Providing progressive, compassionate care

What you need to know about raw diets

Microbial Contamination
If you’re feeding your pet a raw diet, keep in mind that food is contaminated with microbes. For example, meat becomes contaminated with microorganisms during all processing stages. Safety procedures have been incorporated into food processing practices for both the meat and poultry industries, but bacteria persist, despite the most diligent efforts.
Commercial raw products – sold frozen or freeze-dried – don’t claim to be pathogen-free. Such diets have been documented to contain the following: Yersinia enterocolitica, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli (E. coli).

What you can do:
Because most pathogenic organisms are found on the surface of the meat, searing the surface would significantly reduce the potential bacterial load. An option for pet owners who do not want to feed thoroughly cooked meat is to feed whole (not ground) meat, braise the surface, and feed the meat rare instead.

Zoonotic Potential
Pets fed contaminated raw meat shed viable organisms in feces. Individuals who clean the cat’s litter box or pick up their dog’s stool should consider the feces contaminated with viable pathogenic microbes.
What you can do:
Take extra precautions when persons or pets in the household have immune-suppressive diseases, such as human immunodeficiency virus infection, feline leukemia, or feline immunodeficiency virus infection; are undergoing chemotherapy; or are using anti-inflammatory medications. Also, use extra caution in households with young children to prevent fecal–oral contamination.

Handling Raw Diets
Feeding infected raw diets increases the risk of infection for both people and pets. Humans can become infected with food-borne pathogens when handling contaminated meat and egg products. Household transmission of food-borne pathogenic organisms from dogs to humans has been documented. Good hygiene is essential.

Dispelling the Myths
Many who advocate feeding raw diets contend that dogs and cats have a more acid stomach and shorter gastrointestinal tracts than do humans, protecting them from pathogenic bacteria. However, there is no difference among these species in regard to gastric pH and no evidence to suggest the difference in length of the gastrointestinal tract is protective to dogs and cats.

And finally…
No scientific evidence exists that a raw diet is superior to any dry or canned pet food. As a result, this practice is associated with health risks to pet and family with no demonstrable benefit.