Raw Food and Bones… The Evolutionary Diet…

There’s been a lot of publicity recently about what type of diet our ancestors were eating and if we should still be eating a pre-argricultural diet of meat, vegetable, fruit, nuts and seeds which contained no cereals and no processed foods.  The question is did the move away from this diet cause the rise in obesity, cancer and many other forms of modern day illness. And if we agree that it has damaged our health, then do we need next to examine what we are feeding our pets.  Because there certainly does seem to be a rise in animal obesity and cancer rates.

When I look back on my childhood as to what our family cats were feed it was raw meat, gravy beef, the same cheap cut of meat that mum stewed up for us with vegetables and if we were lucky dumplings! Yes, we did open tinned food sometimes but it wasn’t the norm. Mum’s cats got raw meat, offal, the occasional beaten egg and the off cuts of fresh fish if dad had a good days fishing.  And those cats lived longer than the cats I feed on the conveniant suppermarket tinned food while my own children were growing up. The life expectance of mum’s cats was early 20′s, my own 15yrs to 18yrs.

The book that changed the way Heather feed her dog Alex a.k.a The Little Brown Dog was ‘Give Your Dog A Bone’ The practical Common sense Way To Feed Dogs For A Long Healthy Life, by Dr. Ian Billinghurst.  Published in 1993 it outlined the problems with cats and dogs diets as view by Billinghurst a vet with many years experience.  He witnessed the decline in pet health, he saw the rise of Pet Food Companies telling us how to feed our cat and dog, how it needed a balanced diet and that could  be achieved simply and easily with commercial dog food.

Dr. Billinghurst went on to produce his own solution to the problem he believed was causing the disease in modern pets by poor nutrition and he called it the Evolutionary Diet.  He now teaches pet owners how to feed their pets using this Evolutionary Diet and has developed philosophies and products based on the same diet that the wild ancestors of dogs and cats ate, muscle meat, bones, cartilage, fat, organ meat, whole raw eggs, fruit and vegetables.  He’s started a BARF movement with books, CD’s, videos, web site and most important education for pet owners.

In line with Your Critter Sitter’s new holistic approach to pet care we want you our clients and readers to understand where our fundament beliefs are coming from, what our beliefs are based on. And on the question of pet health we believe that the start to good nutrition for our companion animals is a basic raw food and bones diet.

     Heather & Hannah