Think I've come down with "RESEARCHITIS"

[Lesley]

When I first got Licorice she had some D issues while I tried to figure out what would be best for her. I was cooking for her. The vet I went to gave her antibiotics 3 x in a month, and told me to give her 50% commercial food. I left that vet.
I was working with a trainer who got me onto a grain free RAW diet. She is tiny, so gets a 1/4 cup of food consisting of raw ground meat mixed with a little yogurt, nutritional yeast, a veggie and coconut oil in the am (she doesn't eat before 12. That's the way she is comfortable), and a half a raw chicken neck (for calcium) or a piece of back complete with skin and fat in the pm. She also gets tiny bits off my finger when I am eating.
Her poops are very small because she digests most of what she gets, and it comes out in stripes showing exactly what she has eaten. Very interesting.
No digestive issues, bright eyes, glossy coat and active and playful. She is doing great!

I wonder if you have to take a test for special personality traits to become a GI? Or if they were given personality tests there would a specific traits revealed? To me their total refusal to make the connection between food and diseases of the digestive tract is nothing short of unbelievable in the truest sense of the word! Insane!

[DebE13]

Too bad they don't realize that they've got it made and don't have to worry about food..... Maybe if I'm brave I will try again with a heavier mix of the old stuff. I figured it was worth the investment to buy the grain free variety if it was better for them.

Sorry Sunny, didn't mean to redirect the conversation to our fuzzy friends

It's such a release to be able to vent here when needed and get helpful suggestions on just about everything!

[Zizzle]

I alternate canned foods for my cat, but keep the dry constant. I recently introduced Whole Foods new Whole Paws wet food, shredded, grain free, and she is HOOKED!! She doesn't want to eat any of the other cans I used to buy. Spoiled cat!

Deb,
Regarding your rice, Jasmine rice from Thailand should be fine. The biggest arsenic risk is rice grown in the US Southern states where cotton crops once grew, because they were sprayed with arsenical pesticides. So there goes your Uncle Bens and other domestic "regular" rice products. California rice is safest, although even Organic Lundberg farms have been known to fertilize with chicken manure, and chickens are fed arsenic! Ugh. I wouldn't eat rice (or anything!) grown in China either...

Sunny,
I know how you feel about all the new diet "protocols". I'm becoming an expert, but it's still so confusing!! I'm autoimmune Paleo now, but I've allowed some rice in, and probably more sweet starches then they envisioned. But it's about what's right for me, and if my symptoms continue to recede, I think that's good enough!

[DebE13]

Thanks Zizzle, for whatever reason I was thinking of just Eastern countries. I totally forgot about the US.

[Leah]

I buy California rice and rinse really well. We will drive ourselves crazy if we worry about everything.

[Lesley]

Leah, that's so true!