Dog Food

[Alan C.]

Latest post of the previous page:

Second attempt, I lost the first one in cyberspace

As I am the villain who introduced the book "Canine Cuisine" to this thread, I think I should make my position clear.
My wife got the book from the library a couple of weeks ago thinking it would be of interest to me as I've cooked our dogs food for many years.
I didn't read the intro or anything, just went straight to some of the recipes, I thought yeh these seem OK; not unlike some of my own recipes but different enough to give the dogs a bit more variety.
However; after reading what Emma posted I did read the whole book and she's right in what she said.
Recipes 2, 3, 4, and 6, all have 1tsp of salt (and no doubt others) that's far more salt than I would use in a recipe for us (bread being the exception)
Elaine explicitly says on page 5 "You would have to search hard to find salt as an ingredient in my recipes in this book"
Well sorry, but either Elaine Everest didn't write the book, she hasn't read the book, she has a very bad memory, she doesn't employ a proofreader, or all of those.

In hindsight I should have read the whole book before recommending it and I agree with everything Emma said.

Good post Nick

[Maria Mac]

Apart from calling her an 'arse', for which Emma has offered a handsome apology, I don't see what Emma has said that can be described as 'venom'. None of the criticisms she made in the original post have been contradicted by anything posted since and the stuff about salt has been confirmed by Alan C. I wonder what Elaine Everest would call somebody who claims one thing in the introduction of a book, then contradicts it in the main content?

[Alan H]

Recipes 2, 3, 4, and 6, all have 1tsp of salt (and no doubt others) that's far more salt than I would use in a recipe for us (bread being the exception)
Elaine explicitly says on page 5 "You would have to search hard to find salt as an ingredient in my recipes in this book"

Curiouser and curiouser.

Her book is available from Amazon, of course, and they helpfully allow you to look through it. If you search for the word 'salt', if comes up with eleven occurrences: some just 'salt' and others 'garlic salt', which I believe, is predominantly salt.

Here is the complete list:

Page 5 - "You would have to search hard to find salt as an ingredient in my recipes in this book. Instead I have used herbs and other flavourings such as stock cubes and garlic granules. The quantities given will not harm your dog's digestion or health."

And the recipes:

Page 9 - Flaxseed Straws: 1 tsp salt
Page 10 - Cheesy Twists: 1 tsp salt
Page 11 - Garlic Kisses: 1 tsp salt
Page 13 - Molasses Munches: 1 tsp salt
Page 18 - Easy Peasy Cheesey [sic] Bics: 1 tsp garlic salt
Page 59 - Cheese Biscuits with Vegetables: 1 tsp garlic salt
Page 79 - Cheesey [sic] Nibbles: 1 tsp garlic salt
Page 81 - Crunchy Bacon Frazzles: "Sprinkle with a little garlic salt..."
Page 104 - (full page not available to view): 1 tsp salt

So, certainly I found it very easy to find salt in her recipes.

But page 4 takes the cheesy biscuit:

...a vet's advice on feeding should be taken with a pinch of salt as so many these days work on a commission from pet food manufacturers and will try to sell you the most expensive food on the market.

[Maria Mac]

...a vet's advice on feeding should be taken with a pinch of salt as so many these days work on a commission from pet food manufacturers and will try to sell you the most expensive food on the market.

Obviously this is taken out of context but I question that assertion that vets "work on a commission". Vets sell pet food (and my vet only sells prescription vet food, which isn't available from supermarkets). Obviously they make some money from those sales but "working on commission" implies they are pushing an unnecessary change of diet in order to get us to buy pet food our pets don't need. Does this actually happen?

[Alan C.]

Maria
Vets sell pet food (and my vet only sells prescription vet food, which isn't available from supermarkets).

That was the situation at our vet, as I said earlier; the prescription diet our dog needed cost £1 a tin many years ago, that's why my vet got me the recipe to make my own.
He was obviously more concerned about the dogs welfare than whatever profit he was making on the tins.

Obviously they make some money from those sales but "working on commission" implies they are pushing an unnecessary change of diet in order to get us to buy pet food our pets don't need. Does this actually happen?

Well it wasn't the case with our vet as you can deduce from my comment above.

[Alan H]

Her book is available from Amazon, of course, and they helpfully allow you to look through it. If you search for the word 'salt', if comes up with eleven occurrences: some just 'salt' and others 'garlic salt', which I believe, is predominantly salt.

How odd. I was able to browse most of the book yesterday, but today I am prevented from viewing pages 7 to 142. I wonder why it changed? The search, however, still shows the eleven instances of the word 'salt'.

[Nick]

Re:when to feed your dog. If you need to distract your dog from 'pestering' you at table while you eat, it just shows how badly you have trained your dog. The principal reason for dogs pestering for food from the table is because the owner has unwisely fed them from the table.

It's also interesting to read that a lady who has so far not demonstrated that she possesses a single vetinary qualification (please correct me if I am wrong) should somehow know better than a vetinary hospital. How many years do vets study? And how many years has Ms Everest studied? And while we are at it, please tell us what other areas of vetinary advice we should ignore. After all, a lot of it will result in the vet charging you fees, so it must be just greed, mustn't it?

I'd also be interested to hear more about your (canine) life-time guarantee of advice. And what action we could take against you if the advice was wrong.

I'm really quite pleased I can't read any more pages.

[Alan C.]

Alan H
They are parasites and I hate what they do.
Gillian McKeith is one.

Gillian McKeith

[Dave B]

Leaves out all kinds of other reasons for the difference in how people develop and look - but I like it (and I like Nigella also!)

[Emma Woolgatherer]

Leaves out all kinds of other reasons for the difference in how people develop and look ..

Well, quite. Besides, you could take two photographs of the same woman [---][/---] one well made-up and well groomed, half-smiling in a pouty kind of way, the other looking miserable and stressed out, with dirty hair, no make-up, having been exposed to a lot of sun and having done a lot of crying recently [---][/---] and there could be almost as much of a contrast. (Besides, that's a 2009 photograph of Nigella Lawson, so she was only 49 there. Those two years make all the difference, you know. )

- but I like it (and I like Nigella also!)

Don't like it at all. I think it's mean and bitchy and sexist. Gillian McKeith is too easy a target. Attack her nutritionism, by all means, but not by attacking her looks.

And I'm not just saying that because I'm a vegan who doesn't dare admit that she was at school with Nigella Lawson, in the same year, for fear of people expressing shocked disbelief.

Emma

[Alan C.]

Emma
Don't like it at all. I think it's mean and bitchy and sexist. Gillian McKeith is too easy a target. Attack her nutritionism, by all means, but not by attacking her looks.

I knew I should have put in the comedy thread

[Fia]

And I'm not just saying that because I'm a vegan who doesn't dare admit that she was at school with Nigella Lawson, in the same year, for fear of people expressing shocked disbelief.

Were your school dinners really that bad?

[Alan C.]

Edit.
I knew I should have put it in the comedy thread
Gillian Mckeith is such an arse, she deserves to be ridiculed at every opportunity.

[Emma Woolgatherer]

Yeah, I know it's meant to be humour. I just think it's mean-spirited humour. These days Gillian McKeith is ridiculed at every opportunity, and when it's a matter of putting people right about the inaccurate things she says, or the way she misled people about her PhD, or the way she bullied participants on You Are What You Eat, then that seems fair to me. But I don't think she deserves to be ridiculed for the way she looks. I don't think anyone does.

It's absolute fine to call her an arse, though.

Emma

[Tetenterre]

It's absolute fine to call her an arse, though.

Unless, presumably, you are going to substitute her into the Ed Zachary joke as the crawler?