Ep. 274: Veterinarian Dr. Parker Talks Big Kibble & Big Pharma and Your Pet
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You’ve noticed pharma has totally taken over human medical care. It’s no different for veterinary medicine. Dr. Parker (who makes house calls in South Florida!) talks kitty Prozac; what to feed your pet; why there’s an epidemic of extracting teeth; whether your pet really needs all those V’s; and other issues pet owners need to know, to raise a healthy, happy cat or dog.
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Bio-
Dr. Matt Parker knew nothing at all about Health & Wellness or Medicine or Nutrition before he entered Veterinary Doctor school in 2005. In vet school he learned about medicine (Modern Western Conventional medicine) and disease, but still nothing about Health or Wellness or Nutrition.
Not long into his career, like so many veterinarians and pet-owners, Dr. Parker was becoming more and more frustrated by ongoing allergy cases, skin problems, pet obesity, auto-immune disease and many other ailments that couldn’t be resolved or explained by the Conventional Western medicine that we are taught in vet school. Like you and your vet, he tried all the steroids and antibiotics and super-high-tech prescription foods to help his patients with allergies and auto-immune problems. But more often than not it simply didn’t work.
After 6 years of being frustrated by the same allergy and auto-immune diseases in dogs all over the country he finally began to question much of what we (Americans) are taught and to seek answers for himself instead of relying on Big Pharma and Uncle Sam to provide irrational solutions.
As Dr. Parker started reading more about human health and nutrition he began to understand that processed foods are a big part of OUR (human) health problems. He began looking for more natural nutrition and treatment options for himself and his patients. Christopher McDougall’s 2009 book Born To Run is what really prompted Dr. Parker to make significant lifestyle changes.
As Dr. Parker started to discover the vast realm of long-standing tried & true non-Conventional therapies he realized that he was no longer just seeking knowledge, but that he was now seeking deeper understanding and acceptance of some things that defy our modern reductionist scientific process. The most important concept that is consistent over all ‘Holistic’ theories is that all illness & disease is due to an imbalance in the body or the environment that we live in.
By also learning about Permaculture and Regenerative Agriculture through authors such as Alan Savory and visits to Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm, Dr. Parker realized how man’s mismanagement of livestock and soils has greatly contributed to our health problems. Dr. Parker continues to improve his efforts to support farms and businesses that are trying to repair and reverse decades and centuries of damage from factory-farming practices.
Dr. Parker has adopted a truly Holistic approach to animal and human health that explores biologically-appropriate nutrition, lifestyle & exercise & social interactions, emotional & physiological issues from the past, chemical & environmental toxicities and accumulations, herbs & glandular supplements, acupuncture, chiropractic, while not forgetting that modern Western medicine also has great value when used properly.
By providing a better understanding of the underlying causes of the disease process, and by providing Hope, we can overcome the gloom & stagnation and perceived helplessness that often hinders the healing process.
To be able to solve problems and treat our pets to improve their health, and to be able to “fix” chronic problems that affect the quality-of-life of the pet and the pet’s caretaker—Aren’t these the reasons that most veterinarians suffer through so much schooling in the first place?!