Utilizing food therapy as a holistic approach

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Susan Bohrer, DVM, CVA, CVFT, an integrative small animal practitioner and owner of Chi Dog pet meal service in Claremont, California, shared a holistic perspective on pet diets during a lecture at the 2024 Fetch dvm360 conference in Atlantic City, New jersey. During her talk on whole foods, she discussed different ways that individual foods affect patients, emphasizing that what works well for one patient may not be the best course of action for another.

According to Bohrer, Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM) is comprised of 4 branches: acupuncture, herbal therapy, Tui Na (therapeutic massage), and food therapy. In learning TCVM, she became more interested in food therapy when she saw improvements in patients with chronic conditions such as pancreatitis, liver disease,and irritable bowel disease, as well as those with skin conditions and obesity, she said.

She then compared raw and cooked foods for canines and felines, from the perspective of holistic medicine. She noted that although cooked food is easier to digest than raw food, raw food is appropriate for some patients. “Raw is most suitable for healthy, strong dogs and cats because raw requires more energy (or Qi) to digest. This is why the young, active dog or cat with a good body condition thrives on raw food while the senior or sensitive dog or cat does not,” she said.

Bohrer noted that older dogs, young puppies and canines with sensitive stomachs may fare better with cooked food, rather than raw. She said cooked food can help strengthen the spleen and gastrointestinal (GI) microbiome in these pets.

A pet’s dietary needs may need to be amended as they age and their bodies change, Bohrer noted. She used the example of a dog that is on a raw diet for 10 years and is suddenly losing weight and having GI issues. “They won't eat that raw [food] that they previously loved. And the client is usually very committed to the raw, so they want their dog on it, and they're frustrated,” she said. “Why isn't this dog doing great on it anymore? So usually I'm just telling clients, ‘This is just, you're going to feed your dog differently.’”

Bohrer also educated attendees on the energetics of food, which is how an individual food affects the body. When a patient is imbalanced with too much heat, for example, therapy would be feeding cooling foods, and vice versa. Additionally, an internal dryness requires hydrating foods, she noted.

Warming foods, such as chicken , lamb, venison, oats and winter vegetables, are considered gentle foods in TCVM. Cooling foods such as turkey, rabbit, duck, barley, brown rice, and summer vegetables, are anti-inflammatory, and neutral foods are hydrating and include, for example, beef, port, salmon, eggs, potato, cauliflower], and carrots.

“So I always think about chicken and rice,” Bohrer said. “You know, the dog has GI upset. They go home. Client makes chicken and rice. They feel better [and are] looking good. They just needed a gentle chew tonic, right? It's just easy on the tummy. [The combination of] chicken and rice is always a version of, like, chicken soup, right?”

Seeing the benefits that food therapy brought to patients in practice, Bohrer began providing home cooking recipes to her clients. These recipes included food toppers for cats and easy, balanced meals for dogs. “Over and over I saw improvements as I brought in food therapy my patients. Especially for those chronic disease patients who were already on the recommended treatments,” she said.

Reference

Bohrer S. Healing with whole foods: TCVM food therapy, using real food not processed food. Presented at Fetch