Food Therapy

Food is Medicine! It is the foundation of your pet’s health. I am certified as a Food Therapist through Chi University. I am not a boarded Veterinary Food Therapist. A boarded Veterinary Food Therapist has done several years of additional veterinary training specifically in nutrition. They are considered the expert in formulating a balanced diet that meets all nutritional requirements including vitamins and micronutrients. My additional Food Therapy training focuses on the energetics and specific properties of food that can help create balance in the body. This is a concept similar to acupuncture and herbal medicine. The right foods can help to create more balance in the body which ultimately can lead to improved health and quality of life. 

Foods are energetically divided into "warming/hot", “neutral” or "cooling/cold". Hot Peppers are an example that is easy to follow. The hot pepper is not hot to the touch, but when we eat them, they create a reaction in the body that is very warming. Your face may get red, you may become thirsty, and your eyes may get red or tear. This is an extreme example, but all food can be divided into one of these three temperature categories. Foods can also have specific actions on the body. A few examples would be foods that tonify (increase the amount) blood, foods that tonify Qi (energy) or foods that move stagnation(blockages/stiffness). Every pet is different.  Some pets have always “run hot” since they were a puppy. They are always seeking fans, shade and cool surfaces to lay on. Some pets are always seeking the sun and may be more internally cool/cold. As a pet ages, their temperature preferences may change. A pet that may have always been a “hot dog” may now be laying in the sun for hours at a time. At the initial consult, my goal is to figure out the current imbalance in the body that is leading to the underlying concerns (so the reason you reached out to us) and choose foods that help to create more internal balance. 

Food can be approached in several ways. After an initial consult, we can start to “top dress” your pet’s diet with foods that would be beneficial. This means that we would keep the base diet that you have been feeding “as is” and we just add foods on top (or mixed into) the base diet. We can also incorporate whole food treats or cooked treats as part of the daily routine. After the initial consult, some people prefer to switch to a completely whole food diet. This means you would go to the grocery store and buy ingredients, just as you would for yourself. I can formulate a diet and provide you with a recipe that you would use to create a balanced diet for your pet. 

So, what about Raw food? Most of the pets reaching out to Angel Pets have an underlying condition or disease process that is creating challenge in their daily life. Our goal is to help you reduce as much of this challenge as possible. Raw Food is considered energetically very Cold, and it consumes more energy to digest then a cooked diet. So, for many of the pets that I see, feeding cooked food conserves more of your pet’s energy, and gives them the ability to have a little more energy to do the things that make this world joyful.