Heat Processing

[Melody]

I have been more and more dismayed as I study the effect of heat processing on nutrients, leaving most commercial foods to amount to whatever minerals that survive. Even the synthetic vitamins that are added are only effective if they are added after the heat processing. Heat breaks down vitamins, amino acids and results in negative cross-linkage of proteins. In fact, Encyclopedia Britannica states "Cooking destroys protein to make it practically useless". The amino acids digestibility is markedly reduced by heat processing, with the broken chains having toxic potential.

Certainly the allicin from the garlic isn't going to survive heat processing.

Whole Dog News sums it up nicely...

When food is cooked above 117 degrees F for three minutes or longer, the following deleterious changes begin, and progressively cause increased nutritional damage as higher temperatures are applied over prolonged periods of time:

proteins coagulate
high temperatures denature protein molecular structure, leading to deficiency of some essential amino acids
carbohydrates caramelize
overly heated fats generate numerous carcinogens including acrolein, nitrosamines, hydrocarbons, and benzopyrene (one of the most potent cancer-causing agents known)
natural fibers break down, cellulose is completely changed from its natural condition: it loses its ability to sweep the alimentary canal clean
30% to 50% of vitamins and minerals are destroyed
100% of enzymes are damaged, the body’s enzyme potential is depleted which drains energy needed to maintain and repair tissue and organ systems, thereby shortening the life span.117 degrees for three minutes... Keeping in mind that the average 'meal' used in pet food is cooked at 280 Fahrenheit for 60 minutes, and then heat processed again to mold it, that doesn't leave a whole lot left of the original nutrition content.

Bio-encapsulation and low heat processing makes far more sense to me. Bioencapsulation also serves as a means of preservation, making the less desirable methods of preservation unnecessary.

There is an excellent article here (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~delbeek/delb16.html) that you can use to spot the signs of vitamin deficiency in fish. Remember that colour and grossly exagerated growth rates are not necessarily an indicator of good health. Factors such as a fully functional immune system is far more indicative. You can improve any fish's colour and increase the growth rate with Krill and Spirulina alone, but that doesn't mean a diet of those two foods only would be good for the fish.

Nothing beats or even compares to fresh food, with freeze-dried and dehydration coming in as a close second. If you have to feed a commercial food, and most of us do for the sake of convenience, try to find one that doesn't heat-process the food into useless powder which is then heat processed again to take its final form.

At the very least, find a commercial food that is fortified after the heat process and includes extra fortification like the Omega complex. View it as a multi-vitamin and balance the intake of commercial foods with fresh foods for optimum nutrition.

Beware of the hype. No matter how they try to hype up the ingredients, they might as well be fortified baby powder if they're over-processed and preserved in carcinogens. They can say that an ingredient is good for fish and why, but the sources of that information aren't talking about an over-processed pile of dust. Your best protection from hype is education about the wild diet of your fish, the nutritional content of food and just what is left of all of the wonderful ingredients that a commercial food starts with after it is processed to infinity. They aren't lying about the benefits of these ingredients, but they're not telling you the full story either.

Good health to you and your fish!



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[ChrissyFishy]

I'm happy to know that about for all of my pets. :eek: They have those fresh and organic meals for dogs and cats. Maybe they'll have more for fish soon. :yes:

[Melody]

They're getting there. I buy the frozen Emerald Entre' all the time and that is a combo of Shrimp & Spirulina. The freeze-dried selection has expanded a great deal over the past couple of years. Its easy to make your own too.

[Melody]

I've been looking into spray-drying as it is one of the processing methods used on seaweed (freeze-drying is also used for seaweed).

Although spray-drying uses heat, it isn't as high as the temperatures used on fishmeal and most importantly, its a flash of heat that dries the seaweed before it hits the wall. The length of time that a food is exposed to heat greatly impacts the nutrient loss. It can also be dried at much lower temp's should they prefer it that way. While not as good as freeze-drying, spray drying is by far the preferred method of heat processing when it is the only processing endured.

So what about manufactured fish foods that are spray-dried? Well, if they use processed ingredients like fishmeal then you're only skipping the final heat processing. The damage has already been done to the ingredients that were heat processed. If the ingredients include spray-dried or freeze-dried items, using spray-drying as the final method of processing will result in higher vitamin retention for those particular ingredients. Less heat in the final stage is better than nothing, but it won't count for much unless all or many of the ingredients were also low-heat processed. That brings us back to the trick they all use - just because the ingredients would be good for fish if they were fresh, doesn't mean they're good for fish when they've been over-processed. Don't expect them to admit that anytime soon though.

Another question we should be asking, is how the food is sterilized. If heat is used for that too, it means there's a good chance that manufactured foods go through at least THREE stages of heat processing. It also means that even low-temp methods of processing may have included an initial heat sterilization. The temp's & exposure requirements are much less than that which is used on fishmeal, but its still an impact. Other methods of sterilization include chemical and a newer organic method of using pressure. Of course, they won't be able to answer this or other questions if they don't produce the food in-house.

I talk about vitamins most because they are the most unstable. Our present understanding is that minerals withstand high temp's much better overall, although their bioavailability can still be impacted in either positive or negative ways.

We still don't know enough about the how processing effects bioavailability to do much more than offer an educated guess at this point, even in humans. It is a crucial factor in deciding what to feed our fish and other animals though. It doesn't matter how much protein a can of food says it contains, for example, if the creature eating it can't utilize it because the processing has rendered it useless.

We see bioavailability issues in fresh food too, but we know a lot more about that. Spinnach is a well-known example. It is packed with calcium but the mineral is rendered useless by the oxalates the vegetable contains. Those we can't do anything about, but we have a choice when it comes to processing methods.

I can understand how those who no longer feed manufactured pet foods arrived at the conclusion that it is worth the effort. Between the processing, chemicals and fillers, I'm pretty much sold on going that route myself. What's the point of wasting my money on a synthetic multivitamin? I will be feeding fresh, frozen, freeze-dried and low-heat processed commercial foods from here on in. Yeah, a lot of fish do fine being fed commercial foods only. If those foods contain ingredients that boost colour and extra synthetic vitamins, they may even seem to do very well on that diet. However, they can't help but benefit from natural sources of nutrition, especially since we still don't know the whole story of their requirements. The ultimate pet food will never be an over-processed one, period.

I am royally PO'ed that I had to spend so much time researching to find the truth about their claims too. If a food is a decent supplement, great, hype it up and sell it as such. Telling people that its wonderful because it contains Salmon Roe or whatever, when they know that very little or none of the nutrition is actually sourced from it, is unethical. These are living creatures they're messing with and they're using our love for them to manipulate us. "If you care about the nutrition your pet is receiving, you'll pay our outrageous prices to give them the ultimate." What a crock. People are catching on though, hence the booming 'natural' food industry for dogs and cats. I am off to explore the natural methods of feeding cats now!

[Melody]

On my mission to go fresh/frozen/freeze-dried/spray-dried only, I remembered this item from Ken's Fish:

This is a true meat wafer that is packed with all types of freeze dried products and then put under extreme pressure. Excellent for your bottom feeding meat eating fish. Fast sinking for even the most finiky feeders.

Main Ingredients: Earthworms, Bloodworms, Shrimp, Mysis, Krill, Tubifex Worms, Gelatin, Vitamin and Minerals added.

Approximate Analysis: Min. Protein 57.0%, Min. Crude Fat 8.0%, Max Crude Fiber 1.0%, Max Moisture 6.0%, Max Ash 10.0%

Sounds good. I'm alergic to bloodworms but it would be easier to handle them this way and I'll use gloves. I can always have someone else feed them too I suppose. My Son's out of the question since he may have inherited the alergy.

Regardless, has anyone tried this one?

[PPulcher]

I was having a discussion with someone last night about the protein content of fish foods, and and HBH product was suggest as having a very high content. However, the Kensfish food that you outlined there beats it!

Protein content is not the be all and end all, but for some fish it is very important.

[Melody]

Definitly very important for some fish, I just don't keep those fish so I don't talk about it much...lol....that's why its good to have several perspectives.

Its also a matter of what kind of protein, what it is sourced from and how digestable it is. From what I've been reading, no heat-processed food is a reliable source of protein as the heat renders much of it useless at the bio level. With the freeze-dried products you don't have to be concerned about heat processing, so when it comes to using convenience foods for protein they're the ticket, in my opinion. Compliment them with fresh vegies & seaweed for the Herbivores/omnivores and you're well on your way to a good diet.

No problem to tell where the protein comes from in this wafer...lol. Its actually too high for most of my fish, so I'll follow it with a vegie meal at the next feeding and they won't get it more than a couple of times/week. It would be an awesome conditioning food at the convenience level, and of course, for carnivores.

[ChrissyFishy]

Wow thats a lot of meat!!! ::D: They should use that agar as gelatin to make it even better.:yes:

[Melody]

Good idea!

They may be as good as regular freeze-dried foods at sucking up the vitamin/garlic supplements too.

[Melody]

While researching Cyclop-eeze products, I finally found a company that acknowledges the effects of heat (amongst other things) on their study results. I was getting frustrated trying to find more than a general description of what is wonderful about Cyclop-eeze. I already knew it was an engineered microorganism (crustacean) designed to be a superior source of HUFA and Astaxanthene. It's great for colour and immunity, but the information was about fresh Cyclop-eeze - what good does that do me? I couldn't find details about the flake contents and it's nutrition analysis. The store descriptions gave the general blurb about the benefits of fresh Cyclop-eeze and that's it. I was hoping to find out that it was gently processed and some of the naturally-sourced nutrition was still there.

So I went to the Argent Cyclop-eeze website to do some reading. It has some good articles about the food, comparison tables and details of their studies. I still don't know what's in those flakes....lol....but I did find this little blurb at the end of an article:

The data presented herein omit stability studies for the CYCLOP-EEZE® products. It is clear that the presence of heat, light and oxygen are detri- mental to the active biological molecules manifested in CYCLOP-EEZE®. Every effort in harvest, processing and packaging has been studied and evaluated. Argent Laboratories has made use of advanced technology such as lyophilization, vacuum packaging, nitrogen seal and the use of special antioxidants to ensure
shelf life. ~ Argent Analysis (http://www.cyclop-eeze.com/product_info/10-11.html)

They state exactly what all foods and their marketers should be stating, but don't. Instead they say things like "This food contains Krill and *cough*fresh*cough* Krill has all of this in it", which is true. However, it doesn't make it into the processed food and it doesn't do one bit of good for my fish if those benefits have been heat processed out of it, like it is when producing pellets and flakes.

It's infuriating. How many times have I read the ingredients on a package of flakes, wafers or pellets and thought "Wow, I know that this this and this contains that that and that, which is fantastic for fish, so I'm buying this product." What I bought was a pile of fortified powder and misleading marketing.:rolleyes:

I'll stick to freeze-dried & frozen Cyclop-eeze for my fish. It blends into the homemade food so it's nice & small and the freeze-drying process is far more kind to the naturally-sourced nutrition content.

[Melody]

I was picking up food at Puppies, Fish & Critters the other day (they carry some of my fave stuff, like Fishalicious freeze-dried Krill). I noticed a container of pressed freeze-dried tablets like Ken's - apparently Nutrafin makes them too. I don't know how they compare as a still have a freezer full of Ken's and I didn't buy them, but it read about the same, all protein from what I could gather in my quick read.

So if your fave store sells Nutrafin products, you can get them locally rather than ordering from the US. :smile: Nutrafin is really focusing on freeze dried products these days, so keep an eye on their section of the shelf.

[Katalyst]

I was picking up food at Puppies, Fish & Critters the other day (they carry some of my fave stuff, like Fishalicious freeze-dried Krill). I noticed a container of pressed freeze-dried tablets like Ken's - apparently Nutrafin makes them too. I don't know how they compare as a still have a freezer full of Ken's and I didn't buy them, but it read about the same, all protein from what I could gather in my quick read.

So if your fave store sells Nutrafin products, you can get them locally rather than ordering from the US. :smile: Nutrafin is really focusing on freeze dried products these days, so keep an eye on their section of the shelf.

Mel did you try the nutrafin tabs? I find they degrade rather quickly/messily & foul the water pretty quick, good thing I have a gabillion spixi's that love the stuff.

[Melody]

Nope, haven't tried them. I do notice that the tabs I get from Ken release particles into the water column. I usually have fry to gobble them up so that's not a big deal. I suppose because they are compressed, that's bound to happen. Bare tanks or those full of Trumpet Snails would cope best with the messies it would seem. Another waterchange day food. :yes: Thanks for posting about your experience with them!