Part 3: Why veterinary diets?

Most veterinarians work with just a few different companies (primarily those who provide a veterinary line). This has led to veterinary diets, and the veterinary practices who promote them, often being perceived as a monopoly. Before reaching the conclusion that your veterinary practice sells certain diets because of financial reasons, it might be interesting to ask them why they stock the products they do.

Veterinary practices are in the business of making and keeping your pet healthy! Many practices recognize that nutrition is a huge part of overall health, so they have products on hand both for healthy pets (life-stage diets) and for pets with medical conditions or predispositions where nutrition can play a role in treatment, management, or prevention.

They have chosen the diets on their shelves for a number of reasons:

1) Track record of success. Many of the products on their shelves come from companies that have been helping them care for their patients for 20 or 30+ years. They have seen these diets work reliably to help their patients and have faith in their performance. New companies and new diets can be a vital part of your veterinarian’s practice, providing they, too, are meeting the same rigorous standards.

2) Scientific backing. Just like they would evaluate any other treatment or preventative medicine, they have evaluated these diets. They have read the studies that show how and why these diets work. They have read the research behind how nutrition can impact pets and medical conditions.

3) Connection with the company. They know who is formulating these diets. They know the testing the diets have undergone. They know who they can reach out to when they have questions. This allows them to make the best choice for your pet.

One of the most common questions asked to veterinarians, breeders, groomers, or other pet experts is “how do I choose a dog/cat food?”. There are SO MANY brands out on shelves, most of them LOOK great. They have beautiful packages, their ingredient lists sound great, their claims are wonderful…but how can you know about what is IN the package?

It is impossible for any pet care professional to know about ALL of the products out there – there are new diets and new brands being launched every day. There are some reliable ways to evaluate products, though. One of the most important parts of a product is WHO formulated the diet? One of the first steps in creating a diet is the formulation. The formulation is both a “recipe” for what ingredients will go into the diet, but also a prediction on what nutrients those ingredients will provide. For example, a diet that is made up of 26% chicken might then provide 80 g of protein per 1000 kcal consumed. There are no “rules” on who formulates diets. Most companies use the same base software, and the formulator might be a company employee with pet food experience, or a veterinarian, or a PhD nutritionist. Although each of these people will work hard to create the best diet they can – there will be a significant range in expertise and nutrition knowledge.

So – step one of deciding “Is this is good food?” is finding out who formulated it. Some companies will list this information, some will provide it when you reach out to them, some won’t tell you…if you can not find out who formulated the diet or their credentials then this is likely NOT a diet you want to feed your pet.

The next step in creating a new diet is to run a test run of the formula – it may look great on paper, but will it translate into a kibble that can be made well? (i.e. can that kibble be consistently produced) Will it be palatable? Will it provide the nutrition to the pet that the formulation predicts? The next critical step in deciding if a diet is “good” is learning what testing was done in creating the diet, and ongoing to ensure consistent nutrition – join us for Part 2 to discuss pet food testing!