Are You Getting What You Think You're Buying?

Read a bag of a well-advertised brand of pet food and it makes you want to serve it for the family dinner: "Choice cuts of beef, plump whole chickens, fresh liver and grains, and all the wholesome nutrition your dog or cat will ever need."

These images are promoted with big advertising dollars by the $11 billion per year U.S. pet food industry:

Nestle makes Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston Purina.

Heinz makes 9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits, and ... surprise! .... Nature's Recipe.

Colgate-Palmolive makes Science Diet.

Procter & Gamble, one of the major companies attacked for their repetitive animal testing, makes Eukanuba and Iams.

Mars makes Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba and Waltham's.

Price can be an indicator of quality.
It's impossible to sell a 40# bag of dog food for $11.95
when quality protein and grain would cost more than that
not even considering profit margins.

From a business standpoint, these companies have increased purchasing power, and for those making people food products, they have a captive market in which to dump their waste products. The pet food divisions have a more stable capital base and a convenient source of waste products that become ingredients in pet food.

These pet foods provide a market for grains considered unfit for human consumption and bones, blood, intestines, lungs, ligaments, and almost all the other parts not generally consumed by humans. These other parts are known as "by-products" or "meat-and-bone-meal" or similar names on pet food labels.

The term "meal" means the materials used are not fresh, but have been rendered. Rendering (defined by Webster's Dictionary) is "to process as for industrial use: to render livestock carcasses and to extract oil from fat, blubber, etc. by melting." Meat and poultry by-products, while not rendered, vary widely in composition and quality.

Have you noticed that pungent smell when you first
open a bag of pet food?

It's the fat in the food. It is most often rendered animal fat or restaurant grease. Restaurant grease is now a major component of feed grade animal fat. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon drums, may be kept outside for weeks, exposed to extreme temperatures with no regard for its future use. Rendering companies pick up this grease and mix it all together, stabilize these fats with powerful antioxidants to retard further spoilage, and then sell the blended product to pet food companies and other end users (one of which is to make lipstick --- but that's another story :-)

The pet food industry sprays this fat onto extruded kibbles to make a bland or distasteful product palatable to the animal. The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add other flavor enhancers. Pet food scientists have discovered that animals love the taste of these sprayed fats. Pet manufacturers are masters at getting a dogs and cats to eat something they would normally be repelled by.

The amount of grains used in pet food has risen
as protein has decreased.

Once a filler for pet foods, cereal and grain products now replace a considerable percentage of the meat that was used in initial pet foods. The digestibility of the grain determines the availability of nutrients to the pet. Rice is handled well, but the availability of nutrients from wheat, beans, and oats is poor. Some ingredients are used for fiber or filler, such as peanut hulls, and have no significant nutritional value at all.

The top three ingredients are what the formula mostly contains and are listed in the order of largest amount first and so on. Cats are true carnivores and need meat to fulfill nutritional requirements, so why are so many grains included in cat pet foods? Because it's cheaper than meat.

View a comparison chart
showing the top three ingredients in some common dog foods.

Soy is also a common ingredient used as a protein source and to add bulk so the animal will feel fuller. Vegetarian dog foods use soy as the main protein source. Although it's been linked to gas in some dogs, others do well on it.

Additives and preservatives are a slow danger zone in pet foods. Chemicals are added to improve appearance, taste, or stability of the food. The list of reasons for additives includes 27 uses in pet foods. Preservatives have always been used to maintain the safety of food, but it's only been during the last 50 years that they've been toxic rather than plant-based. Preservatives are necessary to keep a commercial pet food safe and fresh. Some pet food manufacturers are now using "natural" preservatives such as Vitamin C and E, rosemary, cloves, and other spices to preserve the fat in their pet foods.

Potentially cancer-causing synthetic preservatives include butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), propyl gallate, propylene glycol, and ethoxyquin. There is not much documentation on the safety of these especially when being fed on a daily basis to an animal. In July 1997, the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine requested manufacturers to voluntarily reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by half from 150 parts per million.

While some pet food critics and veterinarians believe that ethoxyquin is a major cause of disease and skin problems in dogs, others claim it is the safest, strongest, most stable preservative available for pet food.

What does "extruded kibbles" mean?

Most dry food is made with a machine called an extruder. Ingredients of a recipe are blended and then fed into the extruder where steam, pressure and high temperatures force the food through various shaped dies to determine the shape and they come through puffed like popcorn to produce more volume. The food is dried and then sprayed with the fat process mentioned above. Although the heating process is designed to kill bacteria in the food, it can lose it's sterility during the drying, fat spraying, or packaging process.

A few foods are oven-baked rather than extruded, such as Flint River Ranch. This produces a dense, crunchy kibble that tastes good without the fatty flavor enhancers. Animals need about 25% less of a baked food than an extruded food.

What does feeding of these products do to your companion animal?

The problems associated with diet of these dead foods are continually seen every day at veterinary offices. The list begins with chronic vomiting, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease being among the most frequent illnesses treated, more often the result of an allergy/intolerance to the pet food ingredients.

Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. The cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers do not necessarily destroy the hormones used to fatten livestock or increase milk production, nor does it destroy drug residues such as antibiotics or the barbiturates used to euthanize animals. It has been in some news articles that euthanized cats and dogs may be one of the rendered ingredients for pet foods.

Urinary tract disease is directly related to diet in cats and dogs. Crystals and stones are often triggered or aggravated by commercial pet foods.

Pet foods with less protein have less taurine, an amino acid, and if it is not supplemented, problems do occur. An often-fatal heart disease in cats and some dogs is caused by a deficiency of taurine. Blindness is another symptom.

Inadequate potassium in some feline diets has caused kidney failure in young cats; potassium is now added in greater amounts to all cat foods.

Rapid growth in large breed puppies has been shown to contribute to bone and joint disease. Excess calories and calcium in some manufactured puppy foods promoted rapid growth. There are now special puppy foods for large breed dogs. But this recent change will not help the countless dogs who lived and died with hip and elbow disease.

There is evidence that the now common hyperthyroidism in cats may be from excess iodine in commercial pet food diets. This disease began making its appearance in the 1970s when canned food products appeared on the market.

Other problems may result from reactions to additives or bacteria, drug, or mold contamination.

The bottom line is that pet foods made of primarily
low quality cereals and rendered meat are NOT
the nutrition you need for your dog or cat.

In 1995, Nature's Recipe lost $20 million having to pull thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained their dogs were vomiting and losing appetites. There was a fungus that produced vomitoxin contaminating the wheat. In 1999, another fungus caused the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care who manufacturers for 54 brands including Ol' Roy (sold by Wal-Mart). The toxin killed 25 dogs.

Some recommendations say to feed once daily. Feeding only one meal per day can cause irritation of the esophagus by stomach acid backing up. Feeding two smaller meals is better. Feeding instructions on the package are sometimes inflated so the consumer will purchase more food.

Procter & Gamble took the opposite approach with Iams and Eukanuba lines by reducing the feeding amounts in order to claim its foods were less expensive to feed. Independent studies commissioned by a competing manufacturer suggested these reduced levels were inadequate to maintain health. Procter & Gamble has since sued and been countersued by that competing manufacturer and a consumer also filed seeking class-action status for harm caused to dogs by these feeding instructions.

The idea of one pet food providing all the nutrition a companion animal will ever need for its entire life is a myth. The diets of cats and dogs are a far cry from the primarily protein diets that their ancestors ate with much variety. Some pet owners are preparing their own meals and some of those diets are raw meat diets

Homemade meals take a lot of dedication. Many people don't feel like they know enough to prepare a completely balanced meal that meets the required needs for a dog or cat. A very detailed and excellent book to invest in if you can be dedicated enough to prepare foods at home is Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative by Donald R. Strombeck

Considering vegetarian diets for your pets?
For your dog? - Be sure you follow the guidelines
For cats? - Don't do it! They won't survive

Most pet owners simply want to find a pet food that is nutritious and complete without long-term use health issues. Deciding on what brand to use has hopefully been made easier having read this article. Adding raw veggies to your pet's food bowl is an excellent dietary choice. Just as with people, vegetables have so many good nutrients and antioxidants and health-giving substances we haven't even discovered yet. They provide a mineral-rich food alive with enzymes.

Begin slowly so they can adjust to the flavor. Grated vegetables do best. It doesn't take but a few weeks for the animal to adjust to the dietary change. You will also notice a change in the skin and coat and sometimes the eyes look brighter. Generally when we begin adding veggies to our pet's food bowl, we add them to our own plate as well.

If you're not going to add vegetables, be sure your
pet food has vegetables in it.

Vegetable choices to add can include these and others: carrots, broccoli, cabbage, sweet potatoes (yams), greens (kale, lettuce, turnip), seaweeds like kelp and nori, a little bit of garlic is known to help repel fleas .... and don't forget fruits: apple, pears, kiwi, strawberries. One to avoid is citrus since it's not appealing to dogs or cats.

Adding herbs and supplements to a pet's diet helps to build and maintain health, especially if you know there is a genetic weakness with a particular breed. Herbs are rich in trace minerals which are the foundation of life.

Since many minerals are no longer in the soils of mass-produced & chemical-laden farming, it's hard to get them into your diet without supplementation.

Essential fatty acids is an important item that is missing in pet foods and can easily be added in with a little bit of natural oils (such as olive, sunflower, sesame, etc.) You will be amazed at how much their coat can shine and how soft it can be! Essential fatty acids are important for many functions of the body.

Think about what you feed your pet and research the topic. It will not only educate you, but will save you and your pet much heartache down the road. We have had cats since 1977 and they have lived to 18 and 20 years old without the need for vet bills and the agonies of all the now common health problems.

The kind of food you feed your pets is going to determine your pet's health problems more than anything else other than abuse. Bodies run on nutrients and whether we have them in a form that can be assimilated to the cellular level. We are what we eat, and animals are not healthy on diseased and decayed meat and dead grains.

We personally use two natural pet food brands, both providing hormone and antibiotic-free meats as the first ingredient. As much as I'd like to be able to be faithful making a home-made food, I've tried, and just can't do it.

Our pets love these choices:

Flint River Ranch is an excellent quality and is oven-baked. Flint River Ranch offers quite a variety of choices.

Life's Abundance natural food and supplements are formulated by Dr. Jane Bicks. If your dog has a few extra pounds, we recommend Life’s Abundance Weight-Loss Formula.

We've saved lots of money using natural whole-food formulas for our pets. They stay healthy, don't need visits with the vet, and their skin, coat and eyes shine. I think they smile bigger too with nutrition-filled food in their tummies.

It truly makes a difference! Please give your pet the best - it does save money!

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