective health assessments). Wiki sums up the objective health assessments: "There were no differences between the groups in terms of growth rate, degree of inflammation in the intestinal tract and the numbers of bacteria in the upper small intestine, although a slightly higher number of cats in the raw diet group were shedding pathogenic organisms (Giardia and Cryptosporidia) in their stools."

I have also seen a couple of assays of nutrients in various raw diets that have found multiple deficiencies relative to the US/Canadian cat nutrition standards (AAFCO). That is it!

BTW, the Winn Feline Foundation is one of few organizations that funds research on feline health issues. I strongly encourage people to take a look at their website and consider making contributions. We have. For example, they provided funding to Dr Meurs that eventually led to the HCM gene test for MCs. Their website also has a lot of good information on it: Cat Health Information from the Winn Feline Foundation