After researching the issue of pet nutrition, I have come to the following conclusions about the pet food industry. They consider our pets to be so insignificant that they produce pet foods that contain inferior ingredients which provide only the absolute minimum in nutritional requirements, and then they market it as a healthy, 100% complete and balanced food. The public wholeheartedly believes that commercial pet foods are the best thing to feed their pets and that they provide all the nutrition our pets need. The pet food industry has duped us all.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about commercial pet foods, it is that practically none of them are fit to feed to my dogs. The pet food industry is based on using leftover remnants of products NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. It is no coincidence that the big pet food companies are spin-offs of people food companies. Unless a dog food specifically states it uses human food grade ingredients, then it probably does not. Slaughterhouses are in the business of slaughtering cattle and packaging the beef to sell to our local grocery stores. Once all the normal cuts of beef have been packaged for human consumption, the remains, such as intestines and ligaments, are then sold to the pet food industry. By law, cows that keel over and die on the farm from illness, disease or unknown reasons, cannot be sold for human consumption, so they are sold to the pet food industry. Cows who have such high levels of hormones or antibiotics in their system at the time of slaughter that they cannot by law be sold for human consumption, are, of course, sold to the pet food industry. If a slaughterhouse discovers a cow’s liver is full of worms or its body is cancer-ridden, guess what? They sell it to the pet food industry. Same goes for pork. Same goes for poultry.
There are about 250 rendering plants in the U.S. whose job it is to take in dead animals, throw them in a big pot (hair, feathers, collars and all), cook them at around 265 deg. for 20 minutes, and then sell the gook to the pet food industry. These animals can be comprised of road kill, circus animals, euthanized dogs and cats, and farm animals who died of disease or were too sick to be used for human food. Supposedly, the 20 min. of cooking destroys any harmful bacteria (and probably any nutrition assuming there was some to begin with). The fat from this concoction rises to the top where it is skimmed off and this is the “animal fat” in your pet’s food. The water is then removed from the rest of the gook and what is left is "meat meal."
If the pet food label uses words like "animal" or "meat," be warned that this COULD be anything with four legs from rats to horses to elephants. “Poultry” CAN be anything with wings from buzzards to bats. Also avoid words like “liver” unless it specifies whose liver it belonged to. Some companies use a general ingredient such as “poultry” not because they use parakeets, but because they vary their source of poultry between turkey, chicken, duck, etc. Still, if the label says “poultry,” this gives them the opportunity to use anything with wings, and I personally avoid it.
Ever wonder why grains are listed in such a funny way on pet food labels, such as: “rice bran, rice flour, rice gluten meal, brewer’s rice, rice germ . . .” Why don’t they just say RICE? Because they are not giving you a whole grain of rice. They are giving you bits and pieces of the rice kernel, probably leftovers remaining after making human food. And besides, if they combined all those rice parts, you’d probably end up with a lot more rice than meat and then they’d have to list the first ingredient as rice, instead of meat. The only reason some companies WOULD include the whole grain is if none of it was fit to be eaten in the first place. Maybe it was moldy, contaminated or contained high pesticide levels.
BHA, BHT and Ethoxyquin are frequently added to pet foods as preservatives. In high enough amounts, these preservatives are known cancer-causing carcinogens, toxins and/or pesticides which are banned in many countries from human use, and classified as pesticides here in the U.S. Ethoxyquin was developed for use in making Goodyear tires. Who decided a product used to keep tire rubber from oxidizing would make a great dog food ingredient?? In addition, some pet food companies needlessly add harmful artificial colorings like Red No. 40 to make the food look like meat instead of grey muck, or they add artificial flavorings to make the food palatable enough that our dogs will eat it.
To prove my point, I just pulled up an ingredient list for Cycle Adult Dry dog food from their website. Let’s review.
Dry Formula Ingredients: Corn, chicken by-product meal, feeding oat meal, soybean meal, animal fat (BHA used as a preservative), brewers rice, animal digest, calcium carbonate, bone phosphate, salt, condensed grain fermentation solubles, potassium chloride, choline chloride, minerals (ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite), DL-meythionine, L-threonine, vitamins (vitamin E supplement, niacin, D-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamin mononitrate, vitamin A supplement, folic acid, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement, vitamin D3 supplement), BHA (preservative), citric acid (preservative).
Corn: It is the first and main ingredient. Dogs are carnivores - they need MEAT, not grains. (Cats are more carnivorous than dogs and require even more meat than dogs.)
Chicken By-Product Meal: By-products are the parts of animals left over after packaging them for sale to humans. By-products can include heads, feet, intestines, undeveloped eggs, etc. The water is then removed so you are left with a dry meal.
Feeding Oat Meal: Remnants remaining after processing oats for human consumption. It is missing the nutritional value of whole oats as some important parts are missing.
Brewer’s Rice: Small, milled fragments of rice kernels that have been separated from the larger kernels of milled rice. It is a lower quality rice product that is missing many of its nutrients. I've also heard this referred to as "mill sweepings" which literally means bits and pieces of rice that are swept up off the floor of the mill.
Condensed Grain Fermentation Solubles: What? Apparently this is what is left over after making beer and other grain beverages. Technically, it is the “dried material resulting from drying the water soluble materials after separation of suspended solids from grain fermentation.” (I imagine this is like the dried sticky spot on your kitchen counter where you earlier spilled some liquid from your bowl of oatmeal.) It is an inexpensive by-product of human food and beverage production which adds little or no nutritional value to pet foods.
Soybean Meal: The product obtained by grinding the flakes which remain after removal of most of the oil from soybeans by a solvent or mechanical extraction process. It is a poor quality protein filler.
Animal Fat: We talked about this already – this is the fat that rises to the top of the pot at rendering plants after boiling any and all kinds of 4-legged creatures. The origin of the contributing animals is never known, and the resulting oil is very low in linoleic acid -- an essential fatty acid that is important for skin and coat health.
Animal Digest: A cooked-down broth made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. Any kind of animal can be included from elephants to raccoons. The animals can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination.
BHA: Here it is again. A chemical preservative banned from human use in many countries and classified as a pesticide. So why would I want to feed this to my pets?
Salt: Wow. A recognizable ingredient. No “salt by-product meal” or “feeding salt,” but the actual whole grain of salt.
VITAMINS AND MINERALS: The rest of the ingredients are vitamins and minerals which have been added back into the food since cooking food at high temperatures destroys the vitamins and minerals.
So, basically, corn and salt are the only whole ingredients in this dog food. Keep in mind that the corn is probably not fit to eat, and the salt has been added to make the food taste palatable so that the dogs will eat it.
I have changed my pets' diet many times in my quest to feed them an appropriate diet they will thrive on. I've fed high quality commercial dog foods, home cooked meals and raw meat/bone/veggie meals. In the commercial dog food department, my favorites are Wellness and Innova both of which use human grade ingredients along with fruits and vegetables, and Canidae which also uses all human grade ingredients. Noah’s Kingdom Dry Mix food is a mix of organic grains, dehydrated veggies and herbs to which you add your own meat (cooked or raw) and oils for a fresh, warm meal. Sojourner Farms also offers a similar product. To provide fresher foods, you can always cook your pets' food. I have used the recipes contained in Dr. Pitcairn's book referenced below and can attest to the fact that the dogs loved them all. There are some frozen and/or freeze-dried foods available that are excellent (if you can afford them) such as FarMore and Steve's Real Food for Dogs (or Cats).
The BARF Diet ("Bones and Raw Food" or "Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods") is a somewhat controversial diet based on the principle that animals need to be fed what they have eaten for thousands of years; not what pet food companies, out to make a profit, decided only recently that they should eat. Commercial pet foods have only been available in the U.S. for about 60 years, and a much shorter time in other countries. We see much higher incidences of cancer and illness in our pets now; probably due to nutrition as well as pollution and toxins now present in our environment. In the wild, carnivores eat prey animals. They don't cook their meals, and they don't graze on grains or grasses. The only grains or vegetable matter they eat is the partially digested contents of their prey's stomach. They eat the bones, the organs, and most every other part of the animal except for its hide or fur. The "BARF" diet and the "Ultimate Diet" tries to recreate the prey animal by feeding raw chicken necks, backs, and wings (bone, skin, and meat). The bones are small and flexible as long as they are eaten raw. Cooked bones will splinter and should never be fed to dogs. In addition to the raw chicken bones, they receive other types of raw meat and organs mixed with freshly pulped vegetables and various supplements. Since the food is fed raw, it retains the natural vitamins and minerals our pets need to thrive. Dogs can survive on anything, but will they be healthy? Will they thrive? Below, I have referenced two books I used to guide me in feeding these species appropriate raw diets - "Give Your Dog a Bone" and "Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats-The Ultimate Diet."
If you are still feeding a lower quality commercial dog food (and by this I mean foods normally found at grocery stores or large pet food chain stores), consider adding some fresh food as well, and also probiotics to aid digestion. Carefully check out the pet food companies and their ingredient sources. Other commercial brands I recommend are Solid Gold, Spot’s Stew by Halo, Petguard Premium Lifespan, Wysong, Country Pet, Pat McKay’s, Homemade 4 Life, Flint River Ranch, and a "ready to eat" food called The Ultimate Diet. There are many small pet food companies listed on the Internet that sell high quality foods, you just have to search for them.
I highly recommend the following books on pet nutrition:
Check out the following websites regarding pet food.
