Healing through Food The Role of Prescription Diets in Canine Health

By Isabella Storyclaire

last updated September 16, 2024

Contributions sourced from

Dr. Axes Healing Foods Diet (What to Eat & What to Avoid)

What you grab at the grocery store can have a huge impact on overall health. In fact, while loading your cart up with refined grains, sugary drinks and processed foods can increase inflammation and tank energy levels, filling up on healthy, healing foods can help keep you feeling your best and protect against chronic disease.

The healing foods diet is designed to heal the body and improve health by encouraging the consumption of nutritious, whole foods like fruits, veggies and healthy fats.

Plus, this simple eating pattern is a great way to ensure you supply your body with a steady stream of the nutrients you need to help prevent nutritional deficiencies in your diet.

Healing Foods Diet Principles

The healing foods diet is an eating plan that focuses on replacing refined, processed and inflammatory ingredients in your diet with nutritious, whole food alternatives to promote better health.

The diet includes a few simple steps that involve making some simple switches in your diet. Best of all, unlike other diets with extensive, complicated rules and regulations, the healing foods diet relies on three basic principles:

1. Swap out Unhealthy Fats

Trading unhealthy fats for healthier options is one of the key components of the healing foods diet.

This is because unhealthy fats, such as hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats and refined vegetable oils, can cause chronic inflammation and may contribute to conditions like heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

Healthy fats, on the other hand, are essential for everything from hormone production to cancer prevention, brain development and weight loss.

2. Change the Meats You Eat

Selecting sustainable sources of meat not only helps support ethical farming practices and minimizes your environmental impact, but it may also be better for your health as well.

For instance, grass-fed beef is significantly higher in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed varieties and is also richer in conjugated linoleic acid, a type of fatty acid that has been associated with a multitude of health benefits.

Similarly, wild-caught fish is lower in calories, higher in important minerals and less likely to be contaminated by harmful toxins than conventional farmed fish.

3. Remove Refined Sugars and Grains

During processing, refined grains are stripped of many important vitamins and minerals, producing a final product high in calories, carbs and sugar but lacking in essential nutrients.

White rice, pasta and noodles are a few examples of refined grains that are low in the important micronutrients that your body needs. Swapping these foods out for healthy whole grain alternatives is a great way to squeeze some extra vitamins and minerals into your diet to support healing.

Related: Improve Your Diet & Health with a Clean Eating Meal Plan

Benefits

1. Decreases Inflammation

Acute inflammation is a normal part of the immune process that helps protect the body against foreign invaders. Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, can contribute to conditions like heart disease, obesity and diabetes.

While some foods can increase markers of inflammation, others can help fight inflammation and aid in the prevention of chronic disease.

Plant-based foods like fruits and veggies, in particular, are linked to lower levels of inflammation in the body.

2. Improves Heart Health

As the leading cause of death around the world, heart disease accounts for around 31.5 percent of deaths globally.

Making a few simple swaps in your diet and filling up on heart-healthy foods as part of the healing foods diet is a simple way to reduce the risk of heart disease to keep your heart healthy and strong.

Healthy fats, high-fiber foods and antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies are all plentiful on the healing foods diet and can help protect against conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.

3. Stabilizes Blood Sugar

Sustaining high blood sugar levels can be detrimental to overall health. Not only can it worsen diabetes symptoms and cause serious side effects like vision loss and nerve damage, but it can also lead to a condition known as insulin resistance.

Insulin is the hormone responsible for transporting sugar from the bloodstream to the cells. When you load up with lots of high-carb, sugary foods, it increases levels of both blood sugar and insulin.

Over time, maintaining high levels of insulin in the blood can impair your bodys ability to use it efficiently, spiking blood sugar levels and throwing hormones out of whack.

Not only is the healing foods diet low in unhealthy ingredients that can contribute to insulin resistance, but its also rich in high-fiber, nutrient-dense foods to support better blood sugar control.

4. Rich in Minimally Processed Ingredients

Shockingly, some studies estimate that nearly 58 percent of total daily calories in the average American diet come from ultra-processed foods. These foods are stripped of their nutritional value and associated with a long list of health issues, including heart disease, cancer and even death.

All foods included on the healing foods diet are minimally processed. This helps maximize their nutrient content and reduces the risk of adverse health effects associated with other processed ingredients.

5. Prevents Nutritional Deficiencies

In addition to promoting healing with whole foods, the healing foods diet also ensures you get the important vitamins, minerals and antioxidants your body needs to support overall health.

Nutritional deficiencies can cause a slew of negative symptoms, including low energy levels, fatigue, anemia, bone loss and brain fog.

Filling your plate with a variety of foods that promote healing as part of the healing foods diet helps provide important vitamins and minerals to prevent nutritional deficiencies.

What to Eat

The healing foods diet is rich in nutritious whole foods, including fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes and healthy fats. While a plant-based diet is primary, grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish and organic poultry are also permitted as part of the plan, along with an assortment of healthy condiments, herbs and spices.

Here are a few ingredients you can enjoy as part of the healing foods diet:

Fruits: strawberries, oranges, lemons, blackberries, limes, raspberries, pears, apples, blueberries, etc.
Vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, asparagus, garlic, cucumber, onions, ginger, etc.
Nuts: almonds, cashews, pecans, pistachios, macadamia nuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts
Seeds: hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, flaxseeds
Legumes: black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, lima beans, chickpeas, lentils
Whole grains: quinoa, barley, buckwheat, millet, brown rice
Healthy fats: olive oil, coconut oil, MCT oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, avocado oil
Dairy products: goat milk, kefir, goat cheese, probiotic yogurt, raw milk
Meat: grass-fed beef, lamb, venison, wild game
Fish: wild-caught salmon, tuna, mackerel, anchovies, sardines
Poultry: organic chicken, turkey, goose, duck
Cage-free eggs
Condiments: hummus, guacamole, apple cider vinegar, mustard, salsa, balsamic vinegar, liquid aminos
Herbs and spices: basil, oregano, rosemary, turmeric, cinnamon, paprika, cumin, black pepper, etc.
Natural sweeteners: stevia, raw honey, maple syrup, dates, monk fruit
Beverages: water, tea, kombucha, bone broth

Foods to Avoid

Just as important as filling up on the right foods on the healing foods diet is limiting your consumption of unhealthy, pro-inflammatory ingredients.

Not only are these foods typically high in calories, sodium and added sugars, but they can also contribute to the development of chronic disease.

Here are a few foods you should restrict as part of the healing foods diet:

Refined grains: white rice, pasta, white bread, breakfast cereals
Added sugars: soda, juice, candies, cookies, granola bars, baked goods, ice cream
Unhealthy fats: refined vegetable oils, shortening, hydrogenated fats, fried foods
Conventional meat and poultry
Farmed fish
Processed foods: potato chips, crackers, frozen meals, microwave popcorn, processed meat, instant noodles, etc.

Recipes

Whether youre a professional chef or kitchen novice, there are tons of options to enjoy the variety of foods included on the healing foods diet.

Here are a few nutritious and delicious recipes you can use to help get you started:

Conclusion

The healing foods diet is a simple eating plan that involves limiting consumption of refined grains, added sugars, unhealthy fats and processed ingredients.
Instead, the diet encourages nutritious, whole foods, including fruits, veggies, legumes, healthy fats, organic meats and healing herbs and spices.
Filling up on these healthy ingredients can reduce inflammation, protect against heart disease, stabilize blood sugar levels and prevent nutritional deficiencies.
These healing foods could also potentially aid in the prevention of chronic conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

What are Veterinary Diets?

November 14, 2013|By David Jackson, AllAboutDogFood.co.uk

There's no doubt that diet can make an enormous difference to your dog's health so when he's ill, it's only right that your vet should suggest a diet change. Over the last decade or so, the 'veterinary' or 'prescription diet' has become the vet's food of choice but as we will see in this article, they might not be the best options for your dog or your wallet.

Veterinary foods are promoted as the ultimate in dietary therapy for your dog - so good in fact that only your vet can give it to you. The pristine packaging, the massive price tag, the fact that they are only available through vets, even the names 'Prescription Diets' and 'Veterinary Diets' all give the overwhelming impression that these are not mere foods but medicinal treatments and must, therefore, be the best choice for your sick dog. Unfortunately, in most cases, this couldn't be further from the truth.

The most important thing to realise is that the majority of veterinary diets are just standard pet foods. Most of them don't contain anything remotely medicinal and no prescription is required to buy them. They are only available through vets because the manufacturers choose not to sell them elsewhere. They could equally choose to sell them in pet stores, feed merchants or at car boot sales if they wanted to but that would damage the air of exclusivity they have worked so hard to create. I repeat, most prescription diets are just standard pet foods.

I say most because there are still a couple of instances where veterinary diets are probably the best choice. This isn't because they are good, nutritious foods (which they certainly are not) but because they contain a certain active ingredient or property that can make all the difference to dogs with certain problems. For example, for dogs with bladder stones (also known as uroliths) specific veterinary diets are able to make the urine more acidic in order to dissolve the stones. Clearly, no normal food is going to have this effect so if your dog has bladder stones, it would certainly be best to stick with your vet's suggested food, at least until your dog gets the all-clear. Another example is dogs with severe intolerance or allergies to a wide range of ingredients. Certain veterinary diets are scientifically tailored to remove or breakdown all potentially problematic molecules so that there is literally zero chance of it causing an upset. Again though, it is best only to use these kinds of foods short term until a safe, more nutritious food can be found.

Nevertheless, these are the exceptions to the rule. Out of all the hundreds of veterinary foods out there, only a handful can claim to have any real medicinal properties. The rest, as we will see, are little more than a collection of run-of-the-mill pet foods in shiny white packaging.

Example: Hill's i/d

Hill's Prescription Diet i/d is probably the most popular veterinary diet in the UK. Vets recommend it for all sorts of gastrointestinal disorders from colitis to pancratitis, IBD to bloat. According to Hill's, it is ideal for these sorts of problems because of its high digestibility, low fat content and its high level of fibre. It also contains electrolytes to help replace losses caused by vomitting and diarrhoea and antioxidants to neutralise free radicals.

That all sounds great but actually there's really nothing unique about it. The market is awash with digestible, low fat, high fibre foods. Electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride, and bicarbonate) are found in abundance in any complete dog food and antioxidants have to be added to dry dog food to stop it going rancid immediately after production. So, contrary to what your vet might tell you, Hill's i/d is just one of many diets that might fit the bill for a dog with digestive upsets but, as we will see from the ingredients, it certainly isn't the best.

Hills i/d dry ingredients: Ground MaizeClick to see what we think about Maize / Corn in dog food, Ground RiceClick to see what we think about Rice - White in dog food, Dried Whole EggClick to see what we think about Egg in dog food, ChickenClick to see what we think about Chicken in dog food and Turkey MealClick to see what we think about Turkey in dog food, Maize Gluten MealClick to see what we think about Maize Gluten in dog food, DigestClick to see what we think about Digest in dog food, Dried Beet PulpClick to see what we think about Sugar Beet in dog food, Animal FatClick to see what we think about Unspecified Animal fats in dog food, Vegetable OilClick to see what we think about Vegetable Oil in dog food, Calcium CarbonateClick to see what we think about Calcium Carbonate in dog food, FlaxseedClick to see what we think about Linseed in dog food, Potassium Citrate, SaltClick to see what we think about Salt in dog food, Potassium ChlorideClick to see what we think about Potassium Chloride in dog food, Dicalcium PhosphateClick to see what we think about Calcium Phosphate in dog food, TaurineClick to see what we think about Taurine in dog food, L-Tryptophan, Vitamins and Trace ElementsClick to see what we think about Vitamins and Minerals in dog food. Contains EU Approved AntioxidantClick to see what we think about Artificial Preservatives in dog food.

It doesn't take a nutritionist to tell you that this is not a great food, but I'm going to anyway. The first, and therefore most abundant ingredient in Hill's i/d is maize - a grain that has become increasingly associated with dietary intolerance and actually causing digestive upsets. Add in the second ingredient rice and the added maize gluten further down and it's clear that i/d is a very grain heavy food. As dogs are primarily designed for digesting meat, this is not the best characteristic for a food to aid digestion. Meat, in fact, is only the 4th ingredient on the list and since the percentage isn't specified, the actual amount in the food could be very low indeed. The remaining ingredients really aren't anything to write home about either - digest, unidentified animal fats, added salt and even artificial antioxidants - all hallmarks of a low grade food. All of this adds up to the fact that Hill's i/d is a pretty bad dog food - by our standards, it scores just 1.8 out of 5 and yet your vet will charge you upwards of 60 for a 12kg bag!

The story is the same for just about all of the veterinary diet ranges out there:

Hill's r/d dry for overweight dogs: 2.4 out of 5
Hill's j/d dry for joint support: 1.7 out of 5
Hill's t/d dry for oral hygiene: 1.8 out of 5
Royal Canin Anallergenic dry for reducing intolerances: 1.4 out of 5
Royal Canin Dental dry: 2.0 out of 5
Royal Canin Gastro Intestinal dry: 2.1 out of 5
Purina HA Hypoallergenic: 1.2 out of 5
Purina EN Gastroenteric dry: 2.0 out of 5
Purina OM Overweight Management 1.2 out of 5

So why do vets sell veterinary diets?

There are several reasons why prescription diets have become so prominent within the veterinary industry: Firstly, as disillusioning as it might be, many vets just don't know any better. Nutrition makes up a very small part of veterinary training and of the few modules that are available, many are 'sponsored' by the manufacturers of veterinary diets themselves. Veterinary undergraduates learn that a dog suffering from condition x must be fed veterinary diet y. Other brands and feeding philosophies just don't get a look in so by the time newly graduated vets join their first vet practice, veterinary diets really are the extent of their dog food knowledge.

Then, of course, there's the money. Veterinary diets are incredibly expensive, the markup for the vet practice is huge and since you can't get them elsewhere, it makes good business sense for a vet to get you on to them. The manufacturers and distributors of the veterinary diets also offer massive cash incentives to practices that meet their sales targets - so large in fact that winning or losing the bonus can make a considerable difference to a practice's prosperity. With so much at stake, it's no surprise to find vets pushing veterinary diets so vigorously.

The Golden Rule

These days, specialist veterinary diets are available for everything from obesity to 'brain ageing' (whatever that is). The golden rule: if your dog is overweight or has problems with his teeth, digestion, joints or skin, he does not need a veterinary diet, he just needs a good diet - in fact, there are dozens of 'normal' foods that will probably be far more beneficial at half the price. You can use our Dog Food Directory to find the best food for your dog.

Prescription diet alternatives

Even a lot of more serious conditions like heart problems, diabetes, kidney disease and liver disease can arguably be managed just as effectively on some normal foods as on veterinary diets. The table below shows some of the biggest selling prescription diets and the characteristics that apparently make them uniquely suitable for dogs with particular health problems. As you can see, there is nothing extraordinary about any of these prescription foods - no medicines or active ingredients at all and every nutritional characteristics that they do have (like being highly digestible or low in fat for example) can be found in other over-the-counter foods at a fraction of the price.

Category of illness	Condition	Top vet diets	Nutritional characteristics
Gastro Intestinal	Gastritis / enteritis / IBD / colitis / EPI / Pancreatitis	Hill's i/dRoyal Canin Gastro IntestinalPurna EN Gastroenteric	High digestibilityHypoallergenicLow fatHigh fibre
Diabetes	Diabetes Melitus	Hill's r/dRoyal Canin Diabetic Dog DS37Purina DCO Dual Fibre Control	High fibreNo added sugars
Kidney	Chronic kidney disease	Hill's k/dRoyal Canin RenalPurina NF Kidney Function	Low phosphorusLow sodiumHigh fibre
Urinary stones / crystals	Urate / cystine / oxalate - prevention only	Hill's u/dRoyal Canin Renal	Low protein (high quality)Low calciumLow nucleic acidsLow phosphorusLow Sodium
Struvite / calcium phosphate - prevention only	Hill's c/dRoyal Canin S/O	Low protein (high quality)Low magnesiumLow phosphorus
Liver	Liver disease	Hill's l/dRoyal Canin Hepatic	Low protein (high quality)Low copperHigh fibreLow sodium
Heart	Heart disease	Hill's h/dRoyal Canin Cardiac	Low sodiumHigh taurine / l-carnitine

The bottom line

Vets are there to help so we certainly recommend following their advice in all aspects of your dog's health but when it comes to diet, it's always best to ask a few questions. If your vet suggests moving to a veterinary diet (or any other diet for that matter), make sure you ask them why. Don't take "because it's specially designed for dogs with this condition" as an answer - we need specifics. If there's a genuine reason why that food would be the best choice for your dog, then go for it. If not, look for alternatives and if in doubt, get in touch.