new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Morrigan]

you may find an article I wrote on it recently of some use, https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/

I read your article and thank you for putting it together. There is a lot of really good information in there. I have no doubt that your chickens eat better than most. I think the struggle for most people is they have limitations that prevent them from duplicating this.

The biggest limitation is that a lot of us don't have the ability to free range our birds in a nutritionally diverse environment. Whether it is space, predator load, or too poor/dry an environment, most of the people on this forum are keeping their chickens in conditions where very few calories are coming from forage. Although that doesn't preclude making your own food, it increases and complicates the effort. I think free range chickens are eating a lot more animal protein in the form of insects, snakes, and even road kill than people suspect. Making sure your chickens get the right amount of high quality protein and complete amino acids will be the biggest challenge and expense.

The second limitation is the amount of work involved in sourcing ingredients and crafting the daily meals. Particularly, if you expect to travel and have someone else tending your chickens from time to time. Even with family and good friends, I can only ask or expect them to do so much.

I think what is realistic for most of us it to use commercial feed as a base, and then give them some supplemental, unprocessed food. If your chickens have access to quality free range, plus commercial food they are probably doing pretty good. But otherwise people can sprout grains/peas/seeds, raise insects, and give appropriate garden and kitchen scraps. If done correctly, I think supplementing your chicken's diet with real food can improve their physical and mental health.

The trick is that once you start giving supplemental food that is more than a de minimus amount, you must make sure that, in the aggregate, it is nutritionally balanced. That may mean opening a can of tuna, or saving meat scraps from your kitchen, that you give once or twice a week. This is where I'm at. Depending on the season and what I have available to give them, I'd guesstimate that anywhere between 10 to 40 percent of my chickens' diet is from what they find in their yard, plus supplemental items I give.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

this is interesting, lately I’ve been wondering about this in pets etc… specifically wondering about WHEN all the processed feed for our domesticated pets became the norm. I know that my dogs’ vet mentioned that all dog breeds’ life expectancy is going down over the decades. For example, golden retrievers average life expectancy a few decades ago ( maybe five decades?) was 16 years and it’s gradually gone down to ten. Now I know about over breeding etc but c’mon… has anyone ever thought about the commercial processed foods possibly contributing to this?

so what started my wondering is that I came across an older dog training book written in the mid sixties. I actually had to check the date published because I was reading it in the barnes and noble book store aisle and as I was skimming the book I noticed how antiquated it was. It was actually entertaining to skim, but that’s not my point. What caught my attention was the chapter on what and how to feed your dog. The author was explaining what to feed and how much to feed and I was confused and had to keep re-reading to see what I was missing until I realized that HOME COOKING being fed to dogs must have been the NORM back then ( this was written in the mid sixties). The author even mentioned that commercial dog food was “fairly new and expensive” and that most average households might not be able to afford commercial dog food! I actually laughed out loud in the book aisle because of the irony of how things had changed so drastically! Anyway… it got me wondering if the longer life expectancy of dogs back then might be tied in with what we are regularly feeding them. I also started wondering if commercial foods might be contributing to all the rise in the obesity and diseases in our pets. That got me thinking about my chickens as well,,, and I wondered how the pioneers did it all WITHOUT commercial food, electricity, etc etc etc… so nonetheless, I am very interested in this thread! Thoughts?

So...

I don't know a lot about illness and injury in pets. I hesitate to draw comparisons between modern commerical feeds (with all their myriad variations) and "home cooking" of "back when", which has always been quite regional, and of differing quality. Commercial chicken feed goes back to the early 1900s, though its use by smallfarmers and indivudual households obviously did not become widespread till at least a half century or more later.

Within the limits of those caveats, its my impression and weakly held opinion (absent much evidence) that the push for early spaying of our pets has contributed to the development of numerous health related maladies, at least.

and the pioneers did it with much physical labor, greatly uncertain outcomes, and frequent subsistence living - the differences are unimaginable to most living in the modern era.

 

[Folly's place]

Dog food as I saw it in the 1050's and early 1960's included dry dog food, canned horse meat, and table scraps. Don't ask me to go back to canned horse meat!
High egg producing hens in the early 1900's maybe produced 100 eggs annually! And farms included multiple species and their feeds, and a more diverse environment generally.
Early dog and especially cat foods were not ideal, but research and food trials have vastly improved most/ many such diets.
Mary

 

[NanaK]

Don't ask me to go back to canned horse meat!

Oh, that stuff smelled awful and really stayed on doggie's breath!

 

[MaryJanet]

Just stumbled upon this today on emulsifiers:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...truth-about-emulsifiers-gut-health-microbiome

(not one my my usual go-to sources for information and I haven't checked out the sources)

Isn't that the same article Perris shared a couple of days ago on this thread? I recall reading about gut mucus emulsifying and wondering why no one had connected those dots before now.

Hey, let's eat emulsifiers!
Later: Oh no my gut mucus is emulsifying.
Hmmm I wonder why....

 

[Stravager]

this is interesting, lately I’ve been wondering about this in pets etc… specifically wondering about WHEN all the processed feed for our domesticated pets became the norm. I know that my dogs’ vet mentioned that all dog breeds’ life expectancy is going down over the decades. For example, golden retrievers average life expectancy a few decades ago ( maybe five decades?) was 16 years and it’s gradually gone down to ten. Now I know about over breeding etc but c’mon… has anyone ever thought about the commercial processed foods possibly contributing to this?

so what started my wondering is that I came across an older dog training book written in the mid sixties. I actually had to check the date published because I was reading it in the barnes and noble book store aisle and as I was skimming the book I noticed how antiquated it was. It was actually entertaining to skim, but that’s not my point. What caught my attention was the chapter on what and how to feed your dog. The author was explaining what to feed and how much to feed and I was confused and had to keep re-reading to see what I was missing until I realized that HOME COOKING being fed to dogs must have been the NORM back then ( this was written in the mid sixties). The author even mentioned that commercial dog food was “fairly new and expensive” and that most average households might not be able to afford commercial dog food! I actually laughed out loud in the book aisle because of the irony of how things had changed so drastically! Anyway… it got me wondering if the longer life expectancy of dogs back then might be tied in with what we are regularly feeding them. I also started wondering if commercial foods might be contributing to all the rise in the obesity and diseases in our pets. That got me thinking about my chickens as well,,, and I wondered how the pioneers did it all WITHOUT commercial food, electricity, etc etc etc… so nonetheless, I am very interested in this thread! Thoughts?

Modern commercial diets for dogs have some severe issues that a lot of people tend to ignore because they just fall on the trend wagon and run with it. Acana/Orijen I believe have had issues with much too high protein content for most dogs and yet they're one of the most common dog food companies in the area I'm in. The recent fad of "grain free" diets full of lentils, potatoes, and peas are causing DCM in dogs and contributing to heart issues leading to early death. At the same time "raw food" diets tend to lack most vital nutrients because people don't realize they have to include a vitamin/mineral source - you can't just feed straight raw meat with a few veggies in it and call it good. Obesity is mostly the fault of people overfeeding and under-excising and not so much the commercial diets themselves.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

and of course selective breeding is to blame, at least in some species. What we Americans have done to the once proud Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in pursuit of appearance is simply criminal. Pugs and many other breeds likewise.

 

[Sally PB]

and of course selective breeding is to blame, at least in some species.

Why doesn't someone breed for longevity? My dream "breed:" 40+ pound dog, short hair, that is likely to live to 20 without hip/heart/joint issues.

Off my soapbox, going to get more coffee...

 

[Geena]

included dry dog food, canned horse meat

I remember that from when I was a little kid, Ken-L-Ration biscuit and horse meat. Although we didn't feed that, we used Bench and Field.

and of course selective breeding is to blame

Not so much selective breeding itself, as much as irresponsible selective breeding. The proliferation of certain health issues in a breed is often caused by genetic bottlenecking due to popular/prolific sire syndrome. Sometimes they can even be traced directly to a specific dog or two many generations back.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Not so much selective breeding itself, as much as irresponsible selective breeding. The proliferation of certain health issues in a breed is often caused by genetic bottlenecking due to popular/prolific sire syndrome. Sometimes they can even be traced directly to a specific dog or two many generations back.

As well as 'fashion'. The SOP for a lot of animals causes more harm than good. Breeders push that 'perfection' to the point it becomes unhealthy for the animal.

One hundred years ago, animals could breathe. Now, a lot of the flat nosed ones need surgery to be able to do this. This is NOT perfection, it's an atrocity.

As for nutrition, dogs are *not* fully carnivorous (though they certainly don't go out of their way to find legumes!) but will happily munch on fruits and veggies in the wild. Years ago, before commercial dog foods, people were told to feed their dogs bread and milk as a staple diet. And the dogs flourished and lived much longer than now! Not that I'm advocating a return to this.

I would rather my animals live how they were supposed to, not laying every day (for my birds, obviously) and getting exercise as they hunt down their own food. Brooding and raising their own young. I know it's not an option for a lot of people (and come winter I'll have to resort to more commercial types of feed), but at least trying to give them something closer to nature and not so refined and processed is a start.

And as for the OP's original post, I completely agree. I did Keto for a while and lost weight and felt fantastic. Unfortunately, due to finances, my diet is very starch-heavy now and it shows.

Sorry if any of this has all been said before, I just discovered the thread and couldn't resist jumping in. I am just full of opinions when it comes to this topic!