November 26, 2024 • 46 mins
Not sure what’s actually healthy for your pet to eat? You’re not alone.
With so many confusing labels, trends, and conflicting advice, knowing what to feed your dog or cat can feel overwhelming.
In this episode, I’m joined by certified pet nutritionist and holistic health coach Elizabeth Casas, who breaks down how to create a balanced, healthier diet for your pets—without spending a fortune or falling for marketing hype.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- How to decode pet food labels and spot ingredients that could harm your pet
- Simple superfoods to boost your dog’s or cat’s daily nutrition
- Common feeding mistakes and how to make affordable, healthy upgrades
If you want your pet to live a longer, healthier life, this episode gives you the tools to make smart, lasting changes—starting today.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- TheTruthAboutPetFood.com – Susan Thixton’s consumer advocacy site
- Feed Real Institute
- Dr. Ruth Roberts
- Elizabeth Casas – Wellness Wisdom 4 Pets
P.S. You may hear us refer to the show as Starlight Pet Talk during this episode. That was our former name before we embraced the fur, mess, and mayhem. Same show, same mission—just a name that fits better now.
Love the show? Share with a pet parent who needs less chaos and more clarity and please leave a 5-star review to help more pet parents find support.
🎧Free Guide: 10 Tips for Bonding With Your Pet
Follow:
🌍Official Site |📱Facebook |📺YouTube | 🍏 Apple |🎵Spotify
Contact: Amy@muddypawsandhairballs.com
Shop & support the show:
- Austin & Kat: Natural Wellness Supplements
- Embark Dog DNA Test
- Bonne et Filou: Luxury Dog Treats
- Majestic Pet: Custom Pet Beds & More
UPDATE: We’re back with new episodes August 10! In the meantime, binge from over 100 great past episodes.
©Ⓟ 2025 ...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy Castro (00:00):
Hey there, friends.
We've talked about petnutrition before, but this week
we're diving into a questionmany pet parents are asking how
can I get more help in figuringout the right thing for my pet
when it comes to nutrition?
Well, there's a lot ofconflicting advice out there,
and figuring out the best dietfor your pet's specific needs
can really be overwhelming.
So today we're gonna be talkingwith certified canine
(00:21):
nutritionist, Elizabeth Casas,and she's joining us to break it
all down and help you decide ifpersonalized guidance is the
key to your pet's healthiestlife.
Stay tuned.
You're listening to StarlightPet Talk, a podcast for pet
parents who want the best petcare advice from cat experts,
dog trainers, veterinarians andother top pet professionals who
will help you live your verybest life with your pets.
(00:44):
Pet professionals who will helpyou live your very best life
with your pets.
My guest today, Elizabeth Casas, is a certified canine
nutritionist and integrative pethealth coach driven by a
passion for empowering petparents with straightforward,
effective solutions for optimalpet wellness.
She has expertise spanningnutrition, optimization and
(01:04):
holistic approaches that helpsguide pet parents towards
measurable success.
Driven by values, years ofcorporate experience, Elizabeth
helps pets and their pet parentsthrive through workshops,
(01:30):
coaching services and speakingengagements All right.
So, Elizabeth, welcome to theshow.
Elizabeth Casas (01:36):
Thank you so much.
Very happy to be here.
Amy Castro (01:38):
You know I had mentioned in my teaser of the
show that we have talked aboutnutrition before, but I think
it's one of those subjects thatyou can't talk about enough
because it's so important.
But why did it become soimportant to you?
How did you get started downthis path of becoming a
nutrition coach for people?
Elizabeth Casas (01:56):
So I started about.
It's almost seven years ago.
I had my beautiful cat Lumiere.
He's a Berman and we got himwhen he was nine months old.
He was supposed to be a showcat.
He was the most beautiful catyou have ever seen and he has
always been very healthy.
When he was about four years oldhe started growing up.
(02:16):
He wasn't eating, he wasgetting dehydrated, he was just
under a chair.
He wouldn't come out, he wasjust really sick.
Took him to the vet.
They did some blood work.
They did some you know sometests, urine samples, and it
turns out he had pancreatitis.
So the veterinarian goes okay,so keep him in, we're going to
(02:38):
give him some fluids becausehe's highly dehydrated and then
we'll call you later and see howhe's doing.
So a couple of days passed andthey call me and they said okay,
he's eating a little bit, youcan go home.
We're going to send you with aprescription diet specific for
pancreatitis, and then youshould be good.
So this prescription diet wasprobably twice as much as any
(03:00):
other food, right, but you woulddo it because it's for your.
You know you love your animaland it's the only solution that
they give you.
They also gave me some nauseamedication, so I went back, I
did everything they told me todo.
He was not great, but he was alittle better.
He was eating the foodbegrudgingly and then, about
maybe a week or two later, hestarted throwing up again and he
(03:23):
started, you know, havingissues and pain taking back to
the vet.
Pancreatitis is back.
This happened a couple of timesand then the last time he just
said he's not getting any better.
The only thing we can do isjust keep him comfortable until
he passes.
Unfortunately, there's nothingwe can do, you know.
My first question is what did Ido?
(03:43):
Like what?
Why does he get pancreatitis?
They couldn't give me an answer, and my kids at that time were
eight and nine years old andthey were, of course, devastated
.
This is their pet, this istheir best friend that they've
known forever, and I've decidedto take him out.
I'm like there must be anothersolution, like it cannot be that
my cat is going to die at fouryears old.
He's too young yeah took himout.
(04:05):
I had a vet, a friend who's aveterinarian in columbia and, uh
, he believes in food andmedicine.
It's a combination of the two.
So he told me, just keep thenausea medication, get him some
boiled chicken breast so hedoesn't have fat, and give him
probiotic yogurt to help his gut.
(04:27):
And we did that and after aweek or so Lumiere was fine
again.
He had no more issues.
After that I started looking atnutrition and real food.
I found out the reason he hadpancreatitis was because the
food had a high level of fat.
And then I started you know,you start going into this rabbit
hole of looking for things andlearning about nutrition and I
(04:49):
started cooking for Lumiere atthat time.
I then got my puppy, felipe,who's a rescue, and I always
gave him cooked food.
There was always the question amI doing it right?
I did a lot of investigationand then finally, about a few
months ago, I decided to get acertification as a holistic pet
health coach and a caninenutritionist, and so that gave
(05:10):
me a little bit more of thetools to be able to help my pets
.
But also I wanted to help otherpets because I remember during
that time I didn't know what todo, and so I wanted to be able
to help people and educate andshare the knowledge on how to
make decisions when your petsneed a little bit of help, right
, and there's so muchinformation out there but it's
(05:32):
very hard to know what's right,what's not right.
Amy Castro (05:35):
There's so much conflicting information and I
find it shocking sometimes thatI mean I love my veterinarians
and they have, but the go-tothing is put them on a
prescription diet and most ofthat food, if you look at, I'm
sure you have right, it's notgood quality food.
It might solve the issuebecause they've eliminated that
one thing that's causing most ofthe problems.
(05:56):
But nutritionally it's not goodfood and, like you said, it
costs a fortune.
And for those of us who havemore than one pet, unfortunately
my cats are not picky eaters,so they love eating the
prescription diet and noweverybody's eating it and I'm
feeding the whole household thisthree times the amount of
regular cat food food, and halfof them don't need it.
(06:18):
It's just, it's kind ofmaddening.
And then you, you just kind ofsay, what do I do?
Elizabeth Casas (06:24):
Right.
And so the thing is,veterinarians are wonderful, but
they were never taught aboutnutrition.
You have to understand that.
Their understanding ofnutrition came from the sales
rep from Hills that said youknow, if you have obesity, get
this, if you have pancreatitis,if you have kidney issues, and
that's all they know.
There's some veterinarians thatare starting to learn about
nutrition, but there's alsopeople like me and others that
(06:46):
are learning about how to makesure that we give a balanced
diet, because what's very scaryis, if you look at the back of
the food labels, it just soundsvery scientific and it's like we
can't give that.
I need to buy the food.
I can't make it at home.
The reality is that it is notthat scientific.
It is just food.
(07:07):
Is food, is healthy food, whatwe eat is what they can eat.
There's certain things can't,but it is not as complicated as
people are making it to be.
And there's something you saidthere's so much information out
there that is conflicting andwhat's happening is just
becoming very polarizing.
It's like you have to eat rawand the raw eaters say there's
(07:28):
nothing better than raw.
And then there's the ones whoonly feed kibble and
veterinarians you can only feedpet food and the you know the
lightly cooked people.
You can lightly cook it and itbecomes like my way or the
highway, when the reality is allanimals.
They're like us, right?
Keto doesn't work for me but itmight work for my friends.
(07:50):
You know I might be, I mighthave issues with milk, but my
son doesn't have issues withmilk.
Pets are the same.
Some of them have moresensitivities than others, but
they will thrive in food.
I personally give my dog acombination of lightly cooked
and raw.
Some dogs do very well in onlyraw and some dogs don't.
(08:12):
So the key here is tounderstand what's going to work
for my specific pup and feed thedog or cat in front of it.
Amy Castro (08:21):
Right, yeah, and you know, when it comes to pet
parent education and I know Imentioned this to you when we
had our conversation before therecording is that I spend a lot
of time um, at least once amonth sitting at a local pet
store with our adoptable pets,and I see people walking out who
look like people of means and Iyou can't try necessarily judge
(08:44):
a book by its cover, but looklike people of means, and you
can't necessarily judge a bookby its cover, but look like
people of means or you have aconversation with somebody and
they seem relatively intelligentand then they walk out the door
with this bag of garbage overtheir shoulder.
You know why is it that?
Is it simply that the petlabels are too confusing?
(09:04):
And so I don't know.
I kind of feel like peopledon't look Like they just go for
it's all pet food, it's allapproved by blah, blah, blah, or
it says it's nutritious, or itsays it's got meat or whatever
it is, and so they don't reallyread the nitty-gritty on the
label, like, why aren't we doinga better job already?
It doesn't seem like it shouldbe that hard.
Elizabeth Casas (09:31):
Well, because it can be confusing, right, and
pet food manufacturers are verygood at convincing you that the
best thing to do is to eat theirfood.
So they put this reallyfantastic picture of a cut of
meat and then it says with meat,and you trust it?
You believe it Because, like,why would they lie to you?
The thing is they don't have totell you many things as long as
(09:51):
they're balanced and completeaccording to AFCA.
And it's just confusing, youknow, and sometimes we also fall
I fall under the conveniencerole, right.
We are busy, we have a lot ofthings around our life, we have
work, we have kids, we havefamilies and it's convenient to
grab a bag and serve.
(10:12):
A lot of us don't even cook forourselves, so why would we cook
for our dog?
So it's also convenient, right?
What I'm trying to help peopleunderstand is that it's really
not that hard and that you canstart with a very little
step-by-step and it would make abig difference to your animal.
It really shouldn't be thatcomplicated.
Amy Castro (10:33):
Yeah.
So let's talk about that,because I know I have had
experience with so.
You know, when raw startedbecoming a big thing, I had this
beautiful Doberman pincher andI wanted to do the best by him
so and this is how dumb I wasback then.
So he went from basicallyeating kibble a good kibble, as
good as kibble can be and I madehim this like completely raw
(10:56):
food meal and of course hegobbled it down and then
proceeded to throw it all backup all over the place and I said
, nope, no raw food for him,it's no good.
Obviously I overdid it and, youknow, did too much at the same
time.
But what are some of thoselittle things Like?
If we're either trying totransition to a different way of
(11:17):
doing things or just trying todo a little bit better than that
bowl of kibble, what are thesmall changes we could start
making?
Elizabeth Casas (11:25):
So there's a lot.
There's a wide range of thingsthat you can do.
First, learn how to read alabel.
If you're not willing to moveaway from kibble, there's better
kibble out there.
I don't advocate for kibble,but I also don't kibble.
Shame.
If you are not ready to changeworld and different paths in our
journey, then learn how to reada label and choose the right
(11:46):
kind, the better kind of tableor not as bad table.
The ones that have wholeproteins named in the first
ingredient.
The ones that don't have a lot,that they don't have colors or
flavors because they don'treally need them and they're not
good for your pet.
The ones that have wholeingredients, also like for
vegetables and different things.
Try and look for that.
Amy Castro (12:08):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Casas (12:08):
The second step is just adding something
natural to their bowl.
I do advocate for onetablespoon at a time, like take
out a tablespoon of kibble andbring not a whole thing of
chicken, wings and raw eggs.
There's also a process.
Right, there's also a process.
They are more sensitive than weare.
So just one tablespoon at atime of superfoods.
(12:31):
So learn what are thosesuperfoods that are going to
make a big difference.
For example, sardines.
I am a fan of sardines.
Sardines are at the bottom ofthe food chain so they don't
have as more mercury as otherfish.
They're little fish.
They have a lot of omega-3fatty acids, which are fantastic
to avoid inflammation.
They have CoQ10.
(12:51):
They are really one of thosesuperfoods that if you add, it's
not going to hurt them and it'sreally going to help.
What happens is when you addjust one tablespoon of good food
, you're feeding the goodbacteria in the gut.
What we need to understand isthat 70 to 80% of our immune
(13:13):
system is in our gut, includingour pets.
So if you feed that goodbacteria, you can go wrong like
it's going to help.
Even if you're feeding kibble,it's not going to make them, you
know it's not going tocompletely change, but it's
going to help their immunesystem.
It's going to help theirdigestion and the absorption of
those nutrients that are soimportant.
The other superfood you can addis mushrooms.
I know some people believe thatmushrooms are not good for pets
(13:34):
.
That couldn't be further fromthe truth.
The mushrooms that are good forhumans are good for pets.
So it's very easy to know.
You know, and the mushroomsthat are poisonous for us are
going to be poisonous for that.
Whatever you can get in yoursupermarket lion's mane, reishi,
any, any mushroom is amedicinal mushroom.
This little.
Amy Castro (13:55):
We actually did a whole episode on mushrooms for
for pets.
So if you want to learn moreabout some of these mushrooms
that she's mentioning, make sureyou go back and listen to that
episode, cause that wasfascinating to me, cause I, you
know, I feel like I know a lot.
I mean, I worked for a vet foreight years and I, you know,
rescue animals and I have a lotof animals and I just the
(14:16):
mushroom thing never crossed mymind until that episode and it
was just wow, just never thoughtabout all those benefits.
Elizabeth Casas (14:23):
Yeah, it's one of those superfoods, right, it
has beta-glucans, it hasadaptogens.
Those are fantastic and justadding maybe less than a
tablespoon.
You can have one teaspoon, butreplace it or put on top of
their table, you do need tosaute it so the goodness of the
mushroom comes out.
Raw mushrooms don't do as goodas the salt eight ones.
(14:48):
So you know it's two littlethings that you can do already.
Yeah, that are starting to helpyour pet to have a better gut
and better immune system.
Uh, antioxidants you cannotfruit, like you know,
blueberries.
So just little things like that.
That's a good start.
If you're not ready, a lot of us, you know, we grew up with
veterinarians and our parentstelling us the dog or the cat
should never eat traps from thetable, only eat pet food.
(15:11):
There's a history of pet food.
Right, dogs and cats existedbefore pet food and they've been
eating normal food before for15 000 years or more.
So they.
It's just a matter of how youdo it.
So that's the next step.
If you want to transition toanother food, like going to raw
or like going to lightly cooked,you have to do that gradually
(15:35):
as well, because the acidity intheir stomach has been ready for
the amount of carbohydratesthat they get from kibble.
So when you move to somethinglike raw or lightly cooked, it's
going to be very heavy on yourstomach.
They usually get diarrhea.
They do get gas.
So you just start slowly,depending on your dog, until you
(15:56):
get to the level where theirstomach and their gut is ready
to absorb that type of food.
So it really you know you cango from choose the best kibble
to a combination of the two, toa slowly transition to fresh
food.
Amy Castro (16:11):
Right, I want to go back to what you had, just
because I want to make thispoint about the labels, because
there was a time where, when Iwas trying to educate myself
about the information on theback of the labels and all those
you know monosyllabic wordsthat I had no idea what they
meant, and I think, anybody outthere.
I challenge you to go and flipthat bag or that can around and
(16:35):
literally look up what everysingle one of those things is
and you're going to be shockedto know what those ingredients
are and what else they're usedfor in this world and it's not
for consumption.
So definitely do that.
But I want to address like justsomething as simple as one very
common like A versus Bingredient, right?
(16:55):
So you've got a dog food thatthe first ingredient is chicken
and a dog food that the firstingredient is chicken byproduct.
There's a lot of people thatwould look at that and say
chicken, chicken, chicken.
Right, it's a.
You know it's part of thechicken.
Can you just give an example ofjust something as simple as
byproducts?
What does that mean?
And, without getting too gross,that is a very good point.
Elizabeth Casas (17:19):
When you look at the protein, you are bang on.
You need to look at one wordprotein salmon, meat, pork,
byproducts and meals, becauseyou also get a meal right.
A meal is it comes from.
A rendering facility is a kindof where they put the beaks, the
feathers, the bones.
(17:40):
There's nothing wrong with that, like beaks, feathers and bones
is what they ate when they were, uh, woods, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
Big feathers and bones is whatthey ate when they were wolves,
and there's nothing wrong withthe problem with it is the
source.
Where is this meal coming from?
To the rendering facility.
And render facility get the 3ddisease, dead and disabled
animals Right, and so you don'tknow that with that meal is
(18:02):
coming from a disease animal, adisabled animal, you know a dead
animal.
So there has been some recallsbecause there's euthanasia
chemical in the food, becausethe dead animals that are
euthanized, or the roadkillanimals, they go to the
rendering facility.
The same thing with byproductit's not, it's a meal, but it's
(18:24):
the pieces of the chicken.
So is the beak, is the feather?
Again, nothing wrong with it.
But what is the source of it?
Where is that coming from?
Is it human grade or is it feedgrade?
If it's feed grade, that'swhere you're getting
disease-disabled dead animalsthat you don't really want your
animals to eat, that, so that'swhere it's coming from.
So when you see that in yourpet food and we don't do this, I
(18:46):
don't think anyone does callthe manufacturer and say what is
your source Right?
Yeah, right, but there is avery good.
There's another source, right?
You can go to Susan Dixon'slist of approved food.
She has a list where she's gonethrough, you know, if they do
third-party manufacturing, sothey don't know what's happening
with their food the sourcing ofthe food, if it's human grade,
(19:07):
if it's organic, and you canchoose from that list.
Amy Castro (19:10):
There's kibbles, there's raw, there's lightly
cooked, there's canned, there isall sorts of this kind of food
yeah, yeah, it's funny that yourdog started barking at the same
time I was barking, I muted, Imuted myself, but then she
started again.
She's a little further away.
It's okay, it's a pet podcast.
We have people.
They're like I'm reinforcingwhat you say.
(19:31):
Don't feed me those beaks andfeathers.
And you know, feathers are good.
Just where are they coming from?
Well, it not only that, butit's like okay, if you had the
option, so you know, rather thanthinking of them as equal,
would you rather hand your dog aplate full of nice chicken
breast or beaks and feathers ona regular basis?
You know, probably would liketo have some of that meat in
(19:52):
there, especially for what we'repaying for pet food these days.
The pricing is really crazy.
Elizabeth Casas (20:00):
I need to take him out.
Amy Castro (20:01):
Okay, go ahead.
Elizabeth Casas (20:03):
Yes, I'll take him out.
Amy Castro (20:04):
Okay, oh man, oh man , of course, yeah, when my
daughter left out right beforewe started, my daughter had to
(20:27):
leave because we got a call fromfriends with animal control
that a cat that we adopted outin june of 2023 had been picked
up.
And, of the thousands ofanimals that we've had adopted
through the rescue, we've hadfour that we've adopted out as
young animals Because you can'tyou know, it's such a catch-22.
You don't want to spay andneuter a baby because that
(20:47):
causes problems later in life,but at the same time, now you're
trusting that the persons, eventhough they've already paid for
the spay and neuter, you'retrusting that they're going to
actually follow through andwe've only had four people of
the thousands of people in theyou know, since 2017 that have
not followed through, and that'sone of the cats that just got
picked up as a stray, so nowhe's going to come back to us.
Elizabeth Casas (21:07):
So anyways, when?
Amy Castro (21:07):
she when she left.
She's like I shut the frontgate so the dogs don't bark,
because we have Amazon coming ahundred times a day out here, so
, but they're still barking.
Sorry about that, okay.
So I want to get back to thisidea because I'm thinking about
the sardine thing and I'mthinking well, that's simple
enough.
You know, you get your sardines, you have them in the, you know
(21:30):
, once they're open, you havethem in the fridge, boop, boop,
boop, one on each bowl, and itbecomes part of the habit or
part of the routine.
And I think that's maybe one ofthe biggest challenge challenges
for people is is changing thatroutine.
I mean, one of the things Ijoke about which I joke about it
, but it's actually sometimestrue is there have been times
where I'm in such a hurry and Ihave so many dogs between my own
(21:52):
and the rescues that I haveliterally taken a big thing, a
scoop of food, taken everybodyout to the patio and just here
you go and threw it on theground.
And they tend to, you know,based on their size and their
mouth size, for whatever reason.
It seems to work that everybodygets the right proportions,
maybe close.
I mean, I don't do that often.
But and I know that's an extremeexample You're probably like oh
(22:14):
my gosh.
But you know it's just, peopleneed simplicity or they want
simplicity.
And if it starts to getcomplicated then it's going to
be like this is too much trouble, even though in your heart you
know it's not too much trouble.
You know, on one hand you doanything for your pet, on
another hand, you know, am Igoing to cook for them every day
?
But what are some ways that wecan start making that a routine?
(22:37):
Or is there a way we can makethe routine easier?
Like could we prep a bunch ofstuff in advance or freeze
things and then just take thefrozen stuff out in the morning
and put it in the fridge and letit thaw?
Like do you have any littletricks for us there?
Elizabeth Casas (22:50):
Prepping is definitely your friend, but the
thing is it does need to have.
You do need to do this and makesure you're ready.
For example, the sardines Iwant to make sure that I do
mention this.
They need to be packed in waterwith no added salt I was gonna
ask about.
Yeah, if you can't get themfresh, which I've tried here in
Houston.
I can't get them fresh, so Ineed to order them online
(23:12):
because I can't find themwithout salt.
But if you just take them out,you know how many you're going
to give and you have them readyin the fridge, just to do like
you said.
Everyone gets their share andit's that simple.
For the cooking of the food,it's not that hard.
A lot of people are like Idon't even cook for myself, like
I don't even want to know whatto do for dinner every day.
(23:33):
They are easy, like you put allthis stuff that is really good
in a crock pot.
The crock pot is overnight foreight hours.
You don't even need to touch it.
So the only thing you need todo is cut it, put it in the
crock pot Next day.
That's ready.
You put the oil in it.
Then you cut it into batches ofhow long it takes.
It's five days, right, so thatit's five days right, so that
(23:57):
it's not rancid and it staysfresh.
You freeze the rest and thenit's like you're pulling your
kibble.
You just take it out.
You take a scoop, you serve it,you put your sardine off, you
go.
It's as simple as that, andthen you pull out the frozen one
for the next week and so on andso forth, so it's really not
that hard.
Prepping for raw food is verysimilar, except that you just
(24:18):
need more space in your freezerand your fridge, because you can
just do it by meal and put allthe pieces you know, the muscle,
meat and the bones andeverything in there and then
just have each meal ready.
You just need more space.
You just need more space.
Amy Castro (24:33):
Yeah, you know I had written down a question and as
I look at it again I thinkthat's kind of a dumb question,
but I'm going to ask it anywayabout choosing fresh versus
processed.
I mean because the manufacturerstend to make it seem, you know,
it's healthy.
They use all this verbiage thatmakes us feel like it's good
(24:54):
enough, good enough.
But I hope by now we all knowthat, whether it's for ourselves
or our pets, that you knowfresh food is better than
processed food, because of theprocessing process itself and
because of all of the otheringredients that we don't need
to take into our bodies, andneither do our pets, that make
it shelf stable or box stable orwhatever it may be.
(25:14):
But to give people a littlemore motivation, like, what is
the long-term impact of feedingprocessed foods to your pet?
Like what problems do you see?
Because oftentimes you don'tsee it for years.
Or people will say, well, I fedmy dog and I won't name any
brands, but I fed my dog thisbag of garbage and he lived to
be 12.
And I'm thinking to myself well, he probably could have lived
(25:36):
to be 16 if you'd have done this, or he wouldn't have had itchy
skin or he wouldn't have hadthat, you know.
So what's?
the impact of bad processed foodversus whole fresh food.
Elizabeth Casas (25:46):
The question here is, again, it depends on
the pet.
But the bottom line is qualityof life, because, yes, some
people do well, they survive inprocessed food.
Right, they go to 12.
They go to 14.
But, like you said, were theyin pain?
Because sometimes they'resurvivors, right, they come from
the wolf.
They don't tell us much untilthey're really suffering.
Were they itching all the time?
(26:08):
Were they having bad breath andhaving infections?
Were they having loose stoolsand diarrhea?
Are they thriving?
Are they really thriving?
They start getting.
So what is the cost?
We are seeing a rise in chronicdisease.
So you know we're seeing dentalissues.
(26:28):
We are seeing kidney disease.
Cancer is rampant, like rightnow.
All dogs are getting cancer isone out of three or one out of
four dogs are getting cancer,and if they're older than nine,
it's almost like 50 to 60% ofdogs are getting cancer.
That is the cause.
So you're saying I don't wantto spend too much money on food
and he's fine, but then you'regoing to have to pay the vet
(26:50):
bill that is going to beconstant for your pet that now
has a lot of chronic issues.
Right, obesity is a huge issuenow because they're eating
basically French fries and, youknow, mcdonald's every day.
Amy Castro (27:05):
Yeah, that's a good point.
I mean, if you think about itthat way and say every time that
I'm making this choice versusthis choice, or I'm not taking
opportunities to put the goodchoice in, it's kind of like if
you were going to take yourchildren or take yourself to
McDonald's three meals a day,seven days a week.
You can live, right, you canlive, you'll survive, but you're
(27:25):
not thriving.
Elizabeth Casas (27:26):
You're not thriving, you're going to have
heart disease, like our pets.
You're going to have arthritis,exactly so.
You'll survive, but are youthriving Right?
And the age of our pets isdeclining too.
They live longer.
Amy Castro (27:42):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Casas (27:43):
That's the cost of not investing in your pet,
and the bed fills are justthrough the roof right now.
And then they give you thoseprescription diets.
Then why don't you just cookfor them?
It's cheaper.
Amy Castro (27:56):
Yeah, Good point.
You think you're prescriptiondiets, then why don't you just
cook for them?
It's cheaper, yeah, Good, yeah,Good point, Good point.
So it's like you might be youthink you're saving now, but
you're going to pay the pricelater, and so is your pet, who
has no choice in the matter.
So you know, making some ofthese changes is definitely
something we should all um, lookinto, uh, look into doing so.
I know you talked about Lumiereand you know the improvements
(28:16):
that you saw in changing hisdiet.
Do you have other examples orstories of kind of, because
you're a coach and I do want totalk about coaching and how that
all works, because you knowwe're sitting here, we're having
this conversation, and peopleare probably listening and
thinking I can do that, but thenthey're going to because I know
, I know it's happened to me,You're going to start doing it.
(28:37):
And then my first thought wasbut I've got four dogs.
They're not all mine, but Ifeed four dogs every day.
Do they all need the same thing?
Probably not.
Do they all have the sameissues or needs or whatever.
But let's get to that in aminute.
Elizabeth Casas (28:57):
But what are the success stories that you
have experienced?
I love the story of the petparents that tell me that their
dog.
So I'll give you a couple ofexamples.
There is one.
He's a Yorkie, eight years old.
His name is Choco.
Choco is a beautiful Yorkie andhis mom was starting to be
annoyed because he was losinghair on his ears.
(29:18):
You know, yorkies are supposedto have this luscious, beautiful
hair everywhere and his earswere bold, so he looked like a
bat.
You know.
His mom would say he has batears and he was starting to get
some patches of you know, and hewas overweight.
But the vet would say, well,that's normal, you know, he's
eight, you know the hair.
So we start normalizing thosethings.
(29:38):
We start telling ourselves well, you know, he's eight, he's
starting to lose his mind or hishair, and it's fine.
And the vet gave her uh, I can'tsay the name of the brand, but
it was specific for yorkies,which I find hilarious because
food is food, and it didn't work.
He just gained more weightafter.
It was specific for Yorkies,which I find hilarious because
(29:58):
food is food, and it didn't work.
He just gained more weightAfter.
It was 20 days after he was inthe food that I gave him, his
hair started growing and thenshe said but it's not just the
hair, he looks amazing andeveryone stops and says what are
you giving chocolate?
He's beautiful, but it's alsohis energy.
He's acting like a puppy again.
He's just having this energy.
He lost a pound.
Bear in mind, this is a fivepound dog.
Amy Castro (30:20):
That's a lot for a Yorkie 20% of his body weight.
Elizabeth Casas (30:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So when he jumps now he's justhitting himself with the table
because he's just making theeffort, because he used to be so
heavy, and so that's one of thesuccess stories.
Another one is I'm working witha lady that has three dogs.
I'm working with two of them.
One has Cushing's disease andshe is, I think, 12.
Her name is Chloe.
And there's also Jagger who has.
(30:47):
He's four years old and he hadalopecia.
The veterinarian said alopeciais normal, there's nothing we
can do.
And then Chloe with Cushing's.
You know she needs to get hermedication and every so often
you need to increase it.
But we started the foodspecific for Cushing's and she
had pancreatitis so we need tobe careful with that.
So we did do two differentdiets.
(31:08):
Like you say, we can feed thesame for both of us.
So for Jagger, we did increasea lot of omega-3 to a lot of
fish oil as her deans, and weworked on inflammation for him.
And what his mom told me isshe's like he's getting hair,
he's getting hair back and hedoesn't have alopecia anymore.
(31:29):
And then he said he's not asnervous or anxious anymore and
he loves his food.
He just seems happy, nervous oranxious anymore and he loves
the food.
He just seems happy.
The cushioning baby also.
It's just the best thing is tohear they just seem more
energized and happy and alive,like you get the result that you
were there for, like thecushioning.
We're working on the cushioningand she lost you know she was
(31:50):
losing some weight so we workedon that and she's looking
beautiful but she looks happierand she has this energy to her.
And she's looking beautiful butshe looks happier and she has
this energy to her and she'sjust acting like a puppy again.
I love when they tell methey're just acting like puppies
again.
Another one we were workingbecause she had smarts right,
it's in her hip.
Uh, she had an accident before.
She was.
Her name is lola, uh the doggy,and her mom says she's just
(32:14):
mischievous again.
Now she was like thismischievous dog after eating,
for I think she's been with mefor a couple of months.
She's doing better withinflammation, so it's it's
preventive for the hip right tomake sure it doesn't get worse.
But she's getting mischievousand happy and having like a
different flair in life.
So those are the stories.
There's one story, and this isone of my fosters and I have
(32:36):
have another story with myFelipe that we saw, who was
barking like crazy and if wehave enough time, you saw me.
I can tell you so many stories.
But I got this foster and wenamed her Lovebug.
She was a Chihuahua, she wasnine years old and she was flea
infested absolutely fleainfested and her skin.
Of course she gets an allergyin her body.
(32:57):
Got rid of the fleas withmedicine, because you know when
you need medicine you should usemedicine.
But then I managed heritchiness and inflammation with
just food and mushrooms and shecompletely transformed.
She was beautiful I have somepictures of her and some reels
(33:17):
in my Instagram and her hair wasstarting growing.
It was about two weeks and theskin changed and she was just
beautiful.
Unfortunately, they took heraway from me because I was
feeding her food so I couldn'tfoster her anymore.
So that's one of those storiesLike that is so sad.
Amy Castro (33:37):
She was thriving but they took her away uh, yeah,
well, we won't get on that path,but but yeah, I mean it just
well, but it it's, it's evidenceand I will say, coming from a
rescue standpoint, um, you know,obviously, if I knew my foster
was a professional nutritionexpert, then I would defer to
(33:58):
her expertise.
Sometimes, when we have peoplethat foster that decide to, I
say they go rogue like they, andI'll just give you?
I'll give you one.
I'll give you one quick example.
We had a volunteer who wasconstantly asking questions
about some issues that we hadgoing on, and they were
acknowledged issues and theywere things that we were working
at the vet on.
But she took it upon herself tochange some of the routines and
(34:21):
one of the things that shechanged was, rather than
cleaning their bowls the waythat we clean them, she started
cleaning them with rubbingalcohol.
And this is for cats.
It's highly toxic to cats.
So we don't like people goingrogue, but I'm certainly open to
alternative nutrition, but yeah, I mean, it has to be people
that are experienced andunderstand the benefits of that.
Otherwise, you know, people canbe sometimes kind of closed
(34:45):
minded about it.
So I understand, yeah, I kindof understand that.
So so you said these are, theseare clients of yours that
you're talking about, other thanthe foster.
How does that work with a petnutrition coach?
Like you know, I know I docoaching of executives on how to
communicate more effectivelywith their employees, but
(35:06):
obviously that's a little bitdifferent.
So what exactly do you do withyour?
Elizabeth Casas (35:12):
clients and how does that work?
So it's pretty much like whatyou do, but instead of talking,
I mean I talk to the pet parent,the one that knows them best.
What we do is we go through.
There's different things thatpeople need right.
They might have a chroniccondition that they want to deal
with, like you know, pushing,or a low PCH, or they might just
want to transition safely, andthat takes time because they are
(35:33):
sensitive.
You can't just some dogs will doit and change and nothing
happens to them, but some don't,and so, depending on what they
want, we get together, we talkabout it and then I give them
there's a questionnaire wherethey would give me all their
information about the pet.
One of the things that I likeabout being a coach is that it's
very personalized and you dosit down and learn about the dog
(35:56):
or the cat.
What are the issues.
It's a time intensive process.
I then take that questionnaireand put together a very detailed
plan to go through on how to dowhat we're going to do, whether
it's fight inflammation orfight a chronic illness or just
transition.
(36:16):
We get together, we talk aboutit.
It's very important that theparent is very involved, because
they're the ones who know it,and they're the ones who are
executing the plan.
Amy Castro (36:25):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Casas (36:26):
And then we adjust because, like you said,
you give them something and theymight not like it, especially
our kitties.
They might not agree with ourplan.
Some kitties would rather diethan change their food, no
matter what, and so, if they, weneed to make sure that our pets
agree.
Most dogs do agree with ourplan.
And then we adjust.
By the end of the process itcan be two months or it could be
(36:48):
three months, depending on thecomplexity Then you walk away
with three complete recipes, allthe supplements if necessary or
I prefer to give fresh foodinstead of supplements if not
necessary.
So how do you supplement foromega-3s?
How do you supplement forprobiotics?
And then they walk away withthe knowledge of identifying the
(37:10):
right food, the three recipesand everything they need to be
able to support their animal'slongevity and health.
Amy Castro (37:19):
And is this something you're doing like?
Are you coordinating with theirveterinarian?
Are they just letting theirveterinarian know what they're
doing that?
Elizabeth Casas (37:26):
is a very good question.
It's independent and I wouldlove.
I usually tell my customers tomake sure they tell their
veterinarian.
I am a true believer that it'sa collaborative approach.
I don't think that some peoplebelieve that holistic approaches
and functional approachesexclude traditional medicine.
(37:47):
I don't believe in that.
I think it's a good combinationof the two.
Sometimes you need one,sometimes you need the other one
and sometimes you need both.
So I do tell them to tell theirveterinarian what we're doing.
Some of my customers don't feelthey should tell the
veterinarian and they tell me Ican't tell him because he gets
angry.
Amy Castro (38:07):
Which to me that's more of a sign that you maybe
need to look at having adifferent veterinarian.
I mean it's you know obviouslyif I'm saying I'm feeding my dog
rocks and glass, then yeah, Imean I think your veterinarian
should try to stop you.
But I mean it should be aconversation and it should be a
well, here's why I believe thisand here's this, you know it's,
(38:32):
here's the science to back it up.
I think that's, that's a bigpiece of it too.
Elizabeth Casas (38:35):
It's like, you know, it's not just my opinion,
it's what's backing it up, and Ithink exactly you know,
everybody needs to do a littlemore homework, and I do give
them all the tools to have thoseconversations with the
veterinarian, because what I'mputting together is not
something I invented.
So the diet that I work withwas created by a veterinarian,
who is you know who creates this, and it's approved by the
American Veterinarian Board.
Like I didn't just, I justdon't create in my house on my
(38:58):
own.
There's some guidelines that weneed to go through and there's
some we need to make sure thatthe right nutrients are being
included, and so I give them allthe documents and I tell them
talk to your veterinarian aboutit.
The most important thing is tohelp them have a conversation
with the veterinarian, ask theright questions, because
sometimes we don't know right,right.
(39:18):
So that's what a pet healthcoach also does it tells you
make sure you do this, make sureyou ask this question, make
sure you're comfortable with theanswer to a specific question.
Amy Castro (39:27):
Make sure you know.
Elizabeth Casas (39:29):
You know what you're doing.
Right, because not knowing isone of the worst feelings.
Right, when my cat hadpancreatitis, I didn't even know
what caused it and I didn'teven know what were the
questions or what were thethings to say or do.
Amy Castro (40:02):
And I didn't even know what were the questions or
what were the opportunities todo that, like don't decide to
have the conversation when yousaid, oh, I just want to come in
for a quick nail trim with avet tech and then say, oh, dr,
so-and-so can I talk to you for?
And then now you've taken anhour.
I mean that's why theirschedules get messed up, because
oftentimes our veterinariansare too nice to tell you you
(40:22):
really need to make anappointment.
But what I would recommend isyou know whether it's part of
your pet's annual exam or youwant to make a special
appointment, with or without thepet, to go in, pay them for
their time, because that's whatthey're there for, and then you
can have a conversation about.
Here are the things that I'mconcerned about, here are the
things you know.
I think that's.
(40:42):
I think that's only fair.
It's kind of like me as aconsultant, where people will
call up and they'll say, can Ipick your brain?
And it's like that's what I getpaid to do.
I mean, yes, I'll let you pickmy brain to a certain degree,
but after that it's like whenI'm basically writing your
speeches for you and I'm nowleading your employees for you,
I'm, you know I, that's what Ido for a living.
I don't do it for free.
(41:03):
So you know, show some someconsideration for your
veterinarian's time as well, andI think in those instances
they'll be better prepared tomake time to have these
conversations.
And you know, if I said to myvet hey, I really want to sit
down and talk about blah, blah,blah that's going on with my pet
I, you know, I'm consideringdoing this with his diet.
Can we have a 30 minuteappointment to sit down and talk
(41:24):
about that?
And that way they've got timeto prepare and maybe do a little
homework as well.
You said it's a good time tolook for another veterinarian.
Elizabeth Casas (41:44):
But for the really good veterinarians who
are open, who are really lookingto learn more about this, you
will find that they'll becurious and they'll be
interested in knowing whatyou're doing and they'll support
you.
I do have one customer thatsaid I had one veterinarian and
I couldn't talk to him about it.
But then I went to the otherone and she read what I was
feeding and she was like yeah,I'm okay with this, I'm okay
(42:06):
with this, perfect, keep me inthe keep me in the loop.
That's the difference betweenthe veterinarian you don't want
and the veterinarian that you dowant, because you want them to
know what you're feeding them,because they're the ones who are
going to be treating your pet.
So, yeah, communicate moreoften than they will be open to
listening to what you're wantingto say.
Amy Castro (42:25):
Yeah, and I think you know for the and I don't
know if younger people have thismuch of an issue, but I know
that people, you know that olderpeople sometimes, you know
we've we were raised to havethis reverence for the person in
the white coat, right?
So you don't question thedoctor.
And it's like there's a fineline between questioning them,
like I'm questioning yourjudgment, and asking a question.
So, if you know, if yourveterinarian were to say, you
(42:47):
know, I don't think you shoulddo that just say OK, can you
share why?
Or can you tell me why?
Or can you explain a littlemore about that?
I mean it's OK to ask why andthen you can make your fully
informed decision that way.
But you know, just saying okay,my vet said no, or my vet said I
shouldn't do that Because I'veasked people this people that
are calling me to surrendertheir pet because it's got an
(43:09):
issue that they can't fix.
And I said you know, well, haveyou talked to your vet about
this?
Yeah, I asked him about thatand they said don't do that.
I said did you ask why?
Well, right, yeah, like they'reafraid to ask, it's like just
ask, you're paying them, it'sokay.
Elizabeth Casas (43:23):
Exactly, exactly.
And if you're seeing your petdoing better with the good food,
then there's even more of areason to ask why should I not
give it Like?
Why?
What is wrong with it?
I'm not hurting it, obviously,evidently.
Amy Castro (43:37):
Yeah, so you had mentioned a resource, susan.
What was the last name?
Elizabeth Casas (43:43):
again, I can share the link for you.
Amy Castro (43:47):
We'll put the link up for that.
Are there other things that weshould be?
I mean, other than going to herwebsite and looking at her list
of pet foods or hiring anutrition coach like yourself,
which will put your contactinformation up for people who
want to talk with you more.
What else can we do to begetting this true information?
(44:08):
We're reading the back of thelabels.
We're going to try to identifywhat those things are and what
they actually do.
What else do you suggest for us?
A couple of things.
Elizabeth Casas (44:18):
You can always Google everything, right, and
you're going to find a differentanswer depending on what you
want, right.
But you need to know your pet.
So know what really works anddoesn't work for your pet, and
then go a route and try and getthe person who knows in that
area better, right, don't gowith trends and don't go with
(44:39):
the last thing that you saw onInstagram, because, even though
those things could be true, itmight not apply to your specific
pet.
So make a decision of what youwant to do.
Are you feeding raw?
That's fine.
Then look at people that aredoing it Canine nutritionists.
They're all over.
You can go to Feed Real.
In Feed Real, you can do acourse to learn how to not to be
(45:00):
a nutritionist, but to learnmore about nutrition.
You can hire a caninenutritionist or a pet health
coach.
You can go to a website ofsomeone that tells you feed real
dr ruth roberts so they do twowebsites where you're going to
find pet health coaches, caninenutritionists that know what
they're talking about okay herein houston I run workshops that
(45:21):
talk about.
it teaches you how to read petfood labels.
And then we talk aboutdifferent issues.
We did one at Bark last Sundaywhere we talked about
sensitivities and allergies, thedifference between them and how
to help your pet overcome.
Both Other times we talk aboutyou know, the superfoods.
I do different topics and I'vedone them online and I'll do
(45:44):
them in person as well.
So go to worship.
Don't just follow the lasttrends and don't don't give up.
Also because, like you weresaying earlier, I gave him all
that it didn't work, so I justcompletely went back.
Amy Castro (45:56):
Yeah, that's, that's Amy Castro.
It was kind of like when Idecided, I'm not going to give.
I'm not going to put my childin plastic diapers.
I'm going to use cloth diapers.
And that literally lasted onepoop I was like yeah, no way in
heck, am I going to do this.
I'm a terrible parent and aparent obviously a bad parent.
Elizabeth Casas (46:14):
Oh my God, no, I would never use.
Yeah, I use diapers For my kids.
All right, so we'll put allthose links and resources up.
Yeah, for sure I'll share thosewith you.
Amy Castro (46:26):
Okay, Any, you know, and one of the things I was
thinking about too, and I don'tknow if you do.
You know the folks from Zoomies.
Elizabeth Casas (46:33):
I do, yes, they actually.
They hosted one of my onlineworkshops.
Amy Castro (46:40):
I thought so Cause I was like you didn't mention it
and I was like I thought I saw,but I didn't want to bring it up
and be like, no, that wassomebody else, that was me, yeah
, yeah.
So we did.
Yeah, we did an episode withthem as well, and I'm definitely
looking forward to when theyofficially open up.
They're doing so much inadvance.
That's really cool.
Elizabeth Casas (46:58):
It is pretty cool and he wants to do this
kind of thing education so I'mlooking forward to support that
mission and present my workshopto his community, definitely
Okay.
Amy Castro (47:09):
So I'm going to time out real quick here.
Is there anything that youwanted to cover that we did not
cover, or any other point?
Elizabeth Casas (47:15):
Not really.
Amy Castro (47:17):
Cover most of it, okay, all right.
Yeah, I think I hit all thethings.
I mean, I think we're givingpeople some good, good food, all
right, so I'll just wrap upthen.
So well, elizabeth, thank youso much for taking the time to
be here today.
This was even though I, like Isaid at the very beginning,
we've done several episodes onnutrition.
Like I, always learn somethingnew every single time and I love
(47:40):
the idea of having a you know,a pet health coach to really
help us through this process.
And you know the way I alwaysfigure it is either you can
Google it and spend hours andhours and hours, or you can go
to an expert source and get thatperson to help you, and it's
probably a better use of yourtime.
But that's going to be people'schoices.
But put all your contactinformation up for people.
(48:03):
And, again, just appreciate youbeing here with us today.
Elizabeth Casas (48:07):
Amy, thank you so much for having me and I'm
just hoping I've given someinformation for people to
understand that it's not thathard.
Start with one tablespoon andif you have any questions you
can reach out to me.
I'm very happy to support you.
Amy Castro (48:20):
Awesome and thank you to everybody that listened
today.
You know I challenge youbecause I think about the things
that we spend our money on,because a lot of times it comes
down to finances.
This is too expensive, that'stoo expensive.
But you know, if you're willingto give up your one cup of out
of the house coffee or thatenergy drink that you probably
(48:40):
shouldn't be drinking anyway, oryou know anyway, and you added
the cost of that up over thecourse of a month, I bet you I
bet you anything that you couldmake some of these better
improvements to your pet's diet,and wouldn't it be worth it if
you could add years, qualityyears to your pet's life?
So please consider that andthank you again for listening to
another episode of StarlightPet Talk.
(49:02):
We will see you next time.
Elizabeth Casas (49:05):
Thank you.
Amy Castro (49:06):
All right Awesome.
Elizabeth Casas (49:08):
Of course Felipe has to bark.
Amy Castro (49:10):
That's okay.
It's a pet podcast, it's okay.
Felipe said I need attention.
Elizabeth Casas (49:18):
I need attention.
He's out there barking likecrazy.
Let me in.
I'm not an outside dog, I'm alap dog I know mine are the same
way.
Amy Castro (49:26):
They'll get out and then they turn around and
they're at the door.
Yeah, he just goes peeing andit's like I'm done, I'm done,
I'm done yeah, that's funny, allright, well, awesome, well, I
appreciate you being here and,uh, let me stop this recording
because I don't need to keep.
Thank you.
Hey there, friends.
We've talked about petnutrition before, but this week
we're diving into a questionmany pet parents are asking how
can I get more help in figuringout the right thing for my pet
when it comes to nutrition?
Well, there's a lot ofconflicting advice out there,
and figuring out the best dietfor your pet's specific needs
can really be overwhelming.
So today we're gonna be talkingwith certified canine
(00:21):
nutritionist, Elizabeth Casas,and she's joining us to break it
all down and help you decide ifpersonalized guidance is the
key to your pet's healthiestlife.
Stay tuned.
You're listening to StarlightPet Talk, a podcast for pet
parents who want the best petcare advice from cat experts,
dog trainers, veterinarians andother top pet professionals who
will help you live your verybest life with your pets.
(00:44):
Pet professionals who will helpyou live your very best life
with your pets.
My guest today, Elizabeth Casas, is a certified canine
nutritionist and integrative pethealth coach driven by a
passion for empowering petparents with straightforward,
effective solutions for optimalpet wellness.
She has expertise spanningnutrition, optimization and
(01:04):
holistic approaches that helpsguide pet parents towards
measurable success.
Driven by values, years ofcorporate experience, Elizabeth
helps pets and their pet parentsthrive through workshops,
(01:30):
coaching services and speakingengagements All right.
So, Elizabeth, welcome to theshow.
Elizabeth Casas (01:36):
Thank you so much.
Very happy to be here.
Amy Castro (01:38):
You know I had mentioned in my teaser of the
show that we have talked aboutnutrition before, but I think
it's one of those subjects thatyou can't talk about enough
because it's so important.
But why did it become soimportant to you?
How did you get started downthis path of becoming a
nutrition coach for people?
Elizabeth Casas (01:56):
So I started about.
It's almost seven years ago.
I had my beautiful cat Lumiere.
He's a Berman and we got himwhen he was nine months old.
He was supposed to be a showcat.
He was the most beautiful catyou have ever seen and he has
always been very healthy.
When he was about four years oldhe started growing up.
(02:16):
He wasn't eating, he wasgetting dehydrated, he was just
under a chair.
He wouldn't come out, he wasjust really sick.
Took him to the vet.
They did some blood work.
They did some you know sometests, urine samples, and it
turns out he had pancreatitis.
So the veterinarian goes okay,so keep him in, we're going to
(02:38):
give him some fluids becausehe's highly dehydrated and then
we'll call you later and see howhe's doing.
So a couple of days passed andthey call me and they said okay,
he's eating a little bit, youcan go home.
We're going to send you with aprescription diet specific for
pancreatitis, and then youshould be good.
So this prescription diet wasprobably twice as much as any
(03:00):
other food, right, but you woulddo it because it's for your.
You know you love your animaland it's the only solution that
they give you.
They also gave me some nauseamedication, so I went back, I
did everything they told me todo.
He was not great, but he was alittle better.
He was eating the foodbegrudgingly and then, about
maybe a week or two later, hestarted throwing up again and he
(03:23):
started, you know, havingissues and pain taking back to
the vet.
Pancreatitis is back.
This happened a couple of timesand then the last time he just
said he's not getting any better.
The only thing we can do isjust keep him comfortable until
he passes.
Unfortunately, there's nothingwe can do, you know.
My first question is what did Ido?
(03:43):
Like what?
Why does he get pancreatitis?
They couldn't give me an answer, and my kids at that time were
eight and nine years old andthey were, of course, devastated
.
This is their pet, this istheir best friend that they've
known forever, and I've decidedto take him out.
I'm like there must be anothersolution, like it cannot be that
my cat is going to die at fouryears old.
He's too young yeah took himout.
(04:05):
I had a vet, a friend who's aveterinarian in columbia and, uh
, he believes in food andmedicine.
It's a combination of the two.
So he told me, just keep thenausea medication, get him some
boiled chicken breast so hedoesn't have fat, and give him
probiotic yogurt to help his gut.
(04:27):
And we did that and after aweek or so Lumiere was fine
again.
He had no more issues.
After that I started looking atnutrition and real food.
I found out the reason he hadpancreatitis was because the
food had a high level of fat.
And then I started you know,you start going into this rabbit
hole of looking for things andlearning about nutrition and I
(04:49):
started cooking for Lumiere atthat time.
I then got my puppy, felipe,who's a rescue, and I always
gave him cooked food.
There was always the question amI doing it right?
I did a lot of investigationand then finally, about a few
months ago, I decided to get acertification as a holistic pet
health coach and a caninenutritionist, and so that gave
(05:10):
me a little bit more of thetools to be able to help my pets
.
But also I wanted to help otherpets because I remember during
that time I didn't know what todo, and so I wanted to be able
to help people and educate andshare the knowledge on how to
make decisions when your petsneed a little bit of help, right
, and there's so muchinformation out there but it's
(05:32):
very hard to know what's right,what's not right.
Amy Castro (05:35):
There's so much conflicting information and I
find it shocking sometimes thatI mean I love my veterinarians
and they have, but the go-tothing is put them on a
prescription diet and most ofthat food, if you look at, I'm
sure you have right, it's notgood quality food.
It might solve the issuebecause they've eliminated that
one thing that's causing most ofthe problems.
(05:56):
But nutritionally it's not goodfood and, like you said, it
costs a fortune.
And for those of us who havemore than one pet, unfortunately
my cats are not picky eaters,so they love eating the
prescription diet and noweverybody's eating it and I'm
feeding the whole household thisthree times the amount of
regular cat food food, and halfof them don't need it.
(06:18):
It's just, it's kind ofmaddening.
And then you, you just kind ofsay, what do I do?
Elizabeth Casas (06:24):
Right.
And so the thing is,veterinarians are wonderful, but
they were never taught aboutnutrition.
You have to understand that.
Their understanding ofnutrition came from the sales
rep from Hills that said youknow, if you have obesity, get
this, if you have pancreatitis,if you have kidney issues, and
that's all they know.
There's some veterinarians thatare starting to learn about
nutrition, but there's alsopeople like me and others that
(06:46):
are learning about how to makesure that we give a balanced
diet, because what's very scaryis, if you look at the back of
the food labels, it just soundsvery scientific and it's like we
can't give that.
I need to buy the food.
I can't make it at home.
The reality is that it is notthat scientific.
It is just food.
(07:07):
Is food, is healthy food, whatwe eat is what they can eat.
There's certain things can't,but it is not as complicated as
people are making it to be.
And there's something you saidthere's so much information out
there that is conflicting andwhat's happening is just
becoming very polarizing.
It's like you have to eat rawand the raw eaters say there's
(07:28):
nothing better than raw.
And then there's the ones whoonly feed kibble and
veterinarians you can only feedpet food and the you know the
lightly cooked people.
You can lightly cook it and itbecomes like my way or the
highway, when the reality is allanimals.
They're like us, right?
Keto doesn't work for me but itmight work for my friends.
(07:50):
You know I might be, I mighthave issues with milk, but my
son doesn't have issues withmilk.
Pets are the same.
Some of them have moresensitivities than others, but
they will thrive in food.
I personally give my dog acombination of lightly cooked
and raw.
Some dogs do very well in onlyraw and some dogs don't.
(08:12):
So the key here is tounderstand what's going to work
for my specific pup and feed thedog or cat in front of it.
Amy Castro (08:21):
Right, yeah, and you know, when it comes to pet
parent education and I know Imentioned this to you when we
had our conversation before therecording is that I spend a lot
of time um, at least once amonth sitting at a local pet
store with our adoptable pets,and I see people walking out who
look like people of means and Iyou can't try necessarily judge
(08:44):
a book by its cover, but looklike people of means, and you
can't necessarily judge a bookby its cover, but look like
people of means or you have aconversation with somebody and
they seem relatively intelligentand then they walk out the door
with this bag of garbage overtheir shoulder.
You know why is it that?
Is it simply that the petlabels are too confusing?
(09:04):
And so I don't know.
I kind of feel like peopledon't look Like they just go for
it's all pet food, it's allapproved by blah, blah, blah, or
it says it's nutritious, or itsays it's got meat or whatever
it is, and so they don't reallyread the nitty-gritty on the
label, like, why aren't we doinga better job already?
It doesn't seem like it shouldbe that hard.
Elizabeth Casas (09:31):
Well, because it can be confusing, right, and
pet food manufacturers are verygood at convincing you that the
best thing to do is to eat theirfood.
So they put this reallyfantastic picture of a cut of
meat and then it says with meat,and you trust it?
You believe it Because, like,why would they lie to you?
The thing is they don't have totell you many things as long as
(09:51):
they're balanced and completeaccording to AFCA.
And it's just confusing, youknow, and sometimes we also fall
I fall under the conveniencerole, right.
We are busy, we have a lot ofthings around our life, we have
work, we have kids, we havefamilies and it's convenient to
grab a bag and serve.
(10:12):
A lot of us don't even cook forourselves, so why would we cook
for our dog?
So it's also convenient, right?
What I'm trying to help peopleunderstand is that it's really
not that hard and that you canstart with a very little
step-by-step and it would make abig difference to your animal.
It really shouldn't be thatcomplicated.
Amy Castro (10:33):
Yeah.
So let's talk about that,because I know I have had
experience with so.
You know, when raw startedbecoming a big thing, I had this
beautiful Doberman pincher andI wanted to do the best by him
so and this is how dumb I wasback then.
So he went from basicallyeating kibble a good kibble, as
good as kibble can be and I madehim this like completely raw
(10:56):
food meal and of course hegobbled it down and then
proceeded to throw it all backup all over the place and I said
, nope, no raw food for him,it's no good.
Obviously I overdid it and, youknow, did too much at the same
time.
But what are some of thoselittle things Like?
If we're either trying totransition to a different way of
(11:17):
doing things or just trying todo a little bit better than that
bowl of kibble, what are thesmall changes we could start
making?
Elizabeth Casas (11:25):
So there's a lot.
There's a wide range of thingsthat you can do.
First, learn how to read alabel.
If you're not willing to moveaway from kibble, there's better
kibble out there.
I don't advocate for kibble,but I also don't kibble.
Shame.
If you are not ready to changeworld and different paths in our
journey, then learn how to reada label and choose the right
(11:46):
kind, the better kind of tableor not as bad table.
The ones that have wholeproteins named in the first
ingredient.
The ones that don't have a lot,that they don't have colors or
flavors because they don'treally need them and they're not
good for your pet.
The ones that have wholeingredients, also like for
vegetables and different things.
Try and look for that.
Amy Castro (12:08):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Casas (12:08):
The second step is just adding something
natural to their bowl.
I do advocate for onetablespoon at a time, like take
out a tablespoon of kibble andbring not a whole thing of
chicken, wings and raw eggs.
There's also a process.
Right, there's also a process.
They are more sensitive than weare.
So just one tablespoon at atime of superfoods.
(12:31):
So learn what are thosesuperfoods that are going to
make a big difference.
For example, sardines.
I am a fan of sardines.
Sardines are at the bottom ofthe food chain so they don't
have as more mercury as otherfish.
They're little fish.
They have a lot of omega-3fatty acids, which are fantastic
to avoid inflammation.
They have CoQ10.
(12:51):
They are really one of thosesuperfoods that if you add, it's
not going to hurt them and it'sreally going to help.
What happens is when you addjust one tablespoon of good food
, you're feeding the goodbacteria in the gut.
What we need to understand isthat 70 to 80% of our immune
(13:13):
system is in our gut, includingour pets.
So if you feed that goodbacteria, you can go wrong like
it's going to help.
Even if you're feeding kibble,it's not going to make them, you
know it's not going tocompletely change, but it's
going to help their immunesystem.
It's going to help theirdigestion and the absorption of
those nutrients that are soimportant.
The other superfood you can addis mushrooms.
I know some people believe thatmushrooms are not good for pets
(13:34):
.
That couldn't be further fromthe truth.
The mushrooms that are good forhumans are good for pets.
So it's very easy to know.
You know, and the mushroomsthat are poisonous for us are
going to be poisonous for that.
Whatever you can get in yoursupermarket lion's mane, reishi,
any, any mushroom is amedicinal mushroom.
This little.
Amy Castro (13:55):
We actually did a whole episode on mushrooms for
for pets.
So if you want to learn moreabout some of these mushrooms
that she's mentioning, make sureyou go back and listen to that
episode, cause that wasfascinating to me, cause I, you
know, I feel like I know a lot.
I mean, I worked for a vet foreight years and I, you know,
rescue animals and I have a lotof animals and I just the
(14:16):
mushroom thing never crossed mymind until that episode and it
was just wow, just never thoughtabout all those benefits.
Elizabeth Casas (14:23):
Yeah, it's one of those superfoods, right, it
has beta-glucans, it hasadaptogens.
Those are fantastic and justadding maybe less than a
tablespoon.
You can have one teaspoon, butreplace it or put on top of
their table, you do need tosaute it so the goodness of the
mushroom comes out.
Raw mushrooms don't do as goodas the salt eight ones.
(14:48):
So you know it's two littlethings that you can do already.
Yeah, that are starting to helpyour pet to have a better gut
and better immune system.
Uh, antioxidants you cannotfruit, like you know,
blueberries.
So just little things like that.
That's a good start.
If you're not ready, a lot of us, you know, we grew up with
veterinarians and our parentstelling us the dog or the cat
should never eat traps from thetable, only eat pet food.
(15:11):
There's a history of pet food.
Right, dogs and cats existedbefore pet food and they've been
eating normal food before for15 000 years or more.
So they.
It's just a matter of how youdo it.
So that's the next step.
If you want to transition toanother food, like going to raw
or like going to lightly cooked,you have to do that gradually
(15:35):
as well, because the acidity intheir stomach has been ready for
the amount of carbohydratesthat they get from kibble.
So when you move to somethinglike raw or lightly cooked, it's
going to be very heavy on yourstomach.
They usually get diarrhea.
They do get gas.
So you just start slowly,depending on your dog, until you
(15:56):
get to the level where theirstomach and their gut is ready
to absorb that type of food.
So it really you know you cango from choose the best kibble
to a combination of the two, toa slowly transition to fresh
food.
Amy Castro (16:11):
Right, I want to go back to what you had, just
because I want to make thispoint about the labels, because
there was a time where, when Iwas trying to educate myself
about the information on theback of the labels and all those
you know monosyllabic wordsthat I had no idea what they
meant, and I think, anybody outthere.
I challenge you to go and flipthat bag or that can around and
(16:35):
literally look up what everysingle one of those things is
and you're going to be shockedto know what those ingredients
are and what else they're usedfor in this world and it's not
for consumption.
So definitely do that.
But I want to address like justsomething as simple as one very
common like A versus Bingredient, right?
(16:55):
So you've got a dog food thatthe first ingredient is chicken
and a dog food that the firstingredient is chicken byproduct.
There's a lot of people thatwould look at that and say
chicken, chicken, chicken.
Right, it's a.
You know it's part of thechicken.
Can you just give an example ofjust something as simple as
byproducts?
What does that mean?
And, without getting too gross,that is a very good point.
Elizabeth Casas (17:19):
When you look at the protein, you are bang on.
You need to look at one wordprotein salmon, meat, pork,
byproducts and meals, becauseyou also get a meal right.
A meal is it comes from.
A rendering facility is a kindof where they put the beaks, the
feathers, the bones.
(17:40):
There's nothing wrong with that, like beaks, feathers and bones
is what they ate when they were, uh, woods, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
Big feathers and bones is whatthey ate when they were wolves,
and there's nothing wrong withthe problem with it is the
source.
Where is this meal coming from?
To the rendering facility.
And render facility get the 3ddisease, dead and disabled
animals Right, and so you don'tknow that with that meal is
(18:02):
coming from a disease animal, adisabled animal, you know a dead
animal.
So there has been some recallsbecause there's euthanasia
chemical in the food, becausethe dead animals that are
euthanized, or the roadkillanimals, they go to the
rendering facility.
The same thing with byproductit's not, it's a meal, but it's
(18:24):
the pieces of the chicken.
So is the beak, is the feather?
Again, nothing wrong with it.
But what is the source of it?
Where is that coming from?
Is it human grade or is it feedgrade?
If it's feed grade, that'swhere you're getting
disease-disabled dead animalsthat you don't really want your
animals to eat, that, so that'swhere it's coming from.
So when you see that in yourpet food and we don't do this, I
(18:46):
don't think anyone does callthe manufacturer and say what is
your source Right?
Yeah, right, but there is avery good.
There's another source, right?
You can go to Susan Dixon'slist of approved food.
She has a list where she's gonethrough, you know, if they do
third-party manufacturing, sothey don't know what's happening
with their food the sourcing ofthe food, if it's human grade,
(19:07):
if it's organic, and you canchoose from that list.
Amy Castro (19:10):
There's kibbles, there's raw, there's lightly
cooked, there's canned, there isall sorts of this kind of food
yeah, yeah, it's funny that yourdog started barking at the same
time I was barking, I muted, Imuted myself, but then she
started again.
She's a little further away.
It's okay, it's a pet podcast.
We have people.
They're like I'm reinforcingwhat you say.
(19:31):
Don't feed me those beaks andfeathers.
And you know, feathers are good.
Just where are they coming from?
Well, it not only that, butit's like okay, if you had the
option, so you know, rather thanthinking of them as equal,
would you rather hand your dog aplate full of nice chicken
breast or beaks and feathers ona regular basis?
You know, probably would liketo have some of that meat in
(19:52):
there, especially for what we'repaying for pet food these days.
The pricing is really crazy.
Elizabeth Casas (20:00):
I need to take him out.
Amy Castro (20:01):
Okay, go ahead.
Elizabeth Casas (20:03):
Yes, I'll take him out.
Amy Castro (20:04):
Okay, oh man, oh man , of course, yeah, when my
daughter left out right beforewe started, my daughter had to
(20:27):
leave because we got a call fromfriends with animal control
that a cat that we adopted outin june of 2023 had been picked
up.
And, of the thousands ofanimals that we've had adopted
through the rescue, we've hadfour that we've adopted out as
young animals Because you can'tyou know, it's such a catch-22.
You don't want to spay andneuter a baby because that
(20:47):
causes problems later in life,but at the same time, now you're
trusting that the persons, eventhough they've already paid for
the spay and neuter, you'retrusting that they're going to
actually follow through andwe've only had four people of
the thousands of people in theyou know, since 2017 that have
not followed through, and that'sone of the cats that just got
picked up as a stray, so nowhe's going to come back to us.
Elizabeth Casas (21:07):
So anyways, when?
Amy Castro (21:07):
she when she left.
She's like I shut the frontgate so the dogs don't bark,
because we have Amazon coming ahundred times a day out here, so
, but they're still barking.
Sorry about that, okay.
So I want to get back to thisidea because I'm thinking about
the sardine thing and I'mthinking well, that's simple
enough.
You know, you get your sardines, you have them in the, you know
(21:30):
, once they're open, you havethem in the fridge, boop, boop,
boop, one on each bowl, and itbecomes part of the habit or
part of the routine.
And I think that's maybe one ofthe biggest challenge challenges
for people is is changing thatroutine.
I mean, one of the things Ijoke about which I joke about it
, but it's actually sometimestrue is there have been times
where I'm in such a hurry and Ihave so many dogs between my own
(21:52):
and the rescues that I haveliterally taken a big thing, a
scoop of food, taken everybodyout to the patio and just here
you go and threw it on theground.
And they tend to, you know,based on their size and their
mouth size, for whatever reason.
It seems to work that everybodygets the right proportions,
maybe close.
I mean, I don't do that often.
But and I know that's an extremeexample You're probably like oh
(22:14):
my gosh.
But you know it's just, peopleneed simplicity or they want
simplicity.
And if it starts to getcomplicated then it's going to
be like this is too much trouble, even though in your heart you
know it's not too much trouble.
You know, on one hand you doanything for your pet, on
another hand, you know, am Igoing to cook for them every day
?
But what are some ways that wecan start making that a routine?
(22:37):
Or is there a way we can makethe routine easier?
Like could we prep a bunch ofstuff in advance or freeze
things and then just take thefrozen stuff out in the morning
and put it in the fridge and letit thaw?
Like do you have any littletricks for us there?
Elizabeth Casas (22:50):
Prepping is definitely your friend, but the
thing is it does need to have.
You do need to do this and makesure you're ready.
For example, the sardines Iwant to make sure that I do
mention this.
They need to be packed in waterwith no added salt I was gonna
ask about.
Yeah, if you can't get themfresh, which I've tried here in
Houston.
I can't get them fresh, so Ineed to order them online
(23:12):
because I can't find themwithout salt.
But if you just take them out,you know how many you're going
to give and you have them readyin the fridge, just to do like
you said.
Everyone gets their share andit's that simple.
For the cooking of the food,it's not that hard.
A lot of people are like Idon't even cook for myself, like
I don't even want to know whatto do for dinner every day.
(23:33):
They are easy, like you put allthis stuff that is really good
in a crock pot.
The crock pot is overnight foreight hours.
You don't even need to touch it.
So the only thing you need todo is cut it, put it in the
crock pot Next day.
That's ready.
You put the oil in it.
Then you cut it into batches ofhow long it takes.
It's five days, right, so thatit's five days right, so that
(23:57):
it's not rancid and it staysfresh.
You freeze the rest and thenit's like you're pulling your
kibble.
You just take it out.
You take a scoop, you serve it,you put your sardine off, you
go.
It's as simple as that, andthen you pull out the frozen one
for the next week and so on andso forth, so it's really not
that hard.
Prepping for raw food is verysimilar, except that you just
(24:18):
need more space in your freezerand your fridge, because you can
just do it by meal and put allthe pieces you know, the muscle,
meat and the bones andeverything in there and then
just have each meal ready.
You just need more space.
You just need more space.
Amy Castro (24:33):
Yeah, you know I had written down a question and as
I look at it again I thinkthat's kind of a dumb question,
but I'm going to ask it anywayabout choosing fresh versus
processed.
I mean because the manufacturerstend to make it seem, you know,
it's healthy.
They use all this verbiage thatmakes us feel like it's good
(24:54):
enough, good enough.
But I hope by now we all knowthat, whether it's for ourselves
or our pets, that you knowfresh food is better than
processed food, because of theprocessing process itself and
because of all of the otheringredients that we don't need
to take into our bodies, andneither do our pets, that make
it shelf stable or box stable orwhatever it may be.
(25:14):
But to give people a littlemore motivation, like, what is
the long-term impact of feedingprocessed foods to your pet?
Like what problems do you see?
Because oftentimes you don'tsee it for years.
Or people will say, well, I fedmy dog and I won't name any
brands, but I fed my dog thisbag of garbage and he lived to
be 12.
And I'm thinking to myself well, he probably could have lived
(25:36):
to be 16 if you'd have done this, or he wouldn't have had itchy
skin or he wouldn't have hadthat, you know.
So what's?
the impact of bad processed foodversus whole fresh food.
Elizabeth Casas (25:46):
The question here is, again, it depends on
the pet.
But the bottom line is qualityof life, because, yes, some
people do well, they survive inprocessed food.
Right, they go to 12.
They go to 14.
But, like you said, were theyin pain?
Because sometimes they'resurvivors, right, they come from
the wolf.
They don't tell us much untilthey're really suffering.
Were they itching all the time?
(26:08):
Were they having bad breath andhaving infections?
Were they having loose stoolsand diarrhea?
Are they thriving?
Are they really thriving?
They start getting.
So what is the cost?
We are seeing a rise in chronicdisease.
So you know we're seeing dentalissues.
(26:28):
We are seeing kidney disease.
Cancer is rampant, like rightnow.
All dogs are getting cancer isone out of three or one out of
four dogs are getting cancer,and if they're older than nine,
it's almost like 50 to 60% ofdogs are getting cancer.
That is the cause.
So you're saying I don't wantto spend too much money on food
and he's fine, but then you'regoing to have to pay the vet
(26:50):
bill that is going to beconstant for your pet that now
has a lot of chronic issues.
Right, obesity is a huge issuenow because they're eating
basically French fries and, youknow, mcdonald's every day.
Amy Castro (27:05):
Yeah, that's a good point.
I mean, if you think about itthat way and say every time that
I'm making this choice versusthis choice, or I'm not taking
opportunities to put the goodchoice in, it's kind of like if
you were going to take yourchildren or take yourself to
McDonald's three meals a day,seven days a week.
You can live, right, you canlive, you'll survive, but you're
(27:25):
not thriving.
Elizabeth Casas (27:26):
You're not thriving, you're going to have
heart disease, like our pets.
You're going to have arthritis,exactly so.
You'll survive, but are youthriving Right?
And the age of our pets isdeclining too.
They live longer.
Amy Castro (27:42):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Casas (27:43):
That's the cost of not investing in your pet,
and the bed fills are justthrough the roof right now.
And then they give you thoseprescription diets.
Then why don't you just cookfor them?
It's cheaper.
Amy Castro (27:56):
Yeah, Good point.
You think you're prescriptiondiets, then why don't you just
cook for them?
It's cheaper, yeah, Good, yeah,Good point, Good point.
So it's like you might be youthink you're saving now, but
you're going to pay the pricelater, and so is your pet, who
has no choice in the matter.
So you know, making some ofthese changes is definitely
something we should all um, lookinto, uh, look into doing so.
I know you talked about Lumiereand you know the improvements
(28:16):
that you saw in changing hisdiet.
Do you have other examples orstories of kind of, because
you're a coach and I do want totalk about coaching and how that
all works, because you knowwe're sitting here, we're having
this conversation, and peopleare probably listening and
thinking I can do that, but thenthey're going to because I know
, I know it's happened to me,You're going to start doing it.
(28:37):
And then my first thought wasbut I've got four dogs.
They're not all mine, but Ifeed four dogs every day.
Do they all need the same thing?
Probably not.
Do they all have the sameissues or needs or whatever.
But let's get to that in aminute.
Elizabeth Casas (28:57):
But what are the success stories that you
have experienced?
I love the story of the petparents that tell me that their
dog.
So I'll give you a couple ofexamples.
There is one.
He's a Yorkie, eight years old.
His name is Choco.
Choco is a beautiful Yorkie andhis mom was starting to be
annoyed because he was losinghair on his ears.
(29:18):
You know, yorkies are supposedto have this luscious, beautiful
hair everywhere and his earswere bold, so he looked like a
bat.
You know.
His mom would say he has batears and he was starting to get
some patches of you know, and hewas overweight.
But the vet would say, well,that's normal, you know, he's
eight, you know the hair.
So we start normalizing thosethings.
(29:38):
We start telling ourselves well, you know, he's eight, he's
starting to lose his mind or hishair, and it's fine.
And the vet gave her uh, I can'tsay the name of the brand, but
it was specific for yorkies,which I find hilarious because
food is food, and it didn't work.
He just gained more weightafter.
It was specific for Yorkies,which I find hilarious because
(29:58):
food is food, and it didn't work.
He just gained more weightAfter.
It was 20 days after he was inthe food that I gave him, his
hair started growing and thenshe said but it's not just the
hair, he looks amazing andeveryone stops and says what are
you giving chocolate?
He's beautiful, but it's alsohis energy.
He's acting like a puppy again.
He's just having this energy.
He lost a pound.
Bear in mind, this is a fivepound dog.
Amy Castro (30:20):
That's a lot for a Yorkie 20% of his body weight.
Elizabeth Casas (30:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So when he jumps now he's justhitting himself with the table
because he's just making theeffort, because he used to be so
heavy, and so that's one of thesuccess stories.
Another one is I'm working witha lady that has three dogs.
I'm working with two of them.
One has Cushing's disease andshe is, I think, 12.
Her name is Chloe.
And there's also Jagger who has.
(30:47):
He's four years old and he hadalopecia.
The veterinarian said alopeciais normal, there's nothing we
can do.
And then Chloe with Cushing's.
You know she needs to get hermedication and every so often
you need to increase it.
But we started the foodspecific for Cushing's and she
had pancreatitis so we need tobe careful with that.
So we did do two differentdiets.
(31:08):
Like you say, we can feed thesame for both of us.
So for Jagger, we did increasea lot of omega-3 to a lot of
fish oil as her deans, and weworked on inflammation for him.
And what his mom told me isshe's like he's getting hair,
he's getting hair back and hedoesn't have alopecia anymore.
(31:29):
And then he said he's not asnervous or anxious anymore and
he loves his food.
He just seems happy, nervous oranxious anymore and he loves
the food.
He just seems happy.
The cushioning baby also.
It's just the best thing is tohear they just seem more
energized and happy and alive,like you get the result that you
were there for, like thecushioning.
We're working on the cushioningand she lost you know she was
(31:50):
losing some weight so we workedon that and she's looking
beautiful but she looks happierand she has this energy to her.
And she's looking beautiful butshe looks happier and she has
this energy to her and she'sjust acting like a puppy again.
I love when they tell methey're just acting like puppies
again.
Another one we were workingbecause she had smarts right,
it's in her hip.
Uh, she had an accident before.
She was.
Her name is lola, uh the doggy,and her mom says she's just
(32:14):
mischievous again.
Now she was like thismischievous dog after eating,
for I think she's been with mefor a couple of months.
She's doing better withinflammation, so it's it's
preventive for the hip right tomake sure it doesn't get worse.
But she's getting mischievousand happy and having like a
different flair in life.
So those are the stories.
There's one story, and this isone of my fosters and I have
(32:36):
have another story with myFelipe that we saw, who was
barking like crazy and if wehave enough time, you saw me.
I can tell you so many stories.
But I got this foster and wenamed her Lovebug.
She was a Chihuahua, she wasnine years old and she was flea
infested absolutely fleainfested and her skin.
Of course she gets an allergyin her body.
(32:57):
Got rid of the fleas withmedicine, because you know when
you need medicine you should usemedicine.
But then I managed heritchiness and inflammation with
just food and mushrooms and shecompletely transformed.
She was beautiful I have somepictures of her and some reels
(33:17):
in my Instagram and her hair wasstarting growing.
It was about two weeks and theskin changed and she was just
beautiful.
Unfortunately, they took heraway from me because I was
feeding her food so I couldn'tfoster her anymore.
So that's one of those storiesLike that is so sad.
Amy Castro (33:37):
She was thriving but they took her away uh, yeah,
well, we won't get on that path,but but yeah, I mean it just
well, but it it's, it's evidenceand I will say, coming from a
rescue standpoint, um, you know,obviously, if I knew my foster
was a professional nutritionexpert, then I would defer to
(33:58):
her expertise.
Sometimes, when we have peoplethat foster that decide to, I
say they go rogue like they, andI'll just give you?
I'll give you one.
I'll give you one quick example.
We had a volunteer who wasconstantly asking questions
about some issues that we hadgoing on, and they were
acknowledged issues and theywere things that we were working
at the vet on.
But she took it upon herself tochange some of the routines and
(34:21):
one of the things that shechanged was, rather than
cleaning their bowls the waythat we clean them, she started
cleaning them with rubbingalcohol.
And this is for cats.
It's highly toxic to cats.
So we don't like people goingrogue, but I'm certainly open to
alternative nutrition, but yeah, I mean, it has to be people
that are experienced andunderstand the benefits of that.
Otherwise, you know, people canbe sometimes kind of closed
(34:45):
minded about it.
So I understand, yeah, I kindof understand that.
So so you said these are, theseare clients of yours that
you're talking about, other thanthe foster.
How does that work with a petnutrition coach?
Like you know, I know I docoaching of executives on how to
communicate more effectivelywith their employees, but
(35:06):
obviously that's a little bitdifferent.
So what exactly do you do withyour?
Elizabeth Casas (35:12):
clients and how does that work?
So it's pretty much like whatyou do, but instead of talking,
I mean I talk to the pet parent,the one that knows them best.
What we do is we go through.
There's different things thatpeople need right.
They might have a chroniccondition that they want to deal
with, like you know, pushing,or a low PCH, or they might just
want to transition safely, andthat takes time because they are
(35:33):
sensitive.
You can't just some dogs will doit and change and nothing
happens to them, but some don't,and so, depending on what they
want, we get together, we talkabout it and then I give them
there's a questionnaire wherethey would give me all their
information about the pet.
One of the things that I likeabout being a coach is that it's
very personalized and you dosit down and learn about the dog
(35:56):
or the cat.
What are the issues.
It's a time intensive process.
I then take that questionnaireand put together a very detailed
plan to go through on how to dowhat we're going to do, whether
it's fight inflammation orfight a chronic illness or just
transition.
(36:16):
We get together, we talk aboutit.
It's very important that theparent is very involved, because
they're the ones who know it,and they're the ones who are
executing the plan.
Amy Castro (36:25):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Casas (36:26):
And then we adjust because, like you said,
you give them something and theymight not like it, especially
our kitties.
They might not agree with ourplan.
Some kitties would rather diethan change their food, no
matter what, and so, if they, weneed to make sure that our pets
agree.
Most dogs do agree with ourplan.
And then we adjust.
By the end of the process itcan be two months or it could be
(36:48):
three months, depending on thecomplexity Then you walk away
with three complete recipes, allthe supplements if necessary or
I prefer to give fresh foodinstead of supplements if not
necessary.
So how do you supplement foromega-3s?
How do you supplement forprobiotics?
And then they walk away withthe knowledge of identifying the
(37:10):
right food, the three recipesand everything they need to be
able to support their animal'slongevity and health.
Amy Castro (37:19):
And is this something you're doing like?
Are you coordinating with theirveterinarian?
Are they just letting theirveterinarian know what they're
doing that?
Elizabeth Casas (37:26):
is a very good question.
It's independent and I wouldlove.
I usually tell my customers tomake sure they tell their
veterinarian.
I am a true believer that it'sa collaborative approach.
I don't think that some peoplebelieve that holistic approaches
and functional approachesexclude traditional medicine.
(37:47):
I don't believe in that.
I think it's a good combinationof the two.
Sometimes you need one,sometimes you need the other one
and sometimes you need both.
So I do tell them to tell theirveterinarian what we're doing.
Some of my customers don't feelthey should tell the
veterinarian and they tell me Ican't tell him because he gets
angry.
Amy Castro (38:07):
Which to me that's more of a sign that you maybe
need to look at having adifferent veterinarian.
I mean it's you know obviouslyif I'm saying I'm feeding my dog
rocks and glass, then yeah, Imean I think your veterinarian
should try to stop you.
But I mean it should be aconversation and it should be a
well, here's why I believe thisand here's this, you know it's,
(38:32):
here's the science to back it up.
I think that's, that's a bigpiece of it too.
Elizabeth Casas (38:35):
It's like, you know, it's not just my opinion,
it's what's backing it up, and Ithink exactly you know,
everybody needs to do a littlemore homework, and I do give
them all the tools to have thoseconversations with the
veterinarian, because what I'mputting together is not
something I invented.
So the diet that I work withwas created by a veterinarian,
who is you know who creates this, and it's approved by the
American Veterinarian Board.
Like I didn't just, I justdon't create in my house on my
(38:58):
own.
There's some guidelines that weneed to go through and there's
some we need to make sure thatthe right nutrients are being
included, and so I give them allthe documents and I tell them
talk to your veterinarian aboutit.
The most important thing is tohelp them have a conversation
with the veterinarian, ask theright questions, because
sometimes we don't know right,right.
(39:18):
So that's what a pet healthcoach also does it tells you
make sure you do this, make sureyou ask this question, make
sure you're comfortable with theanswer to a specific question.
Amy Castro (39:27):
Make sure you know.
Elizabeth Casas (39:29):
You know what you're doing.
Right, because not knowing isone of the worst feelings.
Right, when my cat hadpancreatitis, I didn't even know
what caused it and I didn'teven know what were the
questions or what were thethings to say or do.
Amy Castro (40:02):
And I didn't even know what were the questions or
what were the opportunities todo that, like don't decide to
have the conversation when yousaid, oh, I just want to come in
for a quick nail trim with avet tech and then say, oh, dr,
so-and-so can I talk to you for?
And then now you've taken anhour.
I mean that's why theirschedules get messed up, because
oftentimes our veterinariansare too nice to tell you you
(40:22):
really need to make anappointment.
But what I would recommend isyou know whether it's part of
your pet's annual exam or youwant to make a special
appointment, with or without thepet, to go in, pay them for
their time, because that's whatthey're there for, and then you
can have a conversation about.
Here are the things that I'mconcerned about, here are the
things you know.
I think that's.
(40:42):
I think that's only fair.
It's kind of like me as aconsultant, where people will
call up and they'll say, can Ipick your brain?
And it's like that's what I getpaid to do.
I mean, yes, I'll let you pickmy brain to a certain degree,
but after that it's like whenI'm basically writing your
speeches for you and I'm nowleading your employees for you,
I'm, you know I, that's what Ido for a living.
I don't do it for free.
(41:03):
So you know, show some someconsideration for your
veterinarian's time as well, andI think in those instances
they'll be better prepared tomake time to have these
conversations.
And you know, if I said to myvet hey, I really want to sit
down and talk about blah, blah,blah that's going on with my pet
I, you know, I'm consideringdoing this with his diet.
Can we have a 30 minuteappointment to sit down and talk
(41:24):
about that?
And that way they've got timeto prepare and maybe do a little
homework as well.
You said it's a good time tolook for another veterinarian.
Elizabeth Casas (41:44):
But for the really good veterinarians who
are open, who are really lookingto learn more about this, you
will find that they'll becurious and they'll be
interested in knowing whatyou're doing and they'll support
you.
I do have one customer thatsaid I had one veterinarian and
I couldn't talk to him about it.
But then I went to the otherone and she read what I was
feeding and she was like yeah,I'm okay with this, I'm okay
(42:06):
with this, perfect, keep me inthe keep me in the loop.
That's the difference betweenthe veterinarian you don't want
and the veterinarian that you dowant, because you want them to
know what you're feeding them,because they're the ones who are
going to be treating your pet.
So, yeah, communicate moreoften than they will be open to
listening to what you're wantingto say.
Amy Castro (42:25):
Yeah, and I think you know for the and I don't
know if younger people have thismuch of an issue, but I know
that people, you know that olderpeople sometimes, you know
we've we were raised to havethis reverence for the person in
the white coat, right?
So you don't question thedoctor.
And it's like there's a fineline between questioning them,
like I'm questioning yourjudgment, and asking a question.
So, if you know, if yourveterinarian were to say, you
(42:47):
know, I don't think you shoulddo that just say OK, can you
share why?
Or can you tell me why?
Or can you explain a littlemore about that?
I mean it's OK to ask why andthen you can make your fully
informed decision that way.
But you know, just saying okay,my vet said no, or my vet said I
shouldn't do that Because I'veasked people this people that
are calling me to surrendertheir pet because it's got an
(43:09):
issue that they can't fix.
And I said you know, well, haveyou talked to your vet about
this?
Yeah, I asked him about thatand they said don't do that.
I said did you ask why?
Well, right, yeah, like they'reafraid to ask, it's like just
ask, you're paying them, it'sokay.
Elizabeth Casas (43:23):
Exactly, exactly.
And if you're seeing your petdoing better with the good food,
then there's even more of areason to ask why should I not
give it Like?
Why?
What is wrong with it?
I'm not hurting it, obviously,evidently.
Amy Castro (43:37):
Yeah, so you had mentioned a resource, susan.
What was the last name?
Elizabeth Casas (43:43):
again, I can share the link for you.
Amy Castro (43:47):
We'll put the link up for that.
Are there other things that weshould be?
I mean, other than going to herwebsite and looking at her list
of pet foods or hiring anutrition coach like yourself,
which will put your contactinformation up for people who
want to talk with you more.
What else can we do to begetting this true information?
(44:08):
We're reading the back of thelabels.
We're going to try to identifywhat those things are and what
they actually do.
What else do you suggest for us?
A couple of things.
Elizabeth Casas (44:18):
You can always Google everything, right, and
you're going to find a differentanswer depending on what you
want, right.
But you need to know your pet.
So know what really works anddoesn't work for your pet, and
then go a route and try and getthe person who knows in that
area better, right, don't gowith trends and don't go with
(44:39):
the last thing that you saw onInstagram, because, even though
those things could be true, itmight not apply to your specific
pet.
So make a decision of what youwant to do.
Are you feeding raw?
That's fine.
Then look at people that aredoing it Canine nutritionists.
They're all over.
You can go to Feed Real.
In Feed Real, you can do acourse to learn how to not to be
(45:00):
a nutritionist, but to learnmore about nutrition.
You can hire a caninenutritionist or a pet health
coach.
You can go to a website ofsomeone that tells you feed real
dr ruth roberts so they do twowebsites where you're going to
find pet health coaches, caninenutritionists that know what
they're talking about okay herein houston I run workshops that
(45:21):
talk about.
it teaches you how to read petfood labels.
And then we talk aboutdifferent issues.
We did one at Bark last Sundaywhere we talked about
sensitivities and allergies, thedifference between them and how
to help your pet overcome.
Both Other times we talk aboutyou know, the superfoods.
I do different topics and I'vedone them online and I'll do
(45:44):
them in person as well.
So go to worship.
Don't just follow the lasttrends and don't don't give up.
Also because, like you weresaying earlier, I gave him all
that it didn't work, so I justcompletely went back.
Amy Castro (45:56):
Yeah, that's, that's Amy Castro.
It was kind of like when Idecided, I'm not going to give.
I'm not going to put my childin plastic diapers.
I'm going to use cloth diapers.
And that literally lasted onepoop I was like yeah, no way in
heck, am I going to do this.
I'm a terrible parent and aparent obviously a bad parent.
Elizabeth Casas (46:14):
Oh my God, no, I would never use.
Yeah, I use diapers For my kids.
All right, so we'll put allthose links and resources up.
Yeah, for sure I'll share thosewith you.
Amy Castro (46:26):
Okay, Any, you know, and one of the things I was
thinking about too, and I don'tknow if you do.
You know the folks from Zoomies.
Elizabeth Casas (46:33):
I do, yes, they actually.
They hosted one of my onlineworkshops.
Amy Castro (46:40):
I thought so Cause I was like you didn't mention it
and I was like I thought I saw,but I didn't want to bring it up
and be like, no, that wassomebody else, that was me, yeah
, yeah.
So we did.
Yeah, we did an episode withthem as well, and I'm definitely
looking forward to when theyofficially open up.
They're doing so much inadvance.
That's really cool.
Elizabeth Casas (46:58):
It is pretty cool and he wants to do this
kind of thing education so I'mlooking forward to support that
mission and present my workshopto his community, definitely
Okay.
Amy Castro (47:09):
So I'm going to time out real quick here.
Is there anything that youwanted to cover that we did not
cover, or any other point?
Elizabeth Casas (47:15):
Not really.
Amy Castro (47:17):
Cover most of it, okay, all right.
Yeah, I think I hit all thethings.
I mean, I think we're givingpeople some good, good food, all
right, so I'll just wrap upthen.
So well, elizabeth, thank youso much for taking the time to
be here today.
This was even though I, like Isaid at the very beginning,
we've done several episodes onnutrition.
Like I, always learn somethingnew every single time and I love
(47:40):
the idea of having a you know,a pet health coach to really
help us through this process.
And you know the way I alwaysfigure it is either you can
Google it and spend hours andhours and hours, or you can go
to an expert source and get thatperson to help you, and it's
probably a better use of yourtime.
But that's going to be people'schoices.
But put all your contactinformation up for people.
(48:03):
And, again, just appreciate youbeing here with us today.
Elizabeth Casas (48:07):
Amy, thank you so much for having me and I'm
just hoping I've given someinformation for people to
understand that it's not thathard.
Start with one tablespoon andif you have any questions you
can reach out to me.
I'm very happy to support you.
Amy Castro (48:20):
Awesome and thank you to everybody that listened
today.
You know I challenge youbecause I think about the things
that we spend our money on,because a lot of times it comes
down to finances.
This is too expensive, that'stoo expensive.
But you know, if you're willingto give up your one cup of out
of the house coffee or thatenergy drink that you probably
(48:40):
shouldn't be drinking anyway, oryou know anyway, and you added
the cost of that up over thecourse of a month, I bet you I
bet you anything that you couldmake some of these better
improvements to your pet's diet,and wouldn't it be worth it if
you could add years, qualityyears to your pet's life?
So please consider that andthank you again for listening to
another episode of StarlightPet Talk.
(49:02):
We will see you next time.
Elizabeth Casas (49:05):
Thank you.
Amy Castro (49:06):
All right Awesome.
Elizabeth Casas (49:08):
Of course Felipe has to bark.
Amy Castro (49:10):
That's okay.
It's a pet podcast, it's okay.
Felipe said I need attention.
Elizabeth Casas (49:18):
I need attention.
He's out there barking likecrazy.
Let me in.
I'm not an outside dog, I'm alap dog I know mine are the same
way.
Amy Castro (49:26):
They'll get out and then they turn around and
they're at the door.
Yeah, he just goes peeing andit's like I'm done, I'm done,
I'm done yeah, that's funny, allright, well, awesome, well, I
appreciate you being here and,uh, let me stop this recording
because I don't need to keep.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.