A comment and question on the "My Dish on Diet" posting said:
"Thanks for the beneficial diet info. Re dogs, I just heard that veterinarian offices are posting notices that grapes and raisins (dried grapes) are toxic to dogs. What's that about?"
Several people I contacted took the time and interest to weigh in on the subject.
Paul Loeb and Suzanne Hlavacek, Authors
I first posed this question to Paul and Suzanne, the writers of the piece on dogs posted here recently, and they said this kind of alarm about different foods, such as chocolate or onions, being harmful to dogs popped up on the Internet all the time. They told me, for example, that if onions are cooked, any potentially serious problem for a dog is removed. Good to know. I can remember once giving my dog Rip a birthday treat of a beefsteak and kidney pie laced with onions that I'd cooked just for him from a James Beard recipe. He loved it. Scarfed it all down while we fellow celebrants loved watching him love it. The only problems his eating the onions caused were—for us, because we found ourselves repeatedly fanning the air to brush away the inevitable flatulence that followed, laughing hysterically as we did so—and for Rip, because his vaunted dignity was, temporarily at least, in tatters as a result of our hilarity at his expense.
Here's what Paul and Suzanne wrote in answer to the question:
The first thing we need to emphasize in this and all matters concerning your dog is how important it is to always exercise your own good judgment and common sense.
That said, here's our answer to the question posted on the blog: Will a grape or a raisin kill my dog? (Or, for that matter, what about rice, a potato, carrot, turkey?—the list can go on and on, ad infinitum.)
To investigate this, we contacted two veterinarians with long memories and, like us, neither feel there is undue cause to worry. One of the vets said that from time to time a human foodstuff is labeled bad for a dog and there's a warning, which usually gets forgotten after a while. With grapes, the other vet said, there was sometimes an element in them that could possibly be toxic, but he was not able to say if it was inherent in the grape itself, or was a byproduct of pesticides or similar. In any case, we believe that, if you want to have a dog chase a grape around once in a while before pouncing on it and eating it, or just eat a grape without making it a game, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Our focus is rather on the contents of food processed for the dog market, that bag or can of unfit-for-human-consumption stuff that is certified as 4-D meats by the Food and Drug Administration. Now 4-D is not just another fancy dog-food label, 4-D stands for Dead, Dying, Diseased, or Disabled meats, obviously (we hope) unfit for human consumption. And this includes recalls of 4-D meats tainted with salmonella or E-coli, which all go to the pet food industry to be rendered into dog food.
What, you may ask, is rendering?
Rendering is "the ancient but seldom-discussed practice of boiling down and making feed meal and other products out of slaughterhouse and restaurant scraps, dead farm animals, road kill, and, distasteful as it may seem, cats and dogs euthanized in some animal shelters.
"…Renderers in the United States pick up 100 million pounds of waste material every day—a witch’s brew of feet, heads, stomachs, intestines, hooves, spinal cords, tails, grease, feathers, and bones. Half of every butchered cow and a third of every pig is not consumed by humans. An estimated six million to seven million dogs and cats are killed in animal shelters each year….
"Pet food companies try not to buy meat and bone meal from renderers who grind up cats and dogs,…but there are still a number of small plants that will render anything."
(Sandra Blakeslee. "Fear of Disease Prompts New Look at Rendering." The New York Times, March 11, 1997, C1.)
Then, too, walk into a pet shop and take a look around and you'll see displays of pig’s ears, hooves, treated rawhide skin, bull’s dried testicles, and other appetizing treats available for your best friend’s consumption. How good can these be for dogs? Not very.
Has Alice gone through her looking glass to come out in a world gone to a mad hatter’s tea party? You ask—will a grape, or a raisin, or some other human food kill your dog or cat? No, but pet food might. And please note that pet food is not what we would normally consider food; it is quite truly garbage with a fancy label, and a multi-billion dollar advertising campaign.
We put some of this dietary information in our book, Heart of the Matter (Pocket Books, 2000), and also in Smarter Than You Think (Pocket Books, 1997). It's good information that's still current and relevant today—even more so considering the recent episode of poisoned pet food. For anyone interested in a more complete, in-depth look at commercial pet food, including diets and menus, you can find it in either book, but especially in Heart of the Matter.
One other helpful tip to consider is the weight of your dog. Don’t give a five-pound Maltese five pounds of anything to eat or you’ll probably kill it—this can happen when any dog (or person) eats his or her weight in food. If you decide to put that deadly grape in a box and drop it on the head of your five-pound Maltese, that might kill it too. But eating a couple of grapes or a couple of raisins is not going to kill your pet. Now, go have a glass of wine and relax.
Elizabeth Reneghan, Author
Elizabeth Reheghan, co-author of the wonderful book I had the pleasure of editing, Dr. Earl Mindell's Health and Nutrition for Dogs, Revised and Updated 2nd Edition, (www.basichealthpub.com) graciously replied that she was never too busy for her "four-legged friends and those who love them." She wrote the following:
"Grapes and raisins can cause kidney failure in dogs. I haven't found anyone who has pinned down the specifics as to the component in grapes that is poisonous to dogs. As with the other foods that are dangerous to dogs, it takes quite a few to cause kidney failure, but I would certainly put them on my list of foods to avoid. I suspect that, as we see a growing number of people feeding whole foods to their dogs, we may find other foods that are toxic. Dogs very often have food allergies too, so you might want to suggest that any time new foods are introduced, they start off with a small amount and watch for any reactions, such as diarrhea, vomiting, itching."
Sylvia Goldfarb, Author
My co-author and friend, Sylvia Goldfarb, whose home is graced by a wonderful labrador, steered me to http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/raisins.asp and suggested going to Ask.com and typing in "Are raisins and grapes toxic to dogs?" She says there's a whole lot of info, including from the ASPCA, which her vet also suggested as a resource. The snopes site links these fruits to an anecdotal report of renal (kidney) failure from 2004 after the dog had eaten mounds of raisins, but says nothing about clinical trials involving grapes and raisins, or why dogs are all of a sudden susceptible to renal disease from them.
Thanks, folks, for your time and your carefully considered responses. Much appreciated.
While on the subject of food, here's something else I want to pass along.
A Tip on Bananas for People
(but dogs will probably like it too)
Like most people, you may throw bananas out when the outer skin turns black, but that would be a mistake. When a banana gets to that stage, some savvy souls get a real treat because, if the fruit inside is still mostly white, even if it's soft, it has a terrifically sweet taste.
Soooo... here's what's good to do with these so-called old bananas: Cut the soft fruit into ¼" rounds, arrange these sliced rounds in circles on a salad-size plate, and FREEZE them.
Result? A burst of flavored cold that, at its sweetest best, tastes like banana ice cream -- Delicioso. It's fun to watch people new to the treat as they tentatively reach for one of the frozen little rounds I proffer, then see their faces light up as they pop it into their mouth and exclaim, "Oh, That's goooood."
Bottom line here: Old bananas = Sweet bananas = Tasty frozen bananas.
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