WHY DID I CREATE DOG AND CAT FOOD?
By Alfred J. Plechner, D.V.M.
When I first
graduated from the veterinary school at the University of California at Davis, I
became aware that many of the animals I was seeing appeared to have some sort of
allergies, ranging from skin problems to bowel problems etc.
At the same time, I wondered why oral or
injectable cortisones seemed to help.
When I started testing my patients, I found they all had a cortisol
deficiency. I Now realize that my profession was
doing a replacement for the cortisol and they never realized this.
I also wanted
to know, with this imbalance, which allergens were causing problems. Obviously,
I would have a problem identify inhalants, but thought I could identify ingested
allergens like foods.
Please realize I had just graduated and
had never been taught about small
animal nutrition. I did complete a course in large animal nutrition called Feeds
and Feedings, but this did not help with my journey.
I asked myself,
where do I begin? I looked to the Asian population with their 8000 years of
eating soy, rice and vegetables. They are doing well.
I procured a
hand book of the composition of nutrients from the USDA.
I began my
adventure by doing a soybean, brown rice, celery and carrot recipe. I gave my
recipe to the owners to make at home.
It began to
look like approximately 30 % of allergies came from an improper allergic diet. I
made my findings known to veterinary deaf ears, however, a board certified
dermatologist in England stated that food allergies were less than 1 % of the
overall allergies.
As time passed,
my theory worked in spite of the opposition. All seemed well until I got a call
from an irate husband telling me that his wife was standing in front of a stack
of carrots that she was peeling in their kitchen. Meaning no offense he said “if
you do not figure out something that is reasonable, I may have to end your
career”.
I definitely
took his comment personally.
What then would
be the next step? What if I could find a manufacturer to make my diet
commercially? That was all good and fine, but how would I preserve the food
without causing patients a problem with a preservative?
How about clean
water and freezing? The only interested manufacturer was Breeder’s Choice owned
at that time by Hal Taylor and both his neat sons. They manufactured the food
under the label of Naturally Yours.
At the time,
Dr. Mark Morris Sr. called me the Holistic veterinarian of California. He is the
creator of Hills and Science Diets. He looked at my formulation and suggested I
add a little calcium which I did.
The diet worked
too well because I received these great stories from many people including a
couple of wives that said their husbands came home late from work and upon
spying this partially eaten loaf, broke out the crackers and ate the rest.
Remember the loaf was all human quality.
The value
of my food was seen by others and I sat down one afternoon and created a full
line of pet foods called Nature’s Recipe.
I was able to create the first cat food
ever with 800 mgs of taurine to help stop enlarged hearts referred to as
cardiomyopathy.
As the Plechner
syndrome increased, due to inbreeding, soon the patients developed sensitivities
to lamb and rice, chicken and rice etc.
I then
created Innovative Veterinary Diets based upon a single protein and a single
carbohydrate besides rice. Soon came duck and potato, venison and potato, fish
and potato, and rabbit and potato.
The other pet food manufactures followed
and this had the added benefit of helping to rid diets of BHA, BHT and
ethoxiquin.
I will
soon, once again, be involved with the creation of diets that will be a huge
benefit and not add to the misery of Plechner��s Syndrome.
Estrogen
containing food may lead to the downfall of our pets, and there is no reason for
this to occur. Hopefully, the Healthy Pet Network will find a pet food
manufacturer that can see the promise for the future of pet foods and will
become involved.
Copyright ©2009
Top of page
|
