Imagine if every meal you ate was as optimally healthy for you as a team of experts and scientists could devise. This is not realistic for people, but is a unique and enormous tool for us in veterinary medicine to maximize both the length and quality of life for our patients, your beloved family members.
Walking into a pet store, grocery store, or even a vet clinic and attempting to select a diet for your beloved pet can certainly be overwhelming. It seems a week does not go by when I do not hear of a new brand of food being marketed and sold to pet owners.
How on earth do you choose?
I have one word to help guide you, and the same word that guides my recommendations: RESEARCH.
Put simply, we recommend our prescription veterinary diets because they have, by far, the most scientific research behind them, backing their claims and substantiating their health benefits to your pets. Contrast this to many other brands, which either are not fed to any pets or significantly fewer. Whereas, many brands invest their profits in expensive marketing campaigns to convince you of their quality, prescription brands of pet food instead invest their profits back into scientific research, in order to better understand the nutritional needs of our pets to better avoid or manage disease. Often times in appointments, I will ask people, “Would you rather invest in being marketed to or in medical research?”
This is not unlike our medicine. We practice what is called “evidence-based medicine;” i.e., all of our medicines, surgeries, and therapies are backed by scientific research that demonstrates their use and benefit. Therefore, as doctors, who are applied scientists, we have the most confidence in recommending nutrition, which is also evidence based.
That is why I recommend what I recommend. I enjoy the cute pups and cats in the ads and commercials, but when it comes to choosing a diet, I trust the research.
