We Roast "Experts" of the Week

We get a lot of love from our audience but some of the haters are just so silly we want to share them with you

Being on social media has it’s plusses and minuses. There are so many good contributors and so many good people to learn from that for us it’s definitely a net positive. At the same time there are so many trolls and negative Nellys that it can ruin your day…If you let it. What else can you do but laugh at them? This week we take on some of the haters.

Before that here are this weeks recipes:

Using scientific words to sound right

A new breed of social media “expert” has emerged. They use scientific terms to sound smart, but don’t actually understand what they are saying. This is one of the most common trolling tactics that can fool people. The more technical the word… the more of an expert you are, right? ;) Fortunately, we know this word, lipase, and have done research on it. This expert clearly has not.

Lipase doesn’t cause pancreatitis, nor does it come from food or have anything to do with the size of the dog. Lipase is an enzyme that is made in the digestive tract to digest fats. When dogs are sick and digestive cells get damaged, they can release lipase into the blood stream. This is why tests for pancreatitis measure lipase, but there are other conditions that raise lipase as well, including kidney disease, intestinal blockage and foreign object ingestion.

Most importantly, fats are NOT the reason why dogs get pancreatitis. In fact pancreatitis is extremely hard to diagnose. Because multiple conditions can increase lipase levels, the most common tests are unreliable. On top of that when dogs are sick it can strain the pancreas, making it look like pancreatitis when it’s not. According to researchers, even pancreas specific lipase tests are not sufficient to definitively diagnose pancreatitis.

If you’re wondering what actually causes pancreatitis, it has more to do with poor metabolic health, being overweight and eating too much vegetable oil. Vegetable oils like safflower oil, corn oil and grape seed oil contain high amounts of polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs). PUFAs are chemically unstable and react with oxygen to form highly reactive byproducts, especially when heated to high temperatures. Several studies link high consumption of PUFA to increased lipase and cell damage in dogs.

It’s complicated because PUFA are also essential in dog and human diets, for example omega-3s are PUFAs. It’s the amount, type and concentration that matters. Dogs and humans would NEVER encounter purified vegetable oils in nature. Feeding a real food diet with lots of saturated fat (like from meat) and monounsaturated fat (like from olive oil) is not only good for dogs, they prefer it.

The expert vet tech with actual credentials (yikes)

Everyone who works in veterinary medicine MUST know what they are talking about, right? Well…this former follower sent us a DM that couldn’t be more wrong and filled with bad assumptions. We checked her out and are pretty sure that she actually works at a clinic, so beware of whose advice you believe, even if they work in the veterinary field.

The reason this person messaged us was because of our whole food mixes, Pup Pot Meals! She assumed that they are short on nutrients, and probably believes that kibble is best for dog health.

A healthy weight “despite” feeding human food? Maybe a more accurate statement is that they are healthy BECAUSE they eat real food!

Clearly, having a certification means that you can jump to conclusions about foods without looking into it. Be careful who you take advice from, misinformation is rampant out there.

That’s it for this week. Hope you all are having a great summer!

All the best,

Joelle and The Precious Creatures Team