The Equine Practice Inc

Cheese Doodles, Chocolate Bars and Candy Won’t Hurt You

Did Doc T just say OK to eating Cheese Doodles, chocolate bars and more tasty things?  Yup! But only with a condition.

What sparked this idea was a story I heard about a Norwegian explorer who walked to the South Pole and back by himself.  Along the way he would bury small stashes – or caches – of food and supplies to help him on his way back. Just think about that.  When you or your horse works “hard,” is it equivalent to walking 10 hours a day in an unforgiving environment carrying everything you possess?

On day 86 of his journey he has lost about 55 pounds.  He comes across the last cache he buried months earlier.  He videos himself and the jubilation he has when he finds both Cheese Doodles, a milk chocolate bar and Mentos candy.  You MUST see this video (turn on the subtitles to translate from Norwegian).

My guess is that he doesn’t get to eat Cheese Doodles, chocolate and candy every day and after nearly starving, these foods won’t hurt him.  Nor will some occasional grain or a carrot hurt your horse given every 3 months when working for a living.  Same with birthday cake once a year.

Carbohydrate dependency is defined as eating Cheese Doodles every day or feeding your horse grain and carrots every day.  Our mitochondria, cells and organs were never meant to be bathed in these foods daily.  In the 1950’s and 1960’s the roads in the US had service stations that sold gas and oil, serviced and repaired cars and dispensed gum balls, peanuts and cashews for a penny and a twist of a handle.  There were no shelves of fried chips, baked goods or sugar laden candy, soda and beer.

There were very few feed stores and what they sold were only whole grains. Now feed stores carrying a wide variety of horse feed based on their life purpose in colorful bags with catchy names and pretty girls on the front and unpronounceable words on the back. They are equivalent to the convenience store filled with sugar waiting to make ill all who eat it.  

Just take a walk in any woods on any day.  Please report back to me any sightings of squirrels eating specialized senior feeds.  For that matter, look for squirrels on canes or walkers, squirrel nursing homes or squirrel retirement homes.  The abundance and the availability of food for us and our horses astounds me.  Convenient stores and fast food chains make the possibility of starving impossible.  Same with the abundance of grains and supplements for our horses.  It is NOT how we evolved to eat.  There must be some relief from all of this and it is called winter.  This is when there are few carbohydrates available and in turn it is when the mitochondria and cells regain their strength.  I have written about this in other blogs.  But simply put, stop feeding grain, hay extenders, balancers and supplements to horses.  Allow them to use the hind gut to ferment cellulose into fat to fuel their body.  This is how horses thrive.  It is a unique digestive system only seen in horses, asses, mules, zebras, tapirs and rhinoceroses. No other animal has it including cattle.

I just met a 20 year old care taker of some horses who never heard of not feeding grain because it is all he, and every one else under 40 years of age, has ever been told.  But then he thought about it for a minute and he recalled an old horseman back in his Mexican town who had also said to never feed grain to horses.  He was the most respected horse trainer there, but because of marketing, the young man had forgotten this old man’s wisdom.

If you want to feed grain and carrots to your horses it’s OK.  Just be sure they have plowed a field or run you to town and back first and only feed them these once every 3 months.  As I have always said, McDonald’s doesn’t make you fat but it’s driving to and from McDonald’s that does.