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We’ve all seen it on TV and printed in magazines. Advertisements for commercially manufactured, highly processed cans and bags of unhealthy pet food.
Such ads have become a fixture in our media, an integral aspect of our culture for decades. They always seem to depict the happiest, most contented people, along with the healthiest looking, most beautiful, vibrant, clear-eyed, glossy coated, friendly, lovable and adorable cats and dogs imaginable.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
These advertisements, while seemingly innocuous, are actually extremely sophisticated in terms of the ways in which they’re designed to appeal very powerfully to our subconscious nature, so as to coerce us into purchasing the products they’re pushing.
They often anthropomorphize animals, causing us to identify with our pets even more closely than we already do. The ads sometimes also strive to convince us that the kinds of foods that are appealing to and/or perhaps healthy for us are also good for our animal friends to eat.
The Ploy of “Delicious” Pet Food
Many pet food ads also make a big point of focusing on how delectable their products are, driving home the point of how much our pets absolutely love and crave the taste of them. Since these ads are obviously not meant for the animals themselves to watch, it’s almost as if the advertisers are trying to make our human mouths water with the kinds of graphic descriptions they use to convince us of just how incredibly yummy and delicious these pet foods really are!
Besides the irresistible flavor of the products they’re promoting, these ads also often describe the ingredients pet foods contain as being utterly wholesome, exceptionally nutritious, and totally geared toward promoting the good health of our pets.
Pet food commercials often give us a very warm, fuzzy, comforting feeling. They can be very effective at engendering in us a sense of safety and security as if to convince us wholeheartedly that the products they’re selling are a really good, solid, nourishing foundation upon which the health of our pets can be built. These ads can make us feel that if we buy the products they’re selling and feed them to our pets, that by doing so we’re taking the best care possible of our beloved furry friends. The ads lead us to believe that by feeding our animals their particular brand of products, we’re making the best choice possible to ensure the good health and longevity of our precious, beloved animal companions.
Pet Food Is All About Branding
We get ‘branded’ when we get sold on a brand and plunk down our hard earned money to buy that particular one.
And yet despite how effectively these pet food ads evoke such feelings in us — feelings of being so safe and secure, so good about ourselves, and so comforted in the notion that the products they’re convincing us to buy are such a good healthy choice for our pets to eat on a daily basis – the real and startlingly contradictory truth underlying the pet food industry at large is a subject about which the vast majority of people remain quite blissfully unaware.
Most people have no idea that virtually all of what goes into those cans and bags of pet food are vast amounts of waste products – many of which are pretty darn nasty – that are left over from the manufacture of food for human consumption.
Another significant portion of the ingredients used in the manufacture of commercial pet food is derived from genetically modified grain crops, particularly soy and corn, which are virtually always heavily sprayed with toxic petrochemical pesticides and herbicides, and grown in depleted soils treated with synthetic fertilizers.
I believe the term “junk pet food,” which is the phrase I use to describe commercially manufactured pet food, was coined by Australian veterinarian Dr. Tom Lonsdale. He’s the author of two books about raw feeding for pets, entitled Work Wonders and Raw Meaty Bones.
The reason I call it junk is because after doing a great deal of research and digging very deeply into this subject, it has become abundantly evident to me that the majority of these pet food products are of extremely – nay, shockingly – poor quality. In fact when it comes to providing the kind of nourishment our carnivorous companions truly require to thrive, the vast majority of these pet foods fail miserably, and many, in my opinion, are downright dreadful.
That many pets can even survive at all on a lifelong diet of such abysmal junk food is truly a remarkable yet tragic testament to their incredible resilience and adaptability.
We who are interested in learning about, purchasing and preparing the most nutrient dense, wholesome foods possible for ourselves and our families, are all too well aware of what a profoundly deleterious effect the consumption of poor quality, highly processed junk food can have on our human health.
Pet Food Leads to Chronic Pet Ill Health
Well, the same is true for our furry friends. And the epidemic of chronic ill health in the form of debilitating ailments such as periodontal disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc. etc. in the junk pet food-fed domestic pet population is surely a telling parallel.
So just what are the dirty secrets of the junk pet food industry? The most disturbing, nitty-gritty details, which are beyond the scope of this piece, can be found by reading several online resources that are linked at the end of this post.
To provide an overview here, what’s most important to know is that the bulk of ingredients used in most commercial pet foods come from places called rendering plants. Rendering plants are facilities designed to process a wide variety of leftover waste products, a number of which are quite unspeakable, and most of which are derived from the production of food for human consumption.
Here’s a partial list of items that are routinely sent to, and processed by, rendering plants. Even the cheapest homemade dog food or cat chow would be light years better than this!
- Slaughterhouse wastes, including almost all portions of animals that are not generally considered to be fit for human consumption, such as heads, hides, spines, hooves and diseased body parts
- Diseased, disabled, dying or dead livestock deemed unfit for human consumption, aka 4D animals
- Expired meats from grocery stores, including their plastic and styrofoam packaging
- rancid, overcooked oils drained from fryolators, and filthy grease from grease traps from fast food and other restaurants
- The bodies of domestic cats and dogs that have been euthanized, sometimes right along with flea and tick collars still attached around their necks
- Road kill, YES ROAD KILL!
Rendering plants take the above sorts of items and throw them all into a giant auger to pulverize them.
The resulting ‘soup’ is cooked at extremely high temperatures, surely at least in part to kill off all the potentially harmful bacteria, pathogens and parasites that may be lingering on dead, rotting flesh. However this very high heat also destroys much of whatever nutritional value the stuff may have ever had to begin with. Then the fat is rendered off, and what’s left is made into various products that are known by the euphemistic terms we’re used to seeing on pet food ingredients lists.
If you haven’t already, I would strongly encourage everyone reading this post who is concerned about the health of our pets to start reading pet food labels.
Here’s a partial list of suspect ingredients that come from rendering plants:
- meat by-products
- chicken by-product meal
- meat meal
- meat and bone meal
- animal digest
- animal fat (often treated with things like BHA and/or citric acid)
Also, notice how many junk pet food ingredients listed on the label are grain based, such as corn, soy, wheat, rice, sorghum or barley etc.
As you begin to notice how many grain based ingredients are contained in these products, please bear in mind that dogs and cats are carnivorous animals whose bodies were never designed to consume grains in any appreciable quantities.
For those of you interested in learning the details, below are links to several relevant web pages and articles that delve even more deeply into this troubling subject:
http://www.rawfedcats.org/toxic.htm
http://www.homevet.com/index.php/diet-discussion/item/315-an-excerpt-from-the-book-food-pets-die-for
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-ultimate-recycling-the-rendering-industry
Sources and More Information
This is timely as just last week we were at the vet for a yearly checkup for my dog and I got into a discussion about food with my vet (who of course sell’s Hills). We had been doing a dry grain-free dogfood with some of our meat thrown in there too. She said that dogs did eat grains in the wild because they eat the intestines of small animals. While the part about the intestines is true, many small herbivores will have more vegetation biproducts in their intestines than grains, and definitely not processed grains! Not only that, but the food in the intestines has been through the digestion process. Plus, the wild dog would be eating organ meats and muscle meat, and chewing on bones for calcium. After that I came home and found Darwin’s Naturals, raw pet food shipped to your doorstep (frozen), and ordered some. My dog loves it (she thinks she is getting people food) and I know that it’s the best choice I can do for her without having to make up food myself which is pretty labor intensive and I have kids to feed first! I was upset when my vet recommended Hills but then realized that I deal with this all the time whenever we need to see the doctor– you just have to be smart and stand by what you know to be truly healthy.
So happy to see the topic of pet food discussed here! I’ve always wondered why an ingredient like corn or soy would be present in the dry food I buy for my 4 cats since he’s a carnivore.
They include this stuff because it’s cheap, cheap, cheap and gives the pet food companies profits, profits, and more profits.
You said it, Sarah!!
Most all of the corn and soy grown these days are absurdly cheap INDUSTRIAL COMMODITIES which are often genetically modified and highly processed, not to mention being contaminated with toxic petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers.
The vast majority of this stuff can’t even be considered to be real food anymore!
And yet unfortunately, millions of pets the world over eat pet foods laden with this low quality garbage every day.
i agree, tiffani. we switched to a holistic vet who supported our decisions just for because our old vet had no idea of what to feed an animal when it came to a raw diet. it’s just like how allopaths that treat humans have no idea about anything when it comes to naturopathic medicine.
our weenie dog eats raw chicken wings and gets a cup of fermented milk as a snack each day (loves it).. took him to the vet one time and everyone was commenting on how pretty his coat was and how healthy he looked.. so i spilled the beans on his secret and then everyone turned on us and told us all of the dangers and how they have never heard of this before.. so..
-jason and lisa-
Oh, a weenie dog!! I used to have one years ago. His name was Sausalito (the town right near San Fran). Great name for a weenie don’t you think?
Great article! A little off topic, when I first learned about ‘pink slime’ my first thought was “I thought that was for dog food”. I wonder if over the years the dog food makers have cut in more corn/soy and cut out more ‘pink slime’ ingredients to ‘bulk’ up human food? Definitely gross no matter how you look at it.
OK…so do I just feed my dog raw meat or do I cook it first? I have a puppy who is about 3 months old. How would I feed her? As for eggs, they can eat them raw?
Yes! Just feed her raw meat, bones, and organs:) Just Google BARF diet. My puppy thrived on it. He is 4 now and is the picture of health!
I’m currently raising a large breed puppy – in the morning she gets a chicken/thigh leg quarter; in the evening she gets another one; always has access to water. That is how simple feeding a dog can be! Variety – yes, it would be great but I can hardly justify the cost of beef & pork for my family so my dogs & cats usually get chicken – not cooked, not ground, just whole chicken pieces.
I have raised a pregnant dog on raw; her entire litter on raw and just raised my first litter of kittens on raw chicken. The kittens are about 10 weeks old and they Demolish their chicken – bones & all! A tiny chihuahua puppy can & will eat a piece of chicken – bone & all. Has your baby puppy ever bit you while playing? Those little teeth are sharp! They were meant to be able to eat raw meat And bones.
Most dogs love eggs! Some do prefer them lightly cooked unless it is mixed up with something else. My first Chihuahua loved fruit & veggies! Her absolute hands down favorite was warm baby lima beans. She would not leave us alone with ours until she got her spoonful. LOL Feeding raw is EASY – just do it!
Jeanette is right. Raw feeding is easy! My dogs love eggs, too, and I do feed eggs to them on occasion, but I give them the whole egg in the shell. It’s entertainment – watching them crack (and eat) the shell to get to the egg inside.
make sure you are also feeding organ meat (spleen/kidney/liver), raw fish is great(I feed raw whole sardines), tripe(not canned if possible, real green raw tripe), heart is great. They can’t eat JUST chicken.
Ashley, true. My dogs eat a variety of meats, not just chicken, but chicken quarters are a good starting point. Haven’t tried sardines, but that’s a great suggestion. I haven’t been able to find unbleached tripe in my area.
this sort of reminded me of the ‘real lemon’ juice sold in the grocery stores in those plastic lemon shaped containers..full of man made chemicals.I looked up several of the ingredients and one is used for tree stump removal.It dissolves the tree stump after the tree is cut down.
It’s time to reclaim our INTELLIGENCE from those who tell us we don’t know what to do. Yes, we DO! : )
I feed my dogs all raw all the time (and have for over 15 years)! Vets and the industry like to tell you that you are not smart enough to feed a dog or cat….but that’s pure bullsh*t! You are smart enough to feed you, your family, your kids….why would a dog be harder?
Well YES I do, it may not sound pretty but the dry food is balanced with vitamins and minerals, I personally would not like it but dogs and cats eat a lot of stuff I would not. UNLESS you are a nutrition expert its the best option, buying holistic may sound good but the stuff goes bad quicker without the preservatives, and the Raw diet can cause Salmonella to your pets so unless you are preparing the stuff and know what they require in their diet you will be creating problems for your pet. MY opinion, since the pet food industry does have a very large budget for R&D.
considering what wild canids eat, or try to, salmonella is not the worst thing. Dogs have short gastric routes and a quick vomit reflex, so that what goes in bad either comes back up before it is digested, or goes out quick. Note that the Diamond recall is concerned that several HUMANS have gotten salmonella poisoning from handling bad kibble, but not they dogs they fed.
i do NOT trust kibble at all! I have fed raw for 2 years. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure it out. It takes alot of common sense, which many people apparenlty don’t have.
any meat can cause salmonella.. just look at the current Diamond food recall
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/05/diamond-pet-foods-recalls-more-dry-dog-food/
http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/dog-food-05-12/index.html
http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/types/petfood/index.html
Don’t think because you feed a commercial holistic food that it is always 100% safe all the time. And pet food R&D developed all of the species inappropriate foods you find in your local stores..
It isn’t an issue of raw meat, it is the issue of the fillers in the processed food that takes a longer time to digest, this is what causes the problems with our pets. They have a short digestive track and can deal with raw, it is digested faster and does not sit in their digestive track like the processed foods do. They also get all the nutrients from this food without the added suplements and additives from China.
While it may appear to the public that the pet food industry’s R&D is geared toward the best interests of our pets and feeding them the most nourishing food possible, I’ll make the bold assertion here that the vast majority of these companies’ financial R&D resources are instead directed toward increasing their profit margins!!
As others have explained here, carnivores’ bodies are specifically designed to cope with the bacteria found on raw food. For instance they have very acidic stomachs, short digestive tracts, and very quick digestive transit times. These anatomical and physiological aspects of carnivores make their bodies especially capable of handling much higher bacterial loads in their food, and minimize the risk of potentially harmful pathogenic microbial colonization.
Here’s a great article debunking the myth that bacteria like salmonella found in raw food is harmful to our pets:
http://rawfed.com/myths/bacteria.html