Our pets are what they eat…

One of the critical functions of the gastrointestinal tract is to convert the foods we eat into reusable energy and building blocks for the body.  

Enzymes are specific proteins that break down food into its individual “units” or building blocks. They naturally exist in various foods and they are destroyed by temperatures over 105 degrees.

Those individual “units” then pass through the gut lining, into the blood stream where they are carried to the liver. The liver warehouses these units until they are needed for various metabolic building blocks to regenerate blood, repair cells, build muscle tissue, eliminate waste, provide energy and much more. 

Both animals and humans were designed to consume a raw diet.  The ability to “cook” food and “process” food at high temperatures is recent on the evolutionary time line. The drive for more processed, shelf stable foods came when we were lured by fast, cheap and convenient.  

However, fast cheap and convenient comes with a huge price tag, poor health and shorter lifespans!

Feeding highly processed diets (kibble and canned foods) that are enzymatically “dead” (the enzymes are destroyed by heating/processing) place a tremendous burden on the pancreas to supply all the enzymes needed to digest that food to its individual units. This constant day after day, year after year demand leads to depletion of the various digestive enzymes stored in the pancreas and may result in poor digestion.

It is fascinating that the act of eating, something humans derive immense pleasure from, initiates a complex series of chemical reactions that facilitate the breakdown, assimilation and ultimately usage of the food as the body needs it.