Pet Food & Pet Health

What your pet eats is more important to preventing disease and maintaining a strong immune system than anything else is.

Artificial ingredients can trigger an immune response that can make your pet sick.  An example is a food allergy.  Your pet may react to chemical preservatives or to food colouring and this can cause the immune system to release a cell called histamine.  This in turn can produce vomiting, diarrhoea and itching.

Antibodies are proteins that your pet produces to fight disease.  Your pet cannot produce an adequate antibody response to disease when she is eating poor quality, unnatural food.  Of all the things that you can do to prevent disease in your pet, diet is the most important.

Many of the chronic diseases we see today are directly attributable to poor quality food, or to vaccines.  And cancer has become the leading cause of death in both dogs and cats.  50% of dogs and over 33% of cats will die from cancer.  Most disturbing is the increasing incidence of cancer in younger and younger pets.

Without a doubt, nutrition is key to the health of our pets.  Feeding a natural healthy diet is one of if not the single most important changes that you as a pet owner can make for the long term health of your pet.

Pets today are fed highly processed artificial foods composed of unnatural ingredients:

• Soymeal
• Artificial colourings and flavourings
• BHA and ethoxyquin which are harmful perservatives.  Some pet food manufacturers don’t need to list these under “ingredients” as they may be contained in products that have come from “other sources”.
• Meat content is often composed of by-products which can be anything from cancerous tissues to diseased organs that is “not fit for human consumption”.

If we would not eat these things why should we expect our beloved pets to do so?

Commercial pet food does not always provide all of the nutrients that dogs and cats need to be healthy at different times in their lives.  Much of it contains nothing more than cheap grains (i.e. starch, corn), meat by-products, filler, chemical additives and preservatives and in many cases, toxins.  Even if your pet’s food doesn’t contain contaminants, it does not necessarily contain everything your cat and dog needs to stay healthy.  More than likely it contains just what pets need to “get by”.

If you were to pick up a can of pet food 20 years ago, chances are you would see that the main ingredient was an animal protein.  These days, the main ingredients are typically grain and fat which is essentially just filler.  They contain very little of the vitamins and minerals that actually make your pet thrive.

Grains have become prevalent because the high carbohydrate content provides cheap calories – animal protein costs more so to cut costs, they increased the amount of grain.  In addition, grains assist in binding ingredients to make it easier to form kibble or dry food.

• “No Grains” does not necessarily mean no carbohydrates.  Often you will see potato, and in other cases a starch such as Tapioca is added (and this particular ingredient has been found to contain Hydrogen Cyanide).
• The “Human Grade” claim.  Most pet food ingredients – for most manufacturers, including some of the cheapest brands – come from human food processing facilities.  This means that just because some of the ingredients are “human grade” does not necessarily mean it is a better food for your pet.
• Natural Preservatives.  It is important that the food is preserved naturally, but Ethoxyquin, a toxic chemical preservative, has been found in some foods that claim to be “natural”.
• There is no such thing as 100% Complete.  We really do not know everything that should be in pet food.  I do know that variety is important and that common sense tells me that all nutrition cannot come from a bag.
• Corn, wheat and soy have been linked to allergic reactions in dogs and cats and are not easy to digest.  The primary ingredient in many dry commercial pet foods is not protein but a carbohydrate.
• Artificial color and chemical preservatives like BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin and propylene glycol provide no nutritional value and have been associated with toxic side effects – the most important one of these being cancer.
• Animal by-products.  These include more than just the “extra” parts derived from slaughtered animals (such as lungs, spleen, kidneys and brain).  A few of these unsavory ingredients include:  meat and poultry by-products unfit for human consumption (infested with worms, diseased products), necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, intestines, egg shells, infertile and unhatched eggs, culled, dried and ground chicks, heads, feed and viscera hydrolyzed poultry feather (indigestible protein, but still considered protein), hydrolyzed hair, spray-dried animal blood, dehydrated food waste, artificially dried animal and vegetable waste, dehydrated paunch products, dried poultry and swine waste, un-dried processed animal waste, companion animals from clinics, pounds, shelters, dead stock and zoo animals, frozen meat marked as “unfit for human consumption”, rendered and “denatured” (a process using crude carbolic acid, fuel oil or citronella) slaughterhouse products, restaurant and supermarket refuse.  Production animals as well as road kill that cannot be buried at roadside!