[rawfeeding] Re: Question about Organs-Skin

sandy wrote:

>Lora, I'm sure you didn't mean this, but IME this is the kind of post
>that freaks people out and reinforces the notion that raw feeding
>is "too hard" and "too complicated" to be done by normal folks.
> . . . Never ever feeding skin might be on the order of skipping a whole
>category of parts, sure. I probably missed it because I've been
>short of time, but I wasn't aware of anyone saying that they never
>fed skin.

I've only been feeding raw for 2 months now, so I still qualify as a newbie.
However, I've been paying attention to my mentors on the list and have
embraced the intent of the whole-prey diet.

You appear to have missed the majority of this particular thread. It began by
someone asking whether chicken skin was classified as an organ, and whether
heart was as well. Chris responded that yes, skin is technically defined as
an organ. Posts then followed of the type:

". . . If I'd registered that before, I wouldn't have been worrying so
about finding some organ besides liver. I've left skin on all the turkey and
chicken I've fed that came that way."

"The skin goes over the limit for the 5% of other organs in the prey
diet. Should you add it into that 5% or consider it separate?"

To me, these posts represent a serious misunderstanding of the diet and its
intentions.

In a brief search for the source of the "80/10/10" average prey components, I
easily found the following:

>http://www.rawfedcats.org/naturesway.htm
"These proportions of body parts are relatively the same in virtually every
prey animal, and the percentages of these ratios are, approximately:
5 - 10% organs (with half that amount being liver)
10 - 15% edible bone
80 - 85% meat, fat, skin, connective tissue etc."

>http://rawfed.com/myths/preymodel.html
"All of these prey animals are made up of bones, organs, muscle meat, skin,
hide/hair/feathers, fat and other connective tissue. In the average prey
animal, the ratio of these parts is approximately:
5-10% organs (1/2 of this amount is liver)
10-15% edible bones
80-85% muscle meat (and the rest of the critter)"

>http://en.allexperts.com/q/Cat-Food-3490/taurine.htm
"For instance, a whole prey animal will offer . . . roughly the following:
10-15% edible bones
10% organs (1/5 of this being liver)
75-80% meat, skin, fat, connective tissues, and other "by-products""

Over and over again, it is made clear that the 10% organ recommendation is
for INTERNAL ORGANS, not something that science has classified as an "organ,"
and that skin has always been considered within the 80% (or so) category of
FLESH.

>Although I gotta say, I'm not aware of any specific
>nutritional qualities of skin (versus meat and bone), anyway.

That's what they used to say about potato skins. If you believe what a whole
prey diet is correct, than you can't dismiss an entire category of flesh just
because no one has provided you the research.

As I wrote in my first post, I'm not suggesting that your pet's diet is a
failure if you're not handing them a still-warm, unskinned wild rabbit.
However, jumping on the opportunity to use skin as a replacement for internal
organs represents a clear ignorance of what the "80/10/10" average model is
meant to represent. Either that or a willingness to feed incorrectly but
still pat oneself on the back over feeding raw.

Nothing in the prey animal average mentions raw tripe, but we know that it's
an important, specialized part that should be fed if at all possible. It's
not something you can go to the neighborhood grocery and pick up, but it is
available through several sources and I think we all recommend feeding it.

Of course, liver is the easiest organ to obtain. But kidneys are out there,
as are sweetbreads. You might have to go to a specialized market for them
(ethnic or butcher), and you might have to specifically ask for them, but
they can be obtained, and they should be, if you understand why you're
following a whole-prey model with an 80/10/10 average recommendation.

Lora
Evanston, IL

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