Re: Re: Re: Animal By-Products in Feed

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> Marissa and I were only offering information for those interested in
> learning. Traditional medicine is not always correct as you might believe
or
> have learned. No offense, there is another side to health that you just
have
> not learned.

Robyn, I think you might be surprised at what I'm qualified to speak pretty
damn knowledgeably about.  Please re-read my earlier post---at no point did
I attack you or your opinions directly, only the unsubstantiated claims in
the article you were citing.


 I spent several years going to pre-vet school along with
> several personal experiences, only to find along the way that Traditional
> medicine is not always what it is cracked up to be. Going back to history,
> everyone at one time believed that the world was flat. Very few ventured
or
> cared to know that the world was actually round. Most doctors learn from
> their teachers (in a sense) that the "world is flat". They never venture
or
> care, or simply do not know to dig any deeper into things.

Which is why I ask for references, and don't tend to believe editorials
claiming unsubstantiated <enter horrible syndrome here> without some
objective data behind it.

> Who's to say there aren't seriously sick people and animals out there?
Wake
> up! Look all around you at all the people out there with cancers, obesity,
> arthritis, Altheimer's disease, high blood pressure, heart disease,
Chronic
> Fatigue, headaches, hormone relate problems, osteoporosis, high
cholestrol,
> intestional disorders, Diabetes, kidney disease, liver failure, stroke,
> etc.ect. ect.  These diseases are as common as the flu it seems. There is
> something seriously wrong with affects of the rich American diet.

And you credit all these diseases to the American diet?  Not to a sedentary
lifestyle, to increased pollution, to high-stress lifestyles, to alcohol,
tobacco or drug abuse, to mothers that use these substances during
pregnancy, to poverty, to overpopulation, to infectitious diseases that are
now 'super-bugs' due to over use of antimicrobials?  Just the 'American
diet'?  I congratulate you on your clairvoyence and scientific insight.


Not only
> that, our pets are getting these very same diseases as readily as
ourselves.
> Just because there are no noticeable effects from that preservative, that
> instant or a few years down the road, does not mean that it is not harming
> us in one way or another. Many things are diagnosed as something else.

Okay, so let's go with the thought that just because something doesn't cause
outright symptoms it doesn't mean it's not causing disease.  That being the
case, how exactly do you know that it's preservatives causing all this
rampant disease and not the fact that someone painted their kitchen blue?
That they drink Evian water?  That they watched MTV last week?  Other than
your own personal experience (which I congratulate you for), do you have any
empirical data to support your views?


What
> about  hundreds of  years ago? There were not even a fraction of the
> diseases that our pets and ourselves suffer today.

Yes, back then they all got lumped under "possessed by the devil" and were
cured by burning them at the stake.  Not sure if an organic carrot would
have helped much.


> The point that Marissa and I were making is that there are ALTERNATIVES
out
> there for people that care to know.  For instance, instead of prepared
feeds
> there are good old fashioned oats, pasture, or hay. It is that simple, if
> people want an alternative without preservatives.

Again, you will notice my post agreed that there are alternatives for people
that want to go to the bother.  Most don't or don't have the resources
available.

By the way, neither hay nor oats are natural to the horse, so you're just
making arbitrary and fairly uninformed decisions on what constitutes
'natural' to the horse's digestive system.  Hay is the equivalent of
freeze-dried convenience food for people who don't own acres and acres of
pasture, and oats don't exist for the wild equid, either.  Both have wide
variations between being totally wild and natural, and being the equivalent
of toxic waste, depending on how and where it was grown and harvested.

If you are feeding your horse in any way other than turning them out onto a
couple hundred acres of totally wild, unirrigated, unfertilized and unseeded
rangeland, then you are *not* feeding a wholly natural diet.  You've simply
drawn your own lines as to where you personally feel 'natural' ends and
'processed' begins.

> Of course no studies exist! Why would feed companies want to fund studies
> that might show that their products have any ill effects, even if those
> effects are not immediately life threatening?

Are you under the impression that all research is funded by the feed
companies?  Hardly.  Although feed companies in fact, do fund alot of
research, either in-house or through universities, and the  reputable ones
publish the results in peer-reviewed journals so everyone can read the data
and agree or disagree with the conclusions drawn.  But believe me, there is
*plenty* of research having to do with clinical or applied nutrition,
digestive physiology and nutrition-associated disease states that have
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with feed company funding or input.



 Plus studies are expensive to
> conduct.

You're preaching to the choir on this one, my dear.


 Most holistic practitioners -who'd like to have studies funded
> simply do not have the resources available to do the research.

Most of the 'holistic' practitioners I've talked to want research done
without a sound physiological theory to support it first.  Translation, it's
a fishing expedition and a waste of time and money.  There are exceptions,
and very worthwhile ones.  Just curious, have you ever done a lit review
through the scientific journals to see just how much research *has* been
published in this area?  It's an appreciable amount.  I don't mean Newsweek
or People magazine, I mean the peer-reviewed journals where you have to back
up claims with numbers.


>
> I do not need to have studies done to know that I feel TONS better eating
a
> starch centered plant based diet vs. the rich American diet I used to eat.
I
> do not need studies to know that what I am eating now has clearly helped
my
> serious past medical problems. I am my own study. I listen to my body. I
> listen to my animals.

As stated before, more power to you.  But there's a far cry between feeling
better yourself and heaping the woes of the world onto the use of
preservatives in food, when you clearly don't have any understanding of the
chemistry or physiology involved.


 The drastic improvements in our health have spoken for
> themselves. For instance with my cat, I almost lost her due to high kidney
> BUN levels. I put her on a raw meat/vegtable/starch diet (yes, with the
help
> of my vet) and her blood tests have turned and stayed at normal levels.

Just wondering if you were aware of the links between soluble carbohydrates
in feline diets (a strict carnivore) and the increased incidence of
diabetes?  Didn't think so.

Robyn, you are more than welcome to manage your own dietary choices as you
see fit, and I certainly agree with you that most people's diets could be
improved by eating more fruits and vegetables and making healthier lifestyle
choices.  No argument there.  But let's not extrapolate that into blaming
preservatives for everything from the California power shortage to
Waterworld, eh?

Susan G