The shocking truth about pet food

Twenty years ago pet food was something you only thought about when you were running low, and there were only a handful of choices.   Today the huge variety of dog and cat foods to choose from are both confusing and controversial. Vets recommend certain brands, trainers and other pet professionals insist on others, food reps walk the aisles in pet supply stores extolling the benefits of their brands, and dog food commercials show you healthy, happy dogs and imply that their food is what keeps them that way.

What’s the truth?

Kimberly Kallander, pet nutritionist and owner of Murphy’s Premium Pet Foods in Winter Springs, FL, states, “Dogs and cats do not live as long as they used to, and are plagued with serious health issues like never before.  While we have grown accustomed to corporate America’s greed in most industries, the majority of consumers have been fooled into believing that their pet food is supplying the basic nutrition that their animals require in order to remain healthy.”

The extent to which this is not true is shocking.  In spite of the manufacturers’ claims, many of the most popular brands of pet food are not just full of nutrient-deficient filler, but also contain harmful toxins and come from sources that are literally garbage. 

Meat

Many consumers have learned that since ingredients are listed on the package by weight, the first ingredient listed in their dog or cat food should be meat.  This is true, but it’s far from the whole story.  Just because there is a meat source listed first on the package does not necessarily mean that there is an appreciable amount of meat in the product, or even that the meat is an adequate protein source.

A popular and generally well-respected “premium” brand lists its first 5 ingredients as: Lamb meal,  ground rice,  rice flour,  rice bran,  whole brown rice.  The listing of rice four different ways is called “ingredient splitting.”  Kate Holloway of K9 Cuisine states, “Beware of a tactic manufacturers use to disguise the quantity of an undesirable or low quality food ingredient. By splitting a low quality ingredient into different but similar components, each is lower in weight and listed lower in the ingredient panel. If you added each of these similar items together, they may be the largest single ingredient, indicating it is a low quality / low nutrition food.”  So even though meat is listed first, the extensive ingredient splitting implies that there may be more rice in this food than there is lamb.

One good thing about this food is that the meat is listed as lamb meal instead of just lamb. Kate Holloway says, “Raw uncooked meat is 70-80% water.  If the dog food has only one meat source in the top 3 ingredients and it is not a ‘meat meal,’ there is actually very little meat content in the food.”

Another ingredient you should watch out for in your dog or cat food is by-products. According to the Dog Food Project, “Chicken by-products are much less expensive and less digestible than the chicken muscle meat.  Each batch can vary drastically in ingredients (heads, feet, bones, etc.) as well as quality, thus the nutritional value is also not consistent. Don't forget that by-products consist of any parts of the animal OTHER than meat.”  Ann N. Martin writes in her book, Food Pets Die For, “Be assured that if it could be used for human consumption, such as kidneys and livers, it would not be going into pet food. If a liver is found to be infested with worms (liver flukes), if lungs are filled with pneumonia, these can become pet food.”

If the meat source is unidentified (such as meat and bone meal) that’s an even louder warning bell.  Ann N. Martin says, “Companion animals from clinics, pounds, and shelters can and are being rendered and used as sources of protein in pet food. Dead-stock removal operations play a major role in the pet food industry. Dead animals, road kill that cannot be buried at roadside, and in some cases, zoo animals, are picked up by these dead stock operations. When an animal dies in the field or is killed due to illness or disability, the dead stock operators pick them up and truck them to the receiving plant.” 

The next stop in the process is the rendering plant.  Martin continues, “Rendering plants are melting pots for all types of refuse. Restaurant grease and garbage; meats and baked goods long past the expiration dates from supermarkets (Styrofoam trays and shrink-wrap included); the entrails from dead stock removal operations, and the condemned and contaminated material from slaughterhouses. All of these are rendered.”  The list of ingredients that end up used in this process goes on.  Miller writes, “Cancerous tissue or tumors and worm-infested organs are rendered. Injection sites, blood clots, bone splinters, or extraneous matter are rendered. Contaminated blood is rendered. Stomach and bowels are rendered. Contaminated material containing or having been treated with a substance not permitted by, or in any amount in excess of limits prescribed under the Food and Drug Act or the Environmental Protection Act. In other words, if a carcass contains high levels of drugs or pesticides this material is rendered.”

Grains

Most of the low-quality pet foods are made up mostly of grains, in particular corn and wheat, and many also contain soy.  Though dogs are omnivores, they do not digest plant-based proteins well.  As for cats, Ann N. Martin asks, “Perhaps the pet food industry is not aware that cats are carnivores and therefore should derive their protein from meat, not grains?”

Kate Holloway says, “Corn, wheat and soy offer little nutritional value.  Corn and wheat are low-cost fillers added to dog food to provide bulk at minimal cost. Pets are not able to adequately metabolize grains. As a result, many pets develop food allergies to products containing corn or wheat, which result in ear infections, nausea, chewing of feet, etc.”  Kim Kallander adds, “While many companies profess the nutritional value of this ingredient, my experience has been that carnivores fed corn on a daily basis are riddled with bad teeth, thyroid issues, diabetes, joint inflammation, and yeast infections presenting themselves in the ears and hot spots on the skin.”

Wheat middling (or wheat mill run) is also an ingredient in some of the cheapest dog foods.  The Dog Food Project describes this as, “An inexpensive by-product of human food processing, commonly referred to as 'floor sweepings.'  An inexpensive filler with no real nutritional value.”

Rice is used in some pet foods and is generally less likely to cause health problems than other grains.  However if it is not whole grain or brown rice, there may be little to no nutrient value.   Brewers rice is a commonly used rice product.  According to the Dog Food Project, “Contrary to what many pet food companies want to make you believe, this is not a high quality ingredient, just much cheaper than whole grain rice.”

Fats

Good fats that contain Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils are very important in your pet’s diet, and you will usually see a “fat” ingredient on your pet food label.  Yet Kimberly Kallander states, “Terms such as poultry fat or animal fat sound benign, yet with a little research you will find these ingredients are waste products that should be disposed of, not fed to animals.  While starting from a natural state, they end up rendered, refined with toxic chemicals, and commonly used for frying fat initially.  If fed continually they can result in congested liver and gall bladder function.”

The Dog Food Project adds the warning about the term 'animal fat,' “Note that the animal source is not specified and is not required to originate from 'slaughtered' animals. The rendered animals can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: ‘4-D animals’ (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, miscellaneous roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on.”  They also warn about another common fat ingredient, beef tallow,  “Dogs and cats like the taste of this fat, so it is often used to make low-quality food more palatable. Beef tallow is very low in linoleic acid and much cheaper for the pet food industry to use than a good quality vegetable oil or nutritionally rich chicken fat.”

Sugars

Sugars are loaded into pet foods in many forms.  Some of these are beet pulp, cane molasses and corn syrup.

Kate Holloway says, “Sweeteners are added to pet food to make the food more palatable. Sweeteners can lead to numerous health problems, hypoglycemia, obesity, nervousness, cataracts, tooth decay, arthritis & allergies. Pets can also become addicted to foods with sweeteners. This can make them appear to be picky eaters and also make it very difficult to get them to eat healthier foods.”  This is commonly reported by consumers who try to switch their pets from a low-quality grocery store brand to a better food.

Preservatives

Rosemary and vitamin E are harmless preservatives that are used in the better pet foods.  However, they are more expensive than BHA, BHT and propylene glycol (or gallate), which are more commonly used.  Kimberly Kallander says, “Fed daily, these toxic chemicals build in your pet’s kidneys, liver and ultimately their lymph system.” 

She adds, “While these ingredients are alarming, at the very least they are listed, leaving you the options to research what you are buying.  There are however hidden secrets in the industry that are difficult at best for the average consumer to uncover.  Ethoxyquin is my greatest nemesis, as it is commonly found even in ‘holistic’ pet food.  The U.S. Coast Guard requires this cousin to Agent Orange be sprayed on all fish meal transported in U.S. waters.  Dr. Gloria Dodd DVM wrote a compelling letter to the FDA in 1992 pleading with them to halt the use of this chemical due to the serious adverse permanent damage she believed was the result of using Ethoxyquiin in all animal feed.”

A look at some popular foods

Now that you know what to watch out for, here are the first-listed ingredients from one of the dog food brands that is most highly recommended by vets:

Lamb meal, brewers rice, rice flour, ground whole grain wheat, ground whole grain sorghum, corn gluten meal, cracked pearled barley, animal fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), dried beet pulp, soybean oil

These ingredients are from one of the most popular foods advertised on TV:

Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), rice flour, beef, soy flour, sugar, propylene glycol, meat and bone meal,

And yet another very popular advertised food:

Ground whole corn, meat and bone meal, ground whole wheat, corn gluten meal, animal fat (preserved with BHA and ctric acid), wheat mill run, chicken by-product meal

Check the back of your bag.  If it matches (or comes close), find the garbage can.

What can you do?

The only course you can take to protect your pet from the industry that is killing it is to take it upon yourself to do your own research so that you can choose your pet food wisely. 

If you’re lucky enough to live in the Orlando area, you can feel safe purchasing your pet food from Kimberly Kallander at Murphy’s Premium Pet Food  located at 158 Tuskawilla Rd. Suite 1316, Winter Springs, FL 32708. 

Kate Holloway of K9 Cuisine has a questionnaire to determine the quality of your present pet food at Rate Your Dog Food and offers shipping of high quality products, The Dog Food Project provides a lot of great information, and Ann N. Martin’s book Food Pets Die For is full of shocking industry secrets to help you know what to avoid.

Alternative to Pet Food

Many believe that a dog or cat’s biologically appropriate food is raw meat and bones, and there are compelling arguments for this belief.   Some excellent resources for raw feeding are:  Raw Feeding by Jane Anderson, Doggy Bytes by Jim McBean, and Raw Meaty Bones by Dr. Tom Lonsdale.