RMB Newsletter Vol 2:3  The good, the bad and the misguided  November 2002

Dear Reader, In 2002 the good toiled valiantly, the bad conformed to type and the misguided failed to convince –- the subject of this RMB Newsletter. But first an apology is due for the long interval since the last newsletter. I plead pressure of work because 2002, for me, has been a whirlwind of meetings, lectures, planes and trains a long way from Sydney. How has your year progressed? Are your animals thriving? Are you making headway spreading the good-health message whilst combating the efforts of the merchants and the ‘competent authorities’? I hope so and hope you continue to receive lots of positive feedback. I’ll try to write again soon, but it’s my guess it will be after Christmas. So here’s wishing you, Complements of the Season and Happy New Year, Tom Lonsdale and the Raw Meaty Bones crew ______________________________________________________________________ 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 The good, the bad and the misguided The Good The good, selfless and highly motivated folks are among us and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. I met some exceptional people during 2002, in particular the organisers of the four components of the Raw Meaty Bones lecture tour. Kim Roberts, assisted by Liz Tilley and staff, organized the inaugural Raw Meaty Bones lectures at the University of Western Australia, Extension. From conception, several years ago, through to completion in March 2002 I enjoyed wonderful hospitality, encouragement and support. Kim Roberts, Director of the UWA, Extension signs his emails with the following: ‘Unless we change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.’ Old Chinese Proverb Ever on the look out for essential truths I incorporated the saying into subsequent lectures because it seems to me we are stepping out in a new direction and need the support and encouragement of clear-sighted folks like Kim and the ancient Chinese. In June, Swanie Simon organised the second anniversary get together of the Gesundehunde (healthy dogs) Internet discussion group. And what a delightful week it was. I’m smiling as I write this thinking of the happy folks and contented canines who gathered in a marquee in a sports ground somewhere in the middle of Germany an hour from Frankfurt. There are some pictures at www.rawmeatybones.com. At first I was apprehensive about speaking, given my lack of German, but I was mistaken. Swanie, Christiane and Sylvia were superb. They translated the questions for me and made my answers intelligible to the audience –- and the enforced wait between questions gave me time to think about the subject under discussion. I almost wish all audiences could be German. The dogs of all shapes and sizes were catered to –- a raw meaty bones truck pulled up with supplies. Lots of good food, good weather and good cheer marked this major initiative by Swanie and her helpers. I’m filled with admiration. Tony and Carol O’Herlihy of Bark Busters UK organised the most ambitious series of lectures through August at various venues in the UK. It’s true they enlisted the help and resources of an enthusiastic force of Bark Busters licencees, but even so I cannot help but be in awe at the thought, commitment and effort that went into ensuring the success of the tour. Everyone in Bark Busters UK www.barkbusters.co.uk, on a daily basis, sees and understands the need for carnivores to be fed as closely as possible to the way Nature planned it. They feed their own animals a predominantly raw meaty bones diet, help their dog training clients find information and supplies and generally advance the cause of dog health and behaviour across the UK. I am grateful to have been hosted by such a health conscious enterprise. Next stop after the UK was Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Alison Tyler is a renowned ‘raw feeder’, Internet discussion list owner and moderator, organiser of the South Eastern Natural Rearing group and raw meaty bones cooperative. Besides holding down a busy professional career and feeding 22 carnivores she still managed to organise a four city tour of the USA. The 4 August, 'Welcome to the USA and Raw Meaty Bones book launch' was held in the grand Atlanta residence of Glo Ghegan –- Southern style and hospitality at its finest. More a social event than a work gathering, the occasion marked the announcement of the proposed Class Action proceedings against the artificial pet food industry www.rawmeatybones.com Alison and her helpers put on four wonderful all-day discussions. My thanks go to Sue Cosby in New Jersey, Chris Ostrowski in California and all those who helped make my stay so enjoyable. The bad Whilst the few toiled valiantly communicating the raw meaty bones message, Nature’s message, the majority were otherwise engaged. In Australia three veterinarians came to the Raw Meaty Bones talks, in Germany one, in the USA three and in the UK eight veterinarians attended. We cannot know for sure why veterinarians prefer the tried, tested and failed methods they were taught in veterinary school. We cannot know why, for them, ignorance is bliss and why they prefer not to see, hear or speak evil against the poisonous artificial pet foods. But we do know that the majority of the world’s pets are fed artificial foods and we also know that veterinarians are kept busy attempting to treat the diseases directly or indirectly arising from the consumption by pets of the manufacturers’ offerings. The dark satanic pet food mills churn out thousands of tons of disgusting pap which is then packaged in glossy packaging promising good health, longevity and vitality -- a message reinforced by glossy advertising ratified by indolent regulators. But behind the façade not all is well with the artificial pet food industry. After much goading and provoking they seem to be prepared to acknowledge they have a problem with periodontal disease. Their public utterances don’t say as much, but we know that they know processed pap does nothing to clean the teeth of carnivores. And failure to clean the teeth sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, but always surely, brings about nasty periodontal disease. (Waltham statistics show 100% of dogs over 12 years suffer from the disease.) You and I, if we knew we had sold products which were ‘linked to vital organ disease –- most notably kidney and liver’ –- and if we knew our products were the ‘most common reason for anaesthesia’ then we would most likely withdraw those products immediately and hope to avoid massive damages claims. If we knew, as we do, that chewing on raw meaty bones is essential to ward off periodontal disease that gives rise to the kidney and liver disease and need for anaesthesia then we would recommend raw bones. But in the case of the Mars Corporation, aided by elements of the veterinary publishing industry and the veterinary profession generally, they recommend and sell not raw meaty bones, but biscuits shaped like a bone. The timing was uncanny, midway through the UK Raw Meaty Bones tour on 15 July 2002 The Veterinary Times which boasts a net circulation of 13,172 copies and introduces itself as ‘The weekly news journal for the profession’ published a bright yellow four page wrap-around advertising piece. ‘Pedigree Denta’ they said ‘is a range of oral care products developed in close conjunction with the vets at Waltham and designed to improve the overall health of dogs’ teeth and gums. 80% of dogs over the age of three have some form of gum disease, so there is plenty of scope for advances in dental health.’ They went on to say: ‘The major health implications of gum disease has been one of the major motivating factors for the vets at the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition in their development of new Pedigree Daily DentaStix. “If we can improve the overall oral hygiene of dogs, we hope to improve their long-term health prospects,” a WCPN spokesperson said.’ Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds have been poured into this effort to dumb down the UK veterinary profession, who in turn dumb down their clients into believing that an artificial bone shaped biscuit is the answer to cut down or eliminate life threatening diseases of dogs. (Cats and ferrets don’t get a mention.) The misguided Where the cooked processed pet food industry is, rightly, concerned about the periodontal implications for dogs fed on pap, the raw processed pet food industry seems rather unconcerned. What’s going on, how did it come about and what’s to be done? The road to Hell, or so they say, is paved with good intentions. And that seems to summarise what’s happened in the raw processed pet food scramble. Just stopping feeding manufactured pet foods out of the can or the packet will likely bring about an improvement in the health of carnivores. (It’s a bit like stopping banging your head against the wall -- you feel better when you stop). The trouble is those who stop feeding cooked artificial foods often then start feeding cooked or raw recipes processed in the kitchen instead of the factory. The situation becomes confused and further compounded when the cooked grains, vegetable pulp, minced meat and additives are given the credit for the perceived good health. Juliette de Bairacli Levy, back in 1955, was one of the first to recommend feeding meat raw. Unfortunately in her ‘Specimen diet for an average size adult dog’ Levy starts by recommending: ‘100 per cent flaked whole-grain wheat, rye, or barley, softened with either raw milk or vegetable juice.’ Pitcairn subsequently published a series of minced meat, grain and vegetable based recipes in his Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. Billinghurst, in a 1986 article, quoted Levy and Pitcairn as sources of information. In 1991 Drs Breck Muir, Alan Bennet and myself, subsequently known as the Raw Meaty Bones Lobby Group, discussed the lamentable state of pet nutrition. As the name suggests the RMB Lobby emphasised that carnivore diets should be based on raw meaty bones. By concentrating on the physical features of carnivore diets the RMB Lobby were able to show that concerns regarding quantity and quality of chemicals -- the fats, vitamins, minerals etc -- assume less significance. Soon a major campaign within the Australian veterinary press, on the TV and radio brought the fundamental RMB philosophy to a wide audience of Australian vets and pet owners. The simplicity and convenience and health promoting aspects made the message suitable for a much wider audience. But unfortunately the RMB message stayed mostly in Australia. Part of the message did find its way into various books which then found their way to various parts of the world. But almost without exception the RMB message was adulterated with notions of human vegetarian cooking –- the addition of yoghurt, kelp, garlic, vegetables, apple cider vinegar, flax seed oil and a medicine cabinet full of additives. Word began to circulate that dogs are allegedly not carnivores but omnivores or even vegetarians –- and persuading reluctant dogs to eat vegetables became a fetish only reliably achieved by grinding to a paste meaty bones and vegetables in what became known as the BARF (vomit) diet. The fears of bones becoming stuck became magnified in the minds of many pet owners and the craze for grinding –- processing -- the food of carnivores took firm hold. (Cats, we were told, should also eat their veges.) Some well intentioned people, and a few opportunists, saw marketing opportunities and in the ensuing scramble set up a processed raw pet food industry, distinguished from the existing artificial pet food industry in that its products are frozen not cooked. But of course when those ground raw products thaw and are fed to carnivores, apart from any chemical inadequacies, the products do not clean the teeth and gums and thus contribute to the development of periodontal disease with resultant alarming consequences. In fact the situation is probably much worse. The diet of free living wild carnivores -- whole carcasses of other animals -- acts as both food and medicine. And it’s the same for domestic dogs, cats and ferrets. Sick animals tend to return to health and good health prevails when pet carnivores are fed a natural diet. That’s to say the diet exerts a therapeutic (treatment) effect and a disease preventative effect. How does a natural diet treat and prevent disease? At this stage there are too many biological pathways and too many mechanisms that await discovery. (The veterinary research industry is too busy deflecting attention from and propping up the artificial pet food industry.) However, we can say that artificial diets, whether cooked or raw, tend to poison animals in three broadly separate ways: i.) Foods that fail to clean the teeth and gums also increase the available nutrients for the oral bacteria. Bacterial overgrowth, plaque, gives rise to periodontal disease and the production of toxins which act locally and systemically to injure health. (Poisons injure health or promote early death.) ii) Inappropriate chemicals or inappropriate balance of chemicals passing through the intestines are absorbed into the blood and lymph and transported to other organs with a range of adverse effects. ii.) Foods which are physically and chemically unsuitable are imperfectly digested and travel to the lower bowel where they provide nutrient supply for a host of unwelcome bacteria. Those bacteria produce toxic products, liquid and gaseous, that exert adverse effects on the bowel wall and systemic organs. What’s to be done? First, we must publicise and talk about these things because without awareness no-one can avoid or remedy the problems inherent in cooked or raw processed diets. Second, we can petition the ‘competent authorities’ and request that they take a closer look at the industries they are set up to regulate. Third, informal and formal complaints procedures can be activated. A group of concerned pet owners in the USA are planning a series of Class Actions. Fourth, do whatever it takes to improve the health of pets, the human economy and natural environment. ______________________________________________________________________ 2222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222 Christmas special— buy two get one free Christmas gift giving has just got a whole lot easier. From now until 31 December 2002 buy two copies of Raw Meaty Bones and get one free for orders placed online at www.rawmeatybones.com UK residents please place orders at www.rawmeaybones.co.uk ______________________________________________________________________ 3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 Stop Press: Raw Meaty Bones, the book, is getting ‘rave’ reviews and just as significantly no-one has voiced any criticisms or said the thrust of the book is wrong/bad/misdirected or otherwise harmful. Several veterinary journals are refusing to review or even discuss the book and the implications for animal health contained therein. Sometimes they give reasons but more commonly refuse to respond to correspondence. Watch this space for names of the journals and their reasons, if any, for stifling debate. ___________________________________________________________ We welcome copies of correspondence/emails/faxes for possible inclusion in future RMB Newsletters. Please circulate, distribute or reproduce this newsletter as you wish. ___________________________________________________________ The Raw Meaty Bones Newsletter is published by: Tom Lonsdale Rivetco P/L PO Box 6096 Windsor Delivery Centre NSW 2756 Australia Phone: +61 2 4574 0537 Fax: +61 2 4574 0538 Email: Web: http://www.rawmeatybones.com To subscribe or unsubscribe go to: http://secureshop.rawmeatybones.com/newsletter