Regenerative Farm-to-Table Pet Food

Yes, it's available and here is why you should feed it to your pets.

A fantastic movement is underway that has been building momentum over the past decade. People are tired of being sick and tired after eating the typical highly processed American diet and are exploring different dietary options.

The next step after investigating food quickly leads back to the farms and methods of growing and producing food, from soil health to farming techniques and happy animals living out their lives on lush green pastures. It’s called Regenerative Farming in case you are out of the loop.

Regenerative Farming is a holistic approach to farming that aims to enhance and restore the health of the soil and the entire ecosystem. It focuses on improving the soil microbiome, enhancing water retention, and promoting biodiversity, thereby producing healthy, nutritious food with higher vitamin and mineral content through resilient agricultural systems. This approach involves minimizing soil disturbance, using cover crops, crop rotation, composting, and multiple species of crops and livestock, creating a sustainable ecosystem on the farm itself.

It really goes back to farming the way it used to be done on the traditional family farm, before agribusiness took hold and brought in monocrop agriculture, GMO -feeds, giant feed-lots of cattle, barns of chickens and pigs that never see the light of day and milk cows that are milked three times a day and do not live more than 3-4 years.

I have experienced both methods, witnessing the transition when I attended veterinary school in the mid-1990s. My grandparents were second-generation Germans who settled in the Dakotas. They homesteaded and had a “polyface” ranch. My grandfather always had a herd of beef cattle and a couple of milk cows to produce milk for the family. My father frequently reminded me of having to milk the cows twice a day whenever I complained about doing anything as a kid. He also trained horses for the U.S. Cavalry and raised hay, alfalfa, and wheat. My grandmother raised chickens and had an extensive vegetable garden that produced fruits and vegetables she would preserve and can to last them throughout the year.

Summer vacations were spent on the ranch, playing in between helping with chores. We would run around the ranch barefoot, through the horse and chicken manure. The stock tank was our swimming pool during the hot summer months, and the hay loft in the barn was our secret hideaway. We rode the horses bareback through the pastures, raised baby geese and ducks, hunted for eggs every morning, and picked potato bugs off the potato plants. We were outside, in the sun, getting dirty and having a great time. Trips to town were a special once-a-month treat. On the Fourth of July, we made homemade ice cream and went to town to watch the parade and rodeo.

I did not appreciate how special those experiences were until now. Most people have no idea where their food comes from or what goes into producing it. By the time I arrived in veterinary school, the small family dairy farms in Wisconsin were being pressured by Monsanto to inject their cows with recombinant bovine growth hormone to increase milk yields. Europe banned the product in the mid-90s after discovering it led to insulin resistance and Type II diabetes. Guess what we have now? An epidemic of Type II diabetes.

I begged the Dean of Large Animal Medicine to find me organic dairy farms to visit on my required 2-week dairy rotation. It was difficult, but she did, along with giant free-stall dairy operations. The juxtaposition of the two was dramatic. I wish I could bottle the smell of an organic dairy barn and a corporate free-stall dairy barn. Just the smell alone tells the story.

I was required to spend 4 days on a pig farm as part of my clinical rotations. My maternal grandfather was raised on a family farm that raised a lot of pigs, but nothing like I witnessed. They sent us to a specific-pathogen-free pig operation. We had to wear biohazard suits, shoe covers, three types of earplug protection, and shower in and out with disinfecting soap.

The baby pigs were born on one end of the barn, in those sow crates where the mother cannot move around, let alone stand up and turn around. They say this keeps her from squashing and lying on top of her babies. As the piglets grow and gain weight, they are moved down the barn until, a short 6 months later, they are loaded onto trucks at the opposite end, headed for slaughter.

The smell and sounds of that barn stayed with me for weeks. I washed and washed my hair, attempting to get the smell out. It was years before I ate a piece of pork of any kind. Thank god I can find heritage pasture-raised pork now, or I would not be eating any at all. It was a traumatic experience just spending four days there, let alone living one’s whole life in that barn from birth to death.

If you want to hear about my experience at a downer cow slaughterhouse, here is that story. This is where the “meat” for rendered meat meal in pet food originates.

That is all the bad news and the place we find ourselves in terms of food production in 2025. Add in the science experiments of Bill Gates and you get the picture. It is no wonder that chronic disease is killing our loved ones, people, and pets. But there is good news on the horizon and good news in your local independent pet food store, right now!

SOLUTIONS PET PRODUCTS:

This brand has been my number one favorite pet food for a good reason.

“Our farmers understand the necessity for nourished earth. Using regenerative farming practices, they cultivate a thriving environment for plants and animals, working harmoniously with nature to achieve holistic wellness.”

Their products are grown, produced, and manufactured outside of the mainstream food supply system, free from GMOs, antibiotics, pesticides, and other toxins that end up in the highly processed commercial pet foods.

Solutions Pet Products raw fermented pet food diets are 85% meat (60% muscle/30% organ/10% bone) and 15% other whole foods, like fermented okra, sprouted chia seeds, and grass-fed raw butter. No synthetics, no isolates, no empty calories.

The 15% fermented veggies is the true secret sauce that enables this food to reverse so many disease processes. It helps restore gut health and keep it healthy! The bacteria from the ferment crowd out pathogenic bacteria from the meat. Fermentation is one of mankind’s oldest methods of preservation.

They have a modular dietary system, with fermented raw meat mixtures ( beef, Chicken, Pork), several different bone broths, a miracle-working fermented fish broth to take down inflammation, several raw goat milk formulations, and raw cheese with different herbal combinations.

I recently conducted an interview with two of the individuals behind Solutions Pet Products to explain, in their own words, why their diet is so effective in reversing chronic diseases in dogs and cats.

All of my own animals receive at least a third of their diet from Solutions. I have a Goldendoodle who arrived at my house with severe allergies and yeasty paws. A year later, his skin and coat are beautiful! My 15-year-old German Shepherd/Husky mix is still going strong, and my 20-year-old cat eats nothing but Solutions meat diets with plenty of raw goat’s milk and is pharmaceutical-free.

If you want help switching your pet to a healthier diet, or have a pet with a chronic illness that could benefit from a diet change, I offer ZOOM consultations. Just message me or email me at consultwithdrjosie@gmail.com.

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