What kind of nutritional training do vets get?

The link you are talking about is posted by one of the "food fanatics" and is a link to a class project of a journalism student back in 2002 or so.

It says that representatives of the pet food industry teach the nutrition classes at vet schools.

It is pure rubbish.

I once asked our vet about this and first he laughed and then he shook his head and said, "I can't understand why someone would believe something like that." He said that pet food industry reps do not teach courses. He did say that they would give free food for the student's pets and ink pens and such, but they don't have anything to do with teaching.

Again - Pet food industry representatives do NOT teach the nutrition classes at vet schools

Be careful of such outlandish claims.

The same person person claims that vets get huge discounts on foods so they can sell them for a lot of profit and that they recommend foods based upon what will make money for them.

There are always some bad apples in a profession, but the majority of vets recommend good foods.

As to getting the food for free so they can sell it for huge profits - nonsense.

As a matter of fact, I've never seen a vet sell regular cat food. They only sell the prescription diets for particular diseases and problems.

I asked a couple of vets about this and they said that they cannot compete with large pet stores and such. The larger stores buy more and are able to negotiate lower wholesale prices. The vets cannot compete with them on prices and thus don't try to.

Just as pharmaceutical companies give things to MDs, pet food reps to give things to vets but not in the way people will rant about.

These same people will want you to believe that foods such as Science Diet are "crap" and you should never feed it to cats.

Science Diet and others are carefully formulated to provide the nutrition cats need.

People will say that cats have to eat only meat, that corn and such should not be in their foods.

Cats on a diet of only meat will get sick - it is a proven fact.

Corn is actually easily digestible by cats and provides useful nutrients.

When some one starts off attacking vets and food companies, and such, just take what they say with a grain of salt and try and check their "facts" yourself.

We have had 26 cats over the past 21 years and have fed them all Science Diet and they have all had long and health lives.

Our cats routinely live into their late teens and we have had cats live to be 20+ years old.

We continue to feed Science Diet to our cats along with some canned food, mostly Friskies.

*** EDIT ***

Opt to adopt --

Just for the record, I said nothing about feeding a cat a high carbohydrate and low protein diet and vets don't recommend them either.

Certainly, cats need lots of protein but protein alone is not a completely nutritional diet for cats.

As to "they" recommending foods that kill cats - what foods are you talking about?

*****

Cat Lover - yeap, you were correct, look at the thumbs down :-)

I often worry about cats owned by people with such narrow minds.

I guess that will get me some more thumbs down :-)

*****

In general, vets receive NO nutrition training so I would be very skeptical of any link that says otherwise. The extent of nutrition training is usually from representatives from pet food companies telling vets about the merits of their food. The companies that do this are the same ones that provide veterinary formulas pet foods: Hill's (Science Diet) and Purina, which are both bad foods. Vets also do not keep up on the foods that are introduced into the marketplace so generally have no idea about the high quality foods that are now available: Wellness, Origin, Evo, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, etc etc.

You may be referring to the person who does a cut and paste and maintains that the major nutritional training vets get is through lectures from pet food manufacturers, who are peddling a specific viewpoint.

Take that with a grain of salt.

However, in coming up with diets for specific health problems for cats, that requires considerable resources, including money. Major pet food companies have the expertise and resources to do that research.

And vets really don't make a lot of money selling specific formulations of cat foods. It actually is quite an expense for them to keep the foods in stock.

(No, I am not a vet, nor do I work for one. But I do know their viewpoints.)

Now, I still step back and wait for the negative thumbs down to be put on this post.

Of course they have to know about nutrition. Why people think that they know nothing is beyond me. My vet is very knowledgeable about feeding cats and dogs. Yes,she sells Science Diet prescription foods,but does not insist that you buy them,and she recommends Eagle Pack Holistic and Merrick pet foods,but doesn't sell them. She also does not like raw feeding,as she has had several dogs that required surgery after getting bones stuck in their throats or intestinal tract,and has had a few clients who developed e-coli or salmonella when their dogs dragged the bacteria into their houses on their paws or faces. As she tells me,wolves are of course carnivores and are made to eat raw meat,but dogs are man-made and have adapted to thrive on an omnivorous diet. And milk is fine for dogs and cats as long as it does not give them diarrhea!

Edit: Bob - My cats eat a variety of dry foods.They are eating Science Diet and Chicken Soup right now,along with Friskies canned, and they are extremely healthy,too.

Any vet that says that high-carb, low-protein diet are an appropriate normal diet for cats has little good nutritional training, imo. And aren't they the people that support the very same brands that killed pets?