Author: Cat Henstridge BVSc MRCVS, Member of WSAVA Nutrition Committee
We’re delighted to welcome Cat Henstridge recently appointed member of the WSAVA Nutrition Committee. A UK-qualified and practicing veterinary surgeon, Cat graduated from Bristol Vet School in 2003 and currently works in Derbyshire. Her experience spans a variety of practice settings, from busy city hospitals to rural clinics, giving her a well-rounded perspective on small animal care.
Passionate about animal health and welfare, Cat shares practical pet care advice and information on her social media channels and regularly contributes to blogs and articles. With a strong social media presence, she is also a respected voice in veterinary advocacy and education.
In this article, What Veterinary Professionals Really Know About Nutrition, Cat explores the insights, misconceptions, and growing interest surrounding veterinary nutrition—offering a thoughtful perspective on what veterinarians are truly taught and why it matters.
Read the article below:
What Veterinary Professionals Really Know About Nutrition
We have all read the criticisms of our profession online when it comes to pet nutrition. That we don’t know anything about it. That we only have 10 or 5 or 3 hours of lectures at university (it goes down every time I see it repeated!). That we are all paid big bucks by Big Kibble to only recommend certain brands.
We all know none of this is true but these assertations are so insistent and persistent I think many of us are starting to wonder if they might be right. We definitely did have nutrition learning in our course, we certainly remember discussing dietary choices for cases and patients with clinicians, many of us were fortunate enough to have Veterinary Nutritionists on staff and teaching us but was our education all wrong? Have we been misled?
I think we can confidently say ‘No’ but the problem, I think, is that the discourse about nutrition online is very different to what we were taught and it is reasonable for an intelligent, curious and caring profession to reflect on these, remarkably consistent, pet owner opinions, and ask questions and look into the subject further.
And that is what we are doing. Interest in nutrition from the profession is higher than it has ever been. In-person lectures are standing room only, nutrition webinars are some of the most popular on the platforms and veterinary nutritionists on social media are experiencing rocketing engagement.
But there is definitely a disconnect between the veterinary education and the populist narrative and recently I realised what it is; we don’t get taught things that aren’t a thing.
So when an online blogger says ‘Cats can’t digest carbohydrates’, vets are a bit lost because this isn’t something that ever came up in our teaching. Was this omission proof of the conspiracy?
Of course not, it was omitted because cats can and do digest carbohydrates very well, when they are cooked and in pet food. Just because they are obligate carnivores doesn’t mean they can only eat and digest meat, simply that they must have some of the meat derived amino acids in their diet.
And therein lies the simplicity and superficiality of the online message, compared to the complexity and depth of the veterinary education.
Another common trope is ‘Dogs are wolves and therefore must eat an ancestral and/or species appropriate diet. They wouldn’t have kibble in the wild!’
Which, of course, does appear to make perfect sense on that surface level and I am in no way criticising those who believe this message, I think I might too if I wasn’t in this field.
But, again, to the veterinary trained professional our well-honed (but often underappreciated by us) critical thinking skills and education don’t take long to dismantle this fallacy.
It is a long time since dogs were wolves and that has altered their digestive capacity significantly. ‘Ancestral diet’ is a meaningless phrase when considered properly, and one could very easily argue that a ‘species specific’ diet is exactly what they are receiving when we feed them dog food, given the extensive research into their exact nutritional needs and the detailed refinement of the foods we are able to offer them.
Not to mention that we all wish to give our dogs a much better and longer life than their wild cousins, or even their street dwelling brothers and sisters (the closest thing we have to a wild example of a dog), who rarely live into double figures. Many things contribute to the longevity and health of our pets but it is inarguable that nutrition plays a very significant role.
Or how about the classic ‘Processed pet food is just the same as human fast food, vets only recommend it because they make more money from sick animals’.
It is at this point we need to be commended for staying, in the vast majority of the comments sections I see, polite and professional in the face of such appalling statements but, as before, it is not unreasonable for even us to take pause and wonder why as a profession we do advise such a different nutritional approach to our human doctor colleagues.
And again, then our training kicks in and we naturally pull apart the clear differences between burger and chips and complete, balanced and healthy diets for animals.
But should we have been taught these things in the first place? Ready for the rough and tumble of the real world outside of the dreaming spires of tertiary education?
Practically, we have far too much to learn about the science and evidence base behind the thing that are true, to be taught the common misconceptions pet owners might, understandably, have.
And this is not unique to nutrition; immunology is another area where the myths and fear abound and those will little depth of knowledge but plenty of chutzpah, are dominating the debate and discourse.
However, I do think the profession, particularly it’s leaders and educators, who have the knowledge to correct these misunderstandings could be more vocal in publicly countering the myths in a way that will reach both pet owners and their colleagues on the front line.
They are, of course, busy doing the job they have trained so hard for and caring for the pets of people who actually want and value their advice, rather than trying to persuade those determined to disbelieve them in the online space, and I absolutely do not blame them from shying away or being completely unaware of the issues. Not everyone is chronically online.
And this is one of the many reasons I am so excited to be a new member of the WSAVA Nutrition Committee. Our toolkit already contains many useful guides for the veterinary community to use to support pet owners in making well-informed choices for their animals and to build on their college nutrition. We have the ‘Selecting A Pet Food’ PDF, the ‘Savvy Cat Owner’ and ‘Savvy dog owner’ nutrition guides and the ‘FAQ and Myths’ section tackles many of the roadblocks we encounter both online and in real life. But we are planning to build on this!
There is a real need for shareable, clear, evidence based and authoritative information on small animal nutrition and we are ideally placed to be able to call on the amazing expertise of world leading veterinary nutritionists to produce it for you all.
So, watch this space!
The WSAVA Nutrition Committee is kindly supported by The Purina Institute, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Furry Tail and Royal Canin.