The most frequently asked questions about feeding horses asked in emails, comments and in social media. These equine nutrition questions are the bare …
The objections to using soybean meal in horses as a protein source are addressed here: GMO, glyphosate, feminization. How SBM is made and my conclusio…
The cause of insulin resistance (IR) is discussed from the cellular level, and the effect aerobic exercise has in circumventing the blockade of glucos…
No one has determined why some horses in the same environment stop sweating while others do sweat but we know that every horse is different with diffe…
This is a testimony from a horse owner who took the 2 week no-grain challenge. "Taking this old horse off of grain caused him to lose weight so Renew …
We are told to trust the experts mainly because we cannot be all experts in everything. We need to become experts in how to feed horses because how th…
This is a testimony from a horse owner who took the 2 week no-grain challenge. "Apollo, the nervous TB gelding that you thought was bitten as a colt s…
What is carbohydrate (sugar) dependency in horses and how does it lead to chronic protein deficiency and insulin resistance? This is a fundamental que…
When is it OK to eat sugar? Enjoy this comical video which basically explains how sugar is necessary for body functions and is OK even in abundance at…
Chronic protein deficiency in horses is at the root cause of many injuries and illnesses I see in horses. This 2016 video presentation is from my Hors…
An introduction to the biggest health issue in horses today. Due to modern feeding, horses are consuming their own protein PLUS they are being fed eno…
My last podcast (#051) was about the infodemic we are experiencing in the horse world. This is where there is so much conflicting information about th…
In every moment of life in our horses, there is a battle between the body and the invading organisms surrounding them. To win, the immune system needs…
The pituitary is a small gland at the bottom of the brain that regulates so many hormones in the horse. Without it, the body of every mammal (horse an…
Horses are becoming too complicated to keep as I watch everyone try to better others as to why their theories are better. So I made a new word - compl…
Complexicate - to complicate things to make people look more intelligent and feel more significant and usually agenda based. I decomplexicate horse fe…
You are not feeding the horse but you are feeding the trillions of microbes within their gut and they, in turn, feed the cells of the horse. Happy gut…
The digestive tract of the horse has a 1 cell thick lining with an army of defense cells behind it. Attacks on this cause the immune system to respond…
Where do horses get their fat if all they eat is ground plants (pasture and hay)? The answer is from bacterial digestion of cellulose. Here are the de…
Feeding supplements to horses fill a void in their nutrition. But are they necessary and effective? Are there guarantees to their quality or their qua…
Lectins are plant proteins made to discourage animals from eating their seeds by making the animals sick. Insidious over years, they confuse the other…
The final installment of the series on feeding horses. Dig in deeper by enrolling in the Horsemanship Nutrition Course. Congratulations on reading all…
This is a testimony from a horse owner who took the 2 week no-grain challenge. "No longer reactive ground work is really getting so much better. I fee…
Our horses digestive tract is a tube running through the body. This is a fundamental principle to understand. The hole in the doughnut isn't part of t…
The European College of Equine Internal Medicine (ECEIM) issued a statement on a problem affecting horses called Equine Metabolic Syndrome. I summariz…
Entropy means the natural and required decrease in energy, moving organized things into disorganized things and eventually ending in complete chaos. I…
All horses need salt but what is it, why do they need it and how do we get it in them? Is a lick enough or should it be added to the food? Can excess …
When do horses become "seniors?" Why have I never found "senior feeds" for squirrels or other wild animals? Could "senior feeds" just be a marketing g…
This is for horse owners who just want to know how to feed horses in a simple action set. Step 1) stop inflammation, Step 2) add protein, Step 3) writ…
The purpose of eating is to survive. How sugars are used, the development of uric acid and the association of disease in horses is discussed and a sol…
It was Valentine's day yesterday, and I made a HUGE mistake. I had worked all day in the northern part of Louisiana, and my scheduled hotel last night was in Pearl, Mississippi. So I had four hours of driving, including two stops for charging the Tesla and grabbing dinner—a 15-hour work day floating 12 horses with a well-deserved, hot and nutritious meal ahead. On my first attempt at dinner, I realized that EVERY MAN ON THE PLANET was taking their valentine out for dinner. I concluded that food must equal love, as the sign said above a restaurant in the Newark Liberty International Airport (see the feature image of this blog).
I could not find one parking space near any restaurant. Even the drive-thru lane at Panda Express went around the building. Not judging here, but Panda Express for Valentine's meal is setting the sights lower than maybe the date was expecting. I got a turkey and guacamole wrap with spinach, olives and brown mustard at a Subway inside a truck stop. No, I didn't get chips or cookies and tore off ½ of the wrap.
I tried to trademark "Food ≠ Love," but I found that Dr. Phil had beaten me to it with the expression "Food does not equal love." From what I saw last night, no one is listening to Dr. Phil either. Making matters worse, many people out there look at preparing food as an art form. My son is one of those who went to culinary school, is gifted in the meal preparation and has taste buds inherited from someone other than me.
Eating Is About Surviving - Period
In reality, eating food is a survival mechanism. It is a set of survival mechanisms that switch on and off depending on how good or bad things are in the world. For example, when things are good such as when the temperature suits our ability to stay warm, then the food we eat will be put to use in creating the energy we need, and we will not eat more than that. However, the mechanism will change when the weather starts to get cold, so the food we eat starts to store fat, and we seem to remain hungry all the time. Through this mechanism, the body ensures the addition of excess calories to store more fat to survive winter. In addition, if we ever start living in an environment with less oxygen than expected, another mechanism is activated that assures our survival. This is the mechanism used by cancer cells that live in a slightly lower oxygen environment to survive and grow on sugar.
It all boils down to sugar. But with so much said about it, we all become confused about what it is. And then it does taste good too.
The Environment Triggers The Path
In a nutshell, when everything is good, and there is little stress in life, the fuel used by our horses and us is glucose which is burned by the mitochondria in the cell to make energy. Of course, there is a cost to this as there is everything in life, so we rest, allowing our mitochondria to rebuild the materials needed to produce more energy (ATP). This avoids mitochondrial exhaustion, and no illnesses occur. In essence, the body adapts to good and bad environments.
When the environment changes, signaling that hardship is coming (winter cold and a lack of food), a large amount of glucose is taken in that far exceeds our daily needs. This is normal. The glucose is then converted into another sugar called fructose by ripe fruits that animals eat. Both sugars have the same elements (6 carbons, 6 oxygens and 12 hydrogens) but are put together differently. This difference signals a different metabolic pathway to becoming activated. That signal activates the use of an enzyme called fructose kinase to break down fructose, and the purpose of this triggered pathway is to 1) add body fat, 2) slow the normal mitochondrial metabolism (exhaustion) and 3) decrease the effectiveness of the satiating hormone leptin. The result is that our horses are always hungry, out of energy and getting fatter.
Are There Other Sources Of Fructose?
In humans, it is worse because there is a 50:50 mix of glucose and fructose in table sugar. When liquified, this mixed sugar has more of the fat-making effects (sugar in soda or coffee, high fructose corn syrup) than if in a solid form (cookies or a candy bar). Horses usually don't ingest fructose unless they have access to fruit such as apples. But this next part is new and important. Researchers have recently discovered that fructose is made by humans and other tested animals (not tested in horses). Because this discovery has been made in various other animals, I will assume it is true in horses too. What does this assumption mean?
If horses convert excess glucose into fructose, then could Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) be caused by the excess feeding of foods high in glucose? This would include grains, hay (last summer's grass) and summer grass. But, more importantly, these are being fed throughout the year, signaling to the horse that hardship is up ahead and to store more fat, exhaust the mitochondria, consume the body proteins (breakdowns and disease) and be constantly hungry.
And Then There's Uric Acid
In animal studies, when fructose is made from excess glucose intake, an elevation in uric acid results. This leads to inflammation of the kidneys resulting in hypertension and inflammation of the pancreatic islet cells resulting in increased insulin (diabetes). Giving a drug that inhibits fructose kinase prevents the formation of uric acid with the result of normalized blood pressure and normalized blood insulin levels. The conclusion is that glucose doesn't cause these diseases, but fructose and its survival metabolic pathway do. Sugar isn't the problem - it is the EXCESS sugar converted into fructose that is the problem.
Fascinating to think about where we are today in human research and frustrating to know where we are in horse health and its relation to nutrition. But as long as we think that food equals love, we will continue to get poor health from our horses. I think it is time to embrace this:
Food ≠ Love
PS - the future will bring more details on sugar's role in mitochondrial exhaustion, chronic protein deficiency and the possibility of intermittent fasting in horses as a treatment for high insulin levels, high ACTH and EMS/obesity in our horses.
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