Pet Nutrition and Chinese Food Therapy

At the Integrative Veterinary Center (IVC) we believe that many of our pet’s health problems can be traced to feeding inappropriate diets. We do not follow or advocate a single dietary program for animals with a “one size fits all” approach, instead our specially trained veterinarians can “prescribe” a nutritional therapy plan that is tailored to your animal’s specific needs. Our dietary recommendations are formulated taking into account a variety of factors such as the species, age, breed, weight, work the animals is expected to perform and disease condition. Individual food therapy programs suitable for your lifestyle that range from complete home-made diets to commercially available pet foods can be formulated for your pet.

Chinese Food Therapy

Chinese food therapy is one of the five branches of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and is the study of food as therapeutic agents for the preservation of health and the treatment and prevention of disease.  For over 2000 years, doctors in China evaluated and recorded the properties of foods and their effects on the body.  Food is considered to have the same energetic actions as herbs (cooling, warming etc) for treating disease and its application is based on similar principles but with a much broader range of applications. Food energetics refers to the effects food has on the digestion, physiological processes and metabolism of the body. Chinese food therapy follows the same diagnostic and treatment principles as acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. Chinese food therapy can be thought of as food used as medicine.

Diets are designed to bring the body back into balance and work synergistically with the other TCM modalities. Food is classified into four basic energetic classifications based on the fundamental principles of TCM: 

2)      Flavor (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, salty)

3)      Organ association (a food can affect specific internal organs )

4)      Meridian affiliation (a food has a definite effect on a particular acupuncture channel more than any others)

A nutritional consultation can be scheduled at the center or via the telephone by calling 916-454-1825. For your convenience a list of natural pet food stores are listed below:

Animal Nutrition and Grooming Center
1805 Cirby Way Suite 10
Roseville, CA 95661
Phone: 916-782-7300

Davis Ace Hardware
240 G Street
Davis, CA 95616
Phone  (530) 758-8000
Fax (530) 758-6173
http://davisace.com/pages/pets