DOG-EARED with LISA DAVIS EP #23: BOOK: "The Canine Cocomega Effect: A Breakthrough to Healing Your Dog's Gut with Super Fats." AUTHOR: Jaron Lukas

Lisa is joined by Jaron Lukas, the CEO of Yumwoof! to talk about his book, The Canine Cocomega Effect: A Breakthrough to Healing Your Dog's Gut with Super Fat. Jaron is a former investment banker who somehow turned to the light side, Jaron Lukas has been an entrepreneurial executive since 2012 and was recently cited by Fox Business News as a leader they're watching. He's currently the Co-Founder of Yumwoof Natural Pet Food and a strategic advisor to over 15 startup companies. An early innovator in decentralized technologies, Jaron founded blockchain industry leader Coinsetter in 2012, which was acquired by Kraken in 2016. He started his career at J.P. Morgan, went to Rice University, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, TechCrunch and other publications.
Jaron's love of a dog named Sherlock and desire to improve dogs' health and the pet food industry from the inside out led him and two close friends to enter the pet food industry while his personal journey to better health, wellness, and nutrition inspires him to make the world a better place for humans and animals alike.

Here are 5 Benefits of the Cocomega Effect (MANY MORE ARE COVERED IN THE INTERVIEW)

If prescription or holistic diets have not healed your dog—then read The Canine Cocomega Effect by Jaron Lukas. In this book, Lukas offers a new perspective on why these diets fail and presents an alternative path to naturally improve your dog's skin issues, itching, diabetes, diarrhea and inflammation for good.  Here are just five of the benefits. Jaron and Lisa talk about many, many more in this interview! 

1. Cocomega Stops Dog Inflammation At Its Source: The Microbiome

2. Cocomega Modulates Dog Gut Health for Longevity

3. Fewer Vet Bills: Cocomega Is The Ultimate Money Saver

4. Cocomega Really Works — And It Is Backed By 162 Clinical Studies 

5. Cocomega May Improve Your Gut Health Too

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 

dog , microbiome , food , raw diet , feeding , dog food , fats , eating , omega threes , people , ingredients , great , kibble , benefits , product , dried , minerals , omega sixes , book , nutrients 

MORPHUS SPOT 
Are you in perimenopause or menopause and have questions? My co host Andrea donsky has a podcast called menopause reimagined, where she answers your questions about this phase of life. So stay tuned at the end where I will share five minutes of her amazing podcast. And there will be a link in the show notes where you can go and listen to the whole episode. Andrea is brilliant and she has worked so hard and knows her stuff. So be sure to check out menopause reimagined after this episode of help power. Thanks.

Lisa 
0:42
Does your dog do well today to answer this question, we've got the fantastic Jaron Lucas we're going to be talking about his book, The canine Coco mega effective breakthrough to healing your dog's gut with super fats. He is the CEO of yum woof Natural Pet Food and I'm so excited to have him on. All right. Jaron, does your dog do what? 

Jaron
Well, you know, Sherlock is the cutest Corgi poo in the world in my humble opinion. And sure, I'll tell you what thought he he's definitely got that Corgi but wiggle. That's one of my favorite things that he does for sure. Oh, I'd love that the book wiggle is so so fun question I ask every guest When did your love of dogs begin? You know, it really began with Sherlock. I grew up with a dog and you know absolutely loved him too. But I think it's so different when you finally get your own dog and you know you're responsible for him you build that that connection from when they're a puppy and, and for me that that's really where it began. And now I can't imagine ever living life without a dog.

Lisa 
1:54
Yeah, isn't it crazy? I can't either. I mean, I and everyone knows who listens I got my first dog at 33 A pit Max and then I got to set a shepherd mix. Those were the original Good boys. And now I have my beloved soulmate blew my pity and my dog Benji and Oh, sounds so mean. I'm like my beloved soul.

Jaron 
2:13
Benji just gave me a look. Benji, I love you too. It's okay. No, I literally I literally feel the same about Sherlock. Like Sherlock is my soulmate. There will never be another dog. I have just like him, although I'm sure the future dogs I have will be amazing. But yeah, there's, there's a certain connection you build with some dogs. Like for me, I even talk about this in my book. Like, there are moments where you can be deep and meditation with your dog with you there. And it to me, it's just this almost like cosmic experience that you can have. It's like a frozen moment in time with you and your dog. And there's nothing like it.

Lisa 
 Oh, my gosh, I absolutely love that. All right, speaking of love, your book is great. And being that I've been in the health world and health media for 24 years. I know a lot of these things when it comes to people. And I hadn't really thought about it until recently, which seems crazy to me about our dogs and what we're feeding our dogs. So I want to jump in first how you talk about in the book that your researchers will originally rose from working to find a solution to your own food allergies and digestive issues and dermatitis talk to us a little bit about this and what you did. 

Jaron 
Yeah, cuz, you know, I was I was very deep in tech before, but I don't think that anyone who knew me in my 20s when I was on my Postmates diet would have ever three month burger bench when I was living in New York City, we'll leave it at that. But I don't think anyone who knew me back then would have ever thought I would be so into nutrition now. But like you said, it really came from me learning that I have I don't necessarily have skin issues. I have food allergies that appear as skin issues. symptomatically you know, I had the skin issues started to appear late in my teens, they consistently got worse in my 20s and to the point where you know, you're just leveling up and up with the medication. Like I started out with different topical steroids. I even had one of those stopped working I had one doctor actually shoot me up with steroids, which worked for six months and then my skin issues came back with a vengeance. Meanwhile, no doctor over about 15 years ever mentioned to me that hey, maybe you have food allergies and should get tested for that. So you know luckily I met some smart people who convinced me to do a food elimination diet and lo and behold, I realized that I don't have skin issues so much as I have food allergies. And if I don't eat certain foods, I don't have any skin issues at all. So that is what really got me onto this path of exploring nutrition. Getting really anytime I
5:00
Get into something, I also get very obsessed about it. So you know, now I'm 3000 clinical studies into this. And that has really guided not only my personal beliefs, but what we've been doing in terms of formulating dog food. Yum, woof. But you know, I think it's so important to get to the fundamental nutrition when dogs are having these different whether their gut health issues or skin issues. I mean, we literally see it every day, you know, starting with, if a dog is on dry kibble, like, just moving off of dry kibble has incredible, like magical benefits. Basically, we've seen lots of dogs, get off of APA Quill, different allergy medications like that, just by switching off of dry kibble. And even when they're off of it, and they're still having issues, just finding the right food, like continuing to, you know, keep playing with your dog's diet until you find the right thing. I mean, a lot of these issues really can go away. So but it really did come back to me. And just my experience with going through the traditional medical system, not ever once being recommended to look for maybe like more holistic type of remedies or solutions. And yeah, now, it's pretty easy to keep my skin healthy. I just don't eat nuts or seeds and eggs. For me. The hardest thing is giving up Mexican food, and especially my favorite types of Mexican food, which are like, well, Hakan malaise. Oh, yes, those are like, yeah, pretty much every ingredient I'm allergic to. 

Lisa 
Oh, God, I Miss Molly. Yeah, I don't do nuts, seeds sometimes. But yeah, there's always nuts. And then there's bread, I have all kinds of issues. So you know, one of the things about dry kibble is that it's so inflammatory, it's because they have no seed oils, which I'd love for you to expand on. And then it's at high heat cooking, and then it's an absolute disaster for your dogs and for our microbiome. So tell us a little bit about this. 

Jaron 
Yeah, it's one of those really unfortunate ingredients that we're finding in all sorts of food. And it's in most dog food, like I encourage anyone listening to just check your dog foods label and see if safflower oil, sunflower oil, canola oil is in there. And these seed oils are very high in Omega six, which makes them inflammatory. And that's not just a woowoo kind of thing. In Omega sixes actually turn on the production of inflammatory molecules in your body and your dog's body. So we are both biological creatures, we function in very much the same way. And when we eat too many seed oils, which we can, we can judge this by the ratio of omega sixes to omega threes.
7:51
Really, you want a one to one balance, you or your dog want that. Unfortunately, AF COEs requirements are a 30 to one requirement, meaning they they can put 30 times more omega sixes than omega threes into dog food. And the average dry kibble is going to be around 16 to one very far from one to one and 16 to one is also basically the same amount that you would get from eating at McDonald's every day. So we're feeding our dogs fast food essentially. And the way to rectify that is to I mean, the simplest way is really described in my book, it's feeding these Coco mega super fats, which is a combination of omega threes and coconut oil that produced these basically synergistic benefits that help reduce inflammation and improve gut health. And so you know, getting getting the Omega three balance, right? It's just super important. Right? Yeah. And that synergy is really key. 

Lisa 
And that's why the book is so good. You go into such great detail. You talk about signaling molecules and what role they play in inflammation. You talk about, you know, the fats even though it's very science based, it's it's very layperson, you can understand it. I mean, I have a background in this stuff. But I found it very easy to read, very easy to understand and really vital, I think, to get people to, you know, shift their paradigm because everyone's like, we're talking dog foods fine. We're talking about you're just some kind of woowoo weirdo and it's like, no, it's not really, it's really not, you know, read read Jaron's book, you'll find out.

Jaron 
Yeah, I tried to make the book interesting to read while at the same time leat really laying out the ground case for like, why why we need to feed our dogs, certain fats and not feed them others. And so I think it's going to be really informative to really any pet parent, because not I mean, we've only started to scratch the surface in this conversation, you know, like omega omega sixes, turning on the production of PG two and cytokines is one way that this definitely
10:00
happens. But even just starting in the microbiome, which comes even before all that happens, all the seed oils, and I lay out, you know, 162 clinical studies talking about this.
10:12
Eating seed oils actually does shape the microbiome and in a negative way. So fortunately, omega threes do the opposite. Fortunately, the MCT is and lauric acid that are in coconut oil also do the opposite, they have very beneficial, almost probiotic, like effects. And so that's one of the really cool things. When you look at microbiome research, the number one statistic to pay attention to, is microbiome diversity. That's, you know, basically, across all microbiome research, it's kind of the simplified metric that we always look to because it's aligned broadly across longevity, fewer diseases, lower cancer rates, lower obesity. So microbiome diversity is definitely something to strive for. And so we start to look at what different types of fats do in terms of either promoting it or not, I also touch on things like the raw diet, is that optimal for microbiome diversity? What can be gained from it? What what are the negative downsides, where you may want to go even outside of a raw diet? There, there are all these different elements that affect microbiome diversity, but you know, simply put, combining omega threes, coconut oil, and the right amounts of fiber, together all have these now science backed, kind of synergistic effects on each other, that just give your dog anti inflammatory boosts. So you know, if we want our dogs to live longer, this is, I believe, one way to do it effectively. 

Lisa 
Yeah, I was really impressed with all the studies in the book, I must have taken a lot of research.

Jaron 
 Oh, I'm so glad that I'm done writing this book, I'll tell you what, Lisa, it's so it, you know, it really was like, because you'll see one one study, and it will, it will maybe like, give you a direction to go. But you want to backup that study too. And make sure that this is actually like, not just a one off effect that happened, but actually backed by multiple studies. And so you find yourself on these deep dives, multi hour, I mean, we're talking like eight hours a day, I spent four months writing this book, and, you know, you find yourself on these deep dives of just like study after study after study. And I'm, I'm beyond the point of just going to the conclusion section of NIH studies and like, pulling out, okay, like, what are the main takeaways like, the place to go after that, if you really want to understand the effects that are happening, and whether you should believe a study is you need to look at how molecules are, are moving throughout the body. So that requires some level of understanding of biochemistry, which is something that you know, you you find yourself learning more and more about as you go deeper into these and, I mean, the microbiome is is definitely the forefront of all of this. It's also like, clearly one of the most important things in nutrition, and we know so little about it still. But what I do point to in the book is different classes of bacteria that are either grown or either grow or shrink based on whether you're feeding higher omega threes higher coconut oil, or in the opposite case, higher omega sixes, which, again, showed that they promote the growth of more negatively associated classes of bacteria in the microbiome. You know, you mentioned the raw food diet earlier, and you actually have some drawbacks.

Lisa
 Talk to us a little bit about these.

Jaron
 Yeah, and I, I love talking about the raw diet because the community around it is such a cult like following. I mean, the amount of Google searches the raw diet gets every month to it's just mind boggling. And you know, when when it's kind of like when I went on keto for a couple of years, you know, you it becomes religious for sure, Kito especially because if you go over those 20 carbs, then you're not in ketosis anymore. So it's like black and white. But with raw diet. One of the things I really love about it is, especially the focus on looking at millions of years of ancestral diet in dogs and by taking the common sense approach that maybe we should feed dogs what's biologically appropriate for
15:00
them based on like, what, what they just have eaten forever. And, and that's definitely really smart. And one of the takeaways I love about it too is really this movement away from synthetic vitamins and minerals, we're actually going to be launching a new dog food here in a couple of months called perfect feast. And that one is going to be all the benefits of raw diet, but air dried. So what I'm about to explain here is the, you know, just a pure raw Whoa. But the most important part of that is no synthetic vitamins and minerals. That's one of the great benefits of raw diet, it's this nose to tail feeding paradigm where you're getting all the nutrients from natural sources, that is going to show it's going to be correlated with just higher absorption of minerals, it's going to be healthier. However, when we feed pure raw that does come with, we'll call it one negative bacteria that are in the food. So like there is benefit to cooking food. That's probably the first place where I really would push back on on people who are huge fans of raw diet like, and I always say, humans also used to eat a raw diet, like we I mean not to get too graphic, but like, you know, we didn't cook our food always we killed it, we ate it. That was that and people got sick.
16:31
It also isn't the way to create the highest protein digestibility. And the food either like there, there are all these benefits to to cooking food. And so when we can cook at very low temperatures in a way that maintains the nutrients we're getting, we're still getting all those benefits. But we're also making the protein absorption higher, we're making the nutrient absorption higher. So cooking is good. Not the way they cook dry kibble, which is maybe another thing we can go on to later but because it oxidizes fats, and has all sorts of issues surrounding it. But cooking food in a very, you know, low temperature way is very beneficial. And on top of that, some people do incorporate things like coconut oil and fiber into a raw diet. But I find that many pet parents don't do that. And, and even worse, I'm like kind of not even going into this. But like some people think that just feeding a dog ground meat and like maybe a little bit of sweet potato and calling that a raw diet is like the sweet potato definitely isn't part of a raw diet, but but stuff like that, which is deficient in all sorts of nutrients like that, that's very dangerous. If we go a step beyond that, where we're just feeding like, you know, only animal meat, nose to tail. But we're not including things like fiber, we're not including fruits, we're not including maybe like even cartilage because we forgot to things like that.
18:06
That will not lead to microbiome, the maximum microbiome diversity. So if our goal here is to maximize that, because that being a biomarker that is so strongly correlated to longevity, there, we can go beyond the raw diet and have better effects. Right? 

Lisa 
Absolutely. And I love this in the book you write quote coke omega can help dogs achieve optimal healthy fats in their blood, improve their cellular health for longevity, improve their microbiome diversity and reduce inflammation, relieving the daily symptoms of inflammation, including allergies, digestive issues, and much more in the process. And that is huge. My dog blue and I won't go on and on. Everybody knows my pittie. He is always itchy. He has tons of allergies. One of the problem is even with the incredible ingredients in yam woof, he's allergic to almost everything. So he's on a visit right now I have him on Turkey and acorn squash with some kibble until I can get him you know, we're going to add more things in. But for Benji, he can eat anything. And he loves the food, but it makes me so sad. I can't give it to blue, but I'm hoping eventually when his gut is healed, that he can have it. 

Jaron 
Yeah. And it's interesting that when we see these dogs who have a lot of environmental allergies, a lot of times their microbiome like basically the intestines are also very much inflamed. And so you know you've got you know, we kind of start from like the ground up and you know, hopefully can can heal that there are very interesting I don't really go into this particular one so much in my book, but
19:49
there are many natural
19:53
ingredients that have been shown to actually heal the epithelial cell wall so you can kind of rebuild
20:00
Old that mucous layer and hopefully give the essentially the skin inside the microbiome a relief. But it's so it's always so challenging. But one thing we discussed in one of my favorite chapters is it was this chapter that I did in collaboration with Dr. Eva Frick, yes, it was great. Yeah, that's where we go a little bit more advance. And I really loved writing that chapter because we start to show the link between mineral balances in the body and how that plays into fats and microbiome health. And so, you know, and really, we tried to keep it as simple as possible, just focusing on the sodium potassium pathway, right. And, and one thing to kind of keep in mind is this is not sodium potassium in the blood, it's sodium potassium in the lymphatic system. So that comes kind of like you consume it, a bunch of things happen in the body, some of that might go in the lymphatic system, but there are many things that are controlling how much sodium and potassium are in that system, including stress, that that's one that I would tend to
21:17
not want to believe in. Like, when we talk about woowoo. That's getting to the deep part of it, like talking about how, like your thoughts and stress and your dog's thoughts and stress might actually impact their inflammation. It's like what no, like, Isn't it just a bunch of molecules in the body that, you know, okay, what's my let's look at what my dog is eating like, okay, so yes, that plays a big part of it. But there are two things that really affect this. One is the quality of food. So that's definitely there and to the quality of environment, and environment, really can be all linked to how much all dosterone is being released, because that is going to control how much sodium the kidneys are retaining what's aldosterone. For people who aren't familiar, this is a hormone that is released in this kind of interstitial fluid that we're talking about, where also the sodium and potassium lies, that all of it is. So like, hormones are super important.
22:30
I don't even think that we really appreciate how important they really are. Because I think we grow up in in America talking about like, you know, teenagers and their hormones, and then we kind of like play it off. And it's like, no, like hormones. Or if you have inflammation, or your dog has inflammation or any sort of gut health issue. I mean, hormones are like the messaging messaging signals that are controlling all that. So and that can be caused by food. It's if your dog is eating dry kibble It most certainly is.
23:06
But also, you know, if a dog is is chronically stressed, that that is going to promote more inflammation. And what we then further talk about in in that chapter, is how feeding cocoa mega super fat, cocoa, mega super fats actually does inhibit these inflammatory pathways. So like if your dog is chronically stressed, and you're feeding them a combination of omega threes and coconut oil, that can actually reduce the inflammatory effects that their stress is having. So you know, thereby, you know, kind of giving their body a little bit of a break, hopefully helping them live longer, despite all of those kind of hard to control things. 

Lisa 
Another thing I love about the book is you have starting the Koch omega, the five step plan for healing your dog. And in this, you're telling us what we can do step one, achieve the one to one protein to fat balance step to limit carbs to 25%, etc. And then you say the easiest way is obviously to get the yumwoof which I agree with, but it's not pushy, and you're giving so much information like you know, I read books where it seems like it's all just about pushing the product, which is not something I enjoy. This was like so much valuable information, and then people can make their own choice. Yeah, I appreciate that. I really, I was really focused on not making it a sales book. 

Jaron 
And so you know, we we obviously formulate our dog food with this in mind and want to make it easier for people but it's really just like one page in the book. You know, most most the book I wanted to kind of lay the groundwork for what I think can heal dogs in a more unique way. And there are people in the tech community

Lisa 
24:52
that this is just a dog lover pod cat podcaster problems. Yeah, that was Benji

YUMWOOF! SPOT 
25:00
Once you've had a wonderful dog a life without one is a life diminished. That's a quote by author Dean Koontz, and I couldn't agree more. I want my wonderful dogs to live as long as possible and what they eat plays a huge role in their health and longevity kibble is full of seed oils that wreak havoc on our dog's health. They damage their microbiome which affects digestion, oral health, their skin and coat and more. And that's why I feed my dog Benji yam with their air dried food is GMO free, and has an inflammation reducing recipe with Omega three and coconut oil. It's all the benefits of fresh food without the fridge carbs, filler seed oils and other inflammatory ingredients you see in other brands. Yum worth obsessively crafted a healthy low carb food with humanely raised USDA Meat aids and other non GMO super foods that my dog loves. Try the number one air dried dog food for gut health for 50% off a trial of yum with that's 50% off a trial of yum woof go to www dot yum woof.com. That's www yumwof.com You and your dog will be so glad you did.

DR. JUDY MORGAN SPOT 
26:17
Does your family include a dog or a cat? Would you like to be better educated on how to advocate for their health naturally, then why not check out all of the amazing resources on naturally healthy pets.com Dr. Judy Morgan is a trusted advisor and a regular guest here on the dog eared podcast. She has over 38 years experience as an integrative veterinarian, acupuncturist chiropractor, food therapist, author, speaker, podcast host and owner of Dr. Judy Morgan's naturally healthy pets. Dr. Judy's goal is to change the lives of pets by educating and empowering pet parents just like you in the use of natural healing therapies, and minimizing the use of chemicals, vaccinations, and poor quality processed foods. Head on over to naturally healthy pets.com where you'll discover healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, the naturally healthy pets podcast, informative blogs, upcoming events and so much more. Again, that's naturally healthy pets.com The place to learn how to give your pet the vibrant life that they deserve.

Lisa 
 I would love to jump into how you actually cook your food because I was reading the ingredients on the one that I got all real things in this incredible and you also mentioned the term freeze dried was that freeze dried what you sent me or I couldn't really dried air dried. Okay, let's talk a little bit about your food and what's in it. How do you make it and all that good stuff? 

Jaron 
Yeah, well, yum, woof. All of our ingredients are non GMO to start. That's a very important thing to me. And so we take these natural ingredients. We're we're very strict with our never list as well. So we I think more importantly that than what we do include in our recipes is what we don't include. So we don't use things like peas, legumes, rice, potato a lot of what I would consider to be filler ingredients. We really look towards more anti inflammatory ingredients overall. And with perfect kibble, you know, it all starts with fresh meat, fresh ingredients, coconut oil, you know, a lot of the things that you would, I guess just hope to see in a more limited ingredient dog food. You know, perfect kibble, despite the name is an air dried dog food. It's not a dry kibble. And I think it does, you know, make sense to real quick talk about how dry kibble is made, because it's me that's made through a process called Hot extrusion, which basically they jam a bunch of goo, usually made of pretty bad ingredients start with through this grinding machine at high heat and high temperature and people a lot of times talk about how hot extrusion degrades the nutrients, but what they don't realize oftentimes is that it also oxidizes the fats. So when we're feeding our dog oxidized fats, which are free radicals, these are unbonded electrons that need to pair with another one. So when our dog is eating dry kibble it's actually stealing those those free radicals or stealing electrons from cells in our dog's body. And this is what over time leads to cancer disease, all sorts of issues, metabolic health issues that you know, we see in dogs and growing numbers. So when you're thinking about


30:00
Uh, you know, what is the best way to kind of maximize nutrients my dog and keep an anti inflammatory? I think air drying is the best way to do it. You know, definitely dehydrated food, freeze dried food, fresh foods, they all are, you know, going to be way better than dry kibble by like a million miles. And so you know, I would say that then you can look at what do these different cooking methods do to the nutrients and dehydrating is of all of those options going to get rid of the most nutrients, it's still going to be very high.
30:40
But you're going to lose more nutrients, vitamins and minerals than you would in say, air dried food, freeze dried, you're also losing more vitamins and minerals than air trying fresh food really depends on I mean fresh food is great, I'm really not going to talk bad about that other than most of the fresh food brands. If you really dig into it, first, just try calculating the carbohydrate content, try finding that data,
31:09
you're probably going to have a hard time. So most of these brands have 40 to 50% carb content. And so it really pains me to see how many you know rice and potato fillers are in these fresh food. And water can also be a filler when you're looking at it by weight. And so the CEO of one of the fresh food brands told me that so you know, I every every food has its pros and con. We also did launch another product called perfect dog food mix. So perfect kibble, or air dried food number one seller. It's like kind of a lot a great variety of these cocoa, mega super fats and things like flaxseed and blueberries and just like healthy stuff all at you know, 16% net carbs. So also very low carb, I feel like it's a great, it's the great combination of cocoa Omega ingredient diversity and really just like something that's you know, or what you would feed your dog, what you would hope to see in their bowl and but then we also created because I started getting into fresh food for myself, and of course wanted to start feeding my dog more fresh food. So that's when I created perfect dog food mix. And that's like a Betty Crocker mix for dogs where you just combine eight pounds of pretty much any ground meat, and you combine it with one bag of the mix, put in the oven for an hour and a half at low heat and outcomes a apko complete and balanced meal. So it's a really easy way to meal prep for your dog. But the thing about it is that if you were to try to if we were trying to go into try to sell this is just like a fully delivered fresh food like farmer's dog, we would need to charge twice the amount as farmer's dog costs. And so it would be so incredibly expensive. And so what I wanted to do is offer people a better nutritionally better product for way less and so when when you make food this way at home, easy meal, prepping, like honestly, you can do it in 30 minutes a month. When you do it this way, you're also saving 35% 40% versus these fresh food brands. And so I think it's the best of all worlds because you're still getting this great, yeah, you're getting this low carb dog food, you're getting the CoCo mega super fats. And they're, it's pretty much like everything you would want in your dog's bowl without all the high carb fillers like rice, potato peas, legumes that all these fresh food brands use that are inflammatory, and definitely not part of a dog's biological diet. And so we kind of get rid of all that offered at a better price. And then yeah, like I was mentioning before, we're about to launch perfect feast that I'm very, very excited about because it's me taking you know, my my, you know, years of experience here running yum woof with our different products and me continuing to learn and creating the next generation of dog food for what I want now. And so, you know, when you look at this, the first really cool thing about it is it's all hypoallergenic meats. So it'll night Yeah, well, no, no chicken, no beef. We'll keep having those with perfect kibble.
34:31
But with these we're going to have a fish recipe, which will actually be hydrolyzed fish. Well yeah, we'll have a turkey and nose to tail turkey. So that fish is whole fish and I'll get to why that's important in a second. Sure. All wildcard, of course, the nose to tail Turkey and then we'll also have what I call meat lovers, which is a variety of hypoallergenic meats together. That won't be a little cheaper than the other two.
34:57
This whole product is going to be 35%
35:00
less, like cost 35% less than perfect kibble. So right off the bat, I'm very excited just to be able to provide more value at a better price, it's like really hard to do that in today's economy. And so, you know, it was a big goal of mine. And so I think we're going to be able to kind of serve a wider market with this product. But in addition to that, there's really been this big movement away from synthetic vitamins and minerals since we launched the company. And so this is our first product that's going to have no synthetic vitamins and minerals.
35:35
Still be low carb is going to be very limited ingredient, but that the,
35:41
the way that we are now getting the right amounts of of minerals here is through using this more like raw diet kind of philosophy of nose to tail feeding. So when you look at the ingredients, we're using a whole fish, like, not only is that super high in omega threes, and every recipe we're doing here is going to be very high in DHA, which is a type of Omega three.
36:07
Not just that, but it's also including all those organs. And so when we include like all the organs, especially in in in smaller, wild caught fish, you know, we're including the bones, we're including the cartilage. All of these things are like for instance, if if someone currently feeds their dog, you know who if you're listening right now, and you feed your dog, a Glucosamine supplement for joint health, just understand that, like, you know, glucosamine is is a main molecule found in cartilage in the joints. So a better way instead of feeding, like some sort of synthesized powder might just be to like, you know, feed our dog natural ingredients that naturally have that. So when you look at the turkey recipe, and that one we have like turkey neck, Turkey, gizzard, Turkey heart, or, you know, Turkey liver, every, you know, almost all Turkey organs,
37:04
as well as Turkey cartilage, and so very exciting, because it really just gets back to this like nose to tail, you know, you when we start to obtain minerals from these natural sources, they tend to be like five times higher, more highly digested than when they come from synthetic sources. So yeah, I mean, I could talk on and on about that, but very excited about this new product. 

Lisa 

Well, I just want to interject because you know, one of the main issues we have with Benji, he's nine our lab is he has really bad arthritis. And I've tried glucosamine supplements, I haven't seen a difference. But I don't want to say that across the board. I know some people really have. And he's done aquatic therapy and laser therapy, and those have helped. But I need a food for him that is going to address those joints. And that's why I'm so excited about yours. 

Jaron 
Yeah, the wild caught fish recipe should be a very interesting one to start.
38:03
That's when I'm going to start recommending to people whose dogs have joint issues. And it's just cool. I mean, I since writing this book, I personally have started eating way more fish, like I'm eating fish twice a week on days, I'm not eating it. I'm supplementing with cod liver oil. Personally, you can do fish oil, or cod liver oil.
38:26
I would say that, you know it cod liver oil is more expensive. But it has a lot of benefits that most Vishal don't have. They all have DHA, which is the most important type of Omega three.
38:40
So, you know, for I would say that I, as I wrote the book just became so highly convinced that this Coco mega effect really works that, you know, I've even started including it in my own diet. And when we think about, you know, our dogs, you know, I talk I talk about there are a bunch of tables in the book that show just like how many teaspoons to feed your dog a day, tried to make it really easy for people. But really, I just tried to look at what were the feeding levels. In all the studies I looked at,
39:13
you know, what were the averages, they it tended to be actually pretty similar across all the studies and and
39:21
in all of these studies, it was shown to be effective in reducing inflammation, increasing microbiome diversity, which to me are the two most important things that like I really tried to do for my dog. And in myself, because you know, when we microbiome diversity, we've already discussed that it's really just tied to longevity. And when we try to reduce inflammation, it means that we don't have all of these essentially like attacks on all of our cells in our body or our dog's body and so the more that we can incorporate these healthy fats
39:57
and then just like try to really get rid of the Cetyl
40:00
Whales, the more that we can do all of that together. I mean, it has amazing benefits on on biological creatures, dogs and humans. This might sound dopey, but I don't know what air dried means. I mean, I just picture all this food just sitting outside drying.

Lisa 
40:17
Can you get into the details of what that means, and it doesn't look like kibble, by the way. It's like rectangular chunks of food. It's really amazing. Yeah, it's so soft and chewy, like doesn't need to be refrigerated. So it's all the benefits of fresh food, but no refrigerator, like you can literally reach your hand into a bag, put it in your dog's bowl, and you're done. It's so convenient.

Jaron 
40:40
So, you know, air drying generally means that it's been cooked at 170 degrees or less. And you there are different levels of of cooking temperatures, you know, you you definitely want to cook it at 170 degrees for like, at least 30 minutes in order to get rid of yeast, mold, bacteria,
41:04
pathogens, these are not things that are good for dogs. And so the air drying process is a great balance to both kill the pathogens, but also I maintain as many of the nutrients as possible. So it's very cool. And when you when you it is different from like, freeze drying, that process does degrade even more of the nutrients than air drying. Like I said, dehydrating dehydrating is the most degrading, and also the least eco friendly because it takes so long to dehydrate food.
41:42
So, yeah, it's it's, um, it's definitely the most air drying is the most expensive way to cook food. But I think it's worth it just from an overall nutrition and convenience standpoint. Well, I have to say you have a beautiful website, I went through it thoroughly before our interview. It's just great and have such great information on here. You also have something and get 50% off trial. Tell us about that. Yeah, well, we wanted to make it really easy for people like we know, a lot of picky eaters out there also, you know, you just kind of want to try a food before spending money on it. And so with our 50% trial, you know, we're giving people seven days of food for 50% off. And you know, just a really easy way to try our food, see it for yourself another another really cool thing that we just added on our website is I'm calling it our Eco pup sustainability mission. And we have just announced some really awesome steps towards sustainability. The first one is we are now planting a tree with every order. So I yeah, I care. So I'm actually getting really into the regenerative farming space. That's not something that's currently in our food, I would like it to be someday. That space is still pretty early stage. But
43:12
I mean, the mono crop agriculture that we have today just isn't working, all of our soils being depleted, and it's a problem. So, you know, with our Eco pump mission, we are now planting a tree with every order to try to help overcome that. We are also we also have zero net carbon shipping. So that's really amazing because it means that when you order from us, you know that we're offsetting all of the carbon emissions that are involved with getting the food to your door. And then after that we last year late last year announced that we have switched perfect kibble and perfect dog food next both to biodegradable packaging. So nice. Yeah, this is a brand new packaging that exists. I've been trying to find it for the last three years and someone finally invented it. And so we're basically the first dog food brand to offer biodegradable packaging and it's really cool because you can just put it in the trash and it will disintegrate into soil within five to seven years and so yeah, it's a very very cool way that you know if you're if you're feeding your dog young Wolf, you can also know that you're you know, kind of helping the planet at the same time. 

Lisa 
Oh, that's great. Now you also have perfect probiotics perfect digestion and perfect immunity. Is a food enough for most dogs. Are these just extra or does everybody need these? How would you describe these? 

Jaron 
Yeah, we I would say that. It's it's never going to hurt. And we base it. So when you go through our personalization quiz that will get certain info, whether your dog has health issues and also their breed. And so we
45:00
We customize our recommendation based on those factors. So if your dog doesn't have any health issues, then we're looking at their breed and saying what types of health issues is this breed most likely to encounter later in life. And, and we incorporate that. So, basically, I always recommend it. You know, I think that for puppies, definitely feeding probiotics over their first 18 months is pretty important, because that's when they have their greatest effectiveness. Your dog's microbiome is set mostly over their first year and a half of of their life. And so the, there are a couple of things we can do there, one, feed them probiotics, but to the most important and impactful thing we can do is feed them Coco mega super fats. So, you know, like we were talking about before, it has a probiotic like effect without actually putting probiotics into their system. So it's very, it's very cool stuff. But the most important thing is that when we do this earlier in life, it's going to have benefits anytime in life. But when we do it early in life, then we really set our dog's microbiome up for longevity, if we're trying to do as much as we possibly can. Absolutely, yeah. And and, you know, I think that there are for dogs later in life who are currently experiencing allergies, like that's what we created perfect immunity for perfect digestion is for dogs who have different gut health issues. Also pancreatitis, so yeah. So, whenever we are recommending a dog food for pancreatitis, we always want them to include perfect digestion for its digestive enzyme blend. You know, people can schedule a call on our website with me to kind of like, discuss that more in depth, but that's something that I'm not seeing, very many vets recommend. And it to me, it's a complete no brainer. You know, for any dog who has pancreatitis, like they should definitely be having a digestive enzyme blend. 

Lisa 
Oh, yeah. And then you've also got the perfect salmon oil as well. 

Jaron 
Yeah, and that's getting to the base of it all, isn't it? 

Lisa 
Yeah. 

Jaron 
When we talk about in my book, you know, basically, the feeding guidelines would be like, perfect, and kibble and perfect salmon oil are perfect salmon oil is a wild Alaskan Salmon Oil, we're actually doubling the bottle size, so it's going to be an even better value. Great. Yeah. And, you know, it's all wild caught fish cold pressed, you know, sustainably sourced and it's a really amazing, it's like dogs literally love it. It's really great for picky eaters, too. But the most important thing is that it's super high and DHA, salmon oil is arguably the best source of DHA.
47:59
Salmon is just like really, really great overall. And the DHA there, there are different types of omega threes that I talk about in my book, and they all have their different benefits for microbiome diversity. So like for instance, the the Omega threes that are obtained through flaxseed, for instance, are extremely beneficial. But that's the ALA type of omega threes, and so that that's really good for microbiome diversity, but isn't necessarily going to give the same benefits. And this can broadly be said for pretty much all plant based, I'm excluding algae, but all plant based omega threes are typically going to be higher in ALA and you really want to make sure your dog's getting enough DHA. So that primarily is going to come from fish sources. So that's that's why we launched you know, perfect salmon oil it's like basically our way of just creating the highest quality version of it out there. And I want to add that there is people should have cause for concern in where their salmon oil is sourced. And we just did a deep dive in all of our sourcing on on that product in particular we deep dive like all of our products we go like figure out who is supplying every single ingredient in our food
49:25
but on the salmon oil this is going to be something where we're going to see
49:31
word on the streets as the we're gonna see a very major brand have a lawsuit filed against them because of the
49:40
their salmon oil not being 100% Salmon Oil, and oh wow. Yeah. And so we just did a big deep dive into our sourcing confirming that our our product is coming from Alaska wild cod fish and it's 100% Salmon.

Lisa 
 Oh, that's fantastic. And speaking of
50:00
fantastic your book The canine Coco mega such a fun word to say. The canine Coco mega effect a breakthrough to healing your dog's gut with super fats is phenomenal. I mean, I've read hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of health books, and it's really great. And I really commend you on all the hard work that you did. And I'm so glad you came on. Was there anything you wanted to add today, Jaron? Just that, you know, for anyone who's listening. One follow me on instagram Jaron Lucas Lucas with a K. Jaron spelled the way it normally is. That's a joke. But hopefully it's that easy to find on this podcast somewhere. So yeah, Follow Follow me on Instagram. And also Lisa has very very good skin. So you know if you're I would definitely continue taking health advice from her is all I'm saying. So
50:54
I did do a clay and avocado mask before the show. So I'm gonna have to get some tips after this from you. Well, Jaron this has been fantastic. And Benji is a yumwoof! dog now and we're very pleased and I'm hoping eventually Blue will be too. if you want to develop. Let's see what can blue have turkey and acorn squash? Cauliflower. I know you said you don't like peas, but that was one of the foods you can have. So and then there was like three others. That's it. Oh my gosh, my poor baby. Anyway, everyone keep coming back to dog eared and check out yum woof. It's yum woof.com. That's right, yum wolf.com.

Jaron 
 And our team is here to help if you have any specific health questions for your dog. So thanks again. Lisa is such a pleasure chatting with you.

Jaron
 Yeah, it was super fun everybody check me out. Check out my dogs my present good boys and my passive voice on Tik Tok instagram and twitter app today was sent to me to be sure to check out health power. Thanks so much.