Pet Food Ingredients Revealed

[Melody]

Since this focuses on Dogs & Cats, I'll put it here. There are many ingredients also included in fish food.

Keep in mind that they are talking about pet-grade ingredients used in processed food. Some manufacturers now offer human-grade products and/or use human-grade ingredients, but they're few & far between. I think some of the meals that are similar to 'TV dinners' are human-grade, for example.

From the website:

The following list of pet food ingredients and ratings was created by a cooperative effort between pet food formulator Dr. Lisa Newman, N.D., Ph.D. (www.Azmira.com (http://www.azmira.com/)), Mike Adams (www.HealthRanger.org (http://www.healthranger.org/)) and the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (www.ConsumerWellness.org (http://www.consumerwellness.org/)). Mike Adams and the CWC analyzed the ingredients of 448 popular pet food products sold in the United States and organized them by frequency. Dr. Newman then provided a nutritional analysis and comment for each ingredient.

We then organized this information into four reference lists:

1) Pet food ingredients by rating (from 5 stars down to 1 star, with 5 stars indicating the best quality ingredients).

2) Pet food ingredients by frequency (sorted by how frequently they appear in pet food products, from 96% down to 1%).

3) Pet food ingredients listed alphabetically (to make it easier for you to reference an ingredient you're curious about).

4) Worst pet food ingredients (which lists all the 1-star ingredients, indicating lowest quality).

Pet Food Ingredients Revealed! (http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_pet_food_ingredients_0.html)

[Namor]

I clicked on the "worst pet food ingredients" and was upset by the fact a lot of those appear quite often in so called "premium" foods and "healthy" snacks.

[Katalyst]

That is downright scary considering those ingredients ARE in some pet foods. Carcinogens? Diseased tissue! Sad & very wrong.

Thanks for posting this Mel, a very informative read!

[PintoHawk]

Ah, this makes me sad and angry all over again. It's not new to me, sadly.

Last year, we had to put our kitty down (euthanize) due to the unhealthy and disgusting diet I had been blindly feeding her for 5+ years. I always thought I was doing the right thing for my cats, but I knew so little. I was horribly misled by many, many pet food companies to believe that what I was feeding my furry babies as actually good for them, that it contained all they needed to be healthy and happy.

I was killing them. The food was killing them. The food killed one of my friends, BUT it won't be killing any more in my household.

I had listened to the people in my life who fed their cats "all-natural" or "organic" foods, foods that weren't full of fillers, foods without grains, etc. I thought I was offering them the best available. But even those foods were garbage in the highly-specific digestive tracts of my poor cats.

I did my research, I talked to animal nutritionists and homeopaths and veterinarians (not that I trust what a vet tells me about cat nutrition very much, considering the lack of training required on nutrition in order to be a DVM, but I wanted to add that I did speak with a few different vets about the subject). I have a notebook almost FULL of notes, I read some books, I googled a lot of specifics.

I decided to start my cats on a raw diet as soon as possible, and I am currently in the process of changing them over to an all-raw diet. They eat chicken necks (with bones, etc) for a snack twice a week. They eat chopped liver & human-grade chicken (with bones, etc) for breakfast. They get canned food, yes, but it is 95% meat, no grains whatsoever, no fillers. I could eat their canned food, if I fried it up first, LOL - yuck.
Every time we cook any white fish, they get a small portion raw before it is seasoned. Every time we cook chicken, they get several chunks of the meaty areas, of course, before we season/salt it whatsoever. They LOVE it. NOTE - They are fed all raw meats on the bathroom floor, which is scrubbed TWICE with a strong vinegar solution afterwards, and left to dry. As a side note, I only wash flat surfaces (tables, counters, floors) with natural products so that in the event there are ingested when the cat grooms itself, they won't be harmed by any chemicals. My cats are not allowed on the sounters, but I realize I am not watching them every moment of the day, so I am careful about what I use to clean - but I digress.

Back to the issue at hand…
I do NOT feed kibble anymore. There is no such thing as a "good cat kibble". Kibble is DRY (cats require a lot of water, and most don't drink nearly enough) and as a food source, it is totally incomplete, it contains some very harmful ingredients, and it kills. Slowly but surely, kibble kills cats.

Just a scary/sick side note - some pet food companies actually use vet-euthanised pets and random road kills in their ingredients, which can be listed as "meat by-products". Think about that. Not only is it sick and sad a reprehensible, but it means your pets could be consuming the very same narcotics that are injected intravenously to kill pets humanely.

Dogs and cats have completely different dietary requirements. They have different digestive systems. They are different animals. They eat SOME of the same things in the wild, but not enough to consider them the same.

Raw meat can kill people, but cats have digestive capabilities in their extremely-acidic and very short digestive tract that is BUILT to utilize raw meat. Their teeth and jaws are built to munch bone, sinew, tendons, meat, organs, etc. These are miniature lions and tigers and cougars, in essence, and nobody would expect the big wild cats to survive on a diet consisting of dry, over-processed, cardboard kibble. If zoos fed their big cats kibble diets, the big cats would all die of urinary tract infections and liver failure and kidney failure and heart failure… failure of everything. PETA and other animal-rights groups would be all over the zoos, demanding the big cats get a proper diet for their species, pointing out how wrong it was, showing them reports and studies done on cat nutrition and health and dietary needs and husbandry, and the zoos would be forced to return to raw diets. Why are domestic cats treated differently?

"Cats are obligate carnivores, and their development has given them all the tools they need to utilize the raw meat they need to survive. With research and education, you can simulate the food your cat would be eating in the wild."

In reality, dry cat kibble is a people-convenient cop-out. How easy is it to open a bag of kibble and dump some in a bowl for Fluffy? How easy to buy the bag that says "premium" or even "organic" and dump some cardboard into a bowl for Fluffy? Fluffy is suffering.

I know this message sounds very nasty and angry … but I hope it scares kibble-religious cat owners into thinking about what their cat really needs, and about what will happen if the kibble-habit continues. Google "wild cat dietary requirements" and see what you get. Scale it down to domestic-cat portions, and that's what you should be providing for Fluffy.

http://www.hdw-inc.com/historycultureofwildcats.htm
http://www.catinfo.org - awesome site
http://cats.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/rawfooddiet.htm

[Melody]

That's exactly how I felt when I started reading about fish food and then it sparked an interest in cat food since I own one. From there to dog food as my Mother's dog has so many ailments. The 'get what you pay for' rule doesn't apply to most heat-processed food, that's for sure. I had always bought the best and most expensive foods for my pets and thought I was more than fulfilling my responsibility to them by doing so. :nah:

I don't feed raw because the meats available to humans need to be cooked to kill bacteria and parasites. The acceptable amounts of bacteria are based on the assumption that the meat will be cooked. It's not like eating fresh kill in the wild in that respect. Although we do have parasites in the wild, domesticated health isn't always at the peak levels required to control them. I never feed raw meat products to my fish either for the same reason. To complicate matters in their case, the enclosed conditions of captivity allow parasites to spread and thrive to a much greater degree than in the wild. They are also able to pick up disease from seafood that doesn't impact humans. Otherwise, I couldn't agree more.

Some info sources prey upon our love for pets and feed our fears for various reasons, so I advise those looking into it to keep a firm grip on fact and fiction before they act. Also be sure to verify all information, especially what you read online. Independent studies, books, etc are more reliable sources of information than websites as a rule. There are certainly some informative and accurate sites out there, we just have to verify that is the case before we act. It's thanks to the internet that pet lovers are finding these things out in record time.

People lead busy lives and they've been told for years that 'quality' pet food will give their pet everything they need in a convenient form. I don't think they make an active choice to sacrifice their pet's health for the sake of convenience in most situations. Healthy alternative convenience products are rapidly being developed to address the need and people are choosing them over traditional convenience food. Freeze dried treats for cats & dogs, whole food products, etc. are appearing everywhere. Many of these products have been the brainchild of frustrated pet owners. It's getting better :yes: .

Unfortunately, a lot of manufacturers are trying to jump on the bandwagon and ride the 'natural' wave with the old methods - tell a consumer it's healthy because we use this or that and they'll buy it. Garlic in heat-processed food is my fave example for that one - sure crushed garlic results in a supreme immunity builder and natural remedy, but it's useless after heat processing. Luckily they're finding it harder and harder to baffle us with BS - the age of the educated consumer is here.

[neon]

I have never trust cat food companies, I know they add so much garbage just to make it cheaper!:mad:

[Melody]

Just a reminder for those who wish to make their own food - make sure you know what you're doing.

Dogs and cats each require about 40 different nutrients in very specific proportions. If you insist on making your own pet food, consider enlisting an animal nutritionist certified by the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (www.acvn.org (http://javascript<b></b>:Start('http://www.acvn.org'))) or get help from www.balanceit.com (http://javascript<b></b>:Start('http://www.balanceit.com')) or www.petdiets.com (http://javascript<b></b>:Start('http://www.petdiets.com')), which the ACVN lists as resources on its site. ~ Consumer Reports

Don't expect a whole lot of encouragement from Vet's - many receive funding from pet food manufacturers.

Watch those health food claims in processed products, according to Consumer Reports, "For pet food, there's no official definition of organic, human-grade, premium, no fillers, or gourmet."

I didn't know they could lie about a product being human grade! Once again my pet peeve (NPI) - intentionally misleading consumers. I don't understand why that's not false advertising, but apparently it isn't. The minute I catch a food manufacturer doing that, I never touch the food again. Which means any heat-processed fish food making garlic claims will never see a dime of my money, for starters. They don't seem to get that lies only make us think "Well what else are you BS'ing about then?" and it costs them far more when we find out. :realmad:

[Laura]

Interesting - thanks for posting. I like that people are thinking and learning about pet food.

I buy my food based on this list http://www.iamscruelty.com/notTested.asp
It's the peta website on companies that don't test on animals for their pet foods. When we planned to get our kittens I decided that I wasn't comfortable supporting companies that keep other cats in labs for for food testing.

I'll try and check your list and cross reference it to the brands I'm buying - it could narrow it down a bit.

[Melody]

That's a very important aspect of the big picture and I'm glad you mentioned it. I'm not a big PETA fan in that I do think they sensationalize for donations and some of their advocates are more than a little off their rocker...lol. But in all seriousness, they sometimes do more harm than good because they're too extreme in their methods and protests. It makes people dismiss bonified issues like animal testing, which is certainly a very real concern. There's a happy medium between bringing attention to something and going to such extremes that people don't believe the outcome. The list is a great thing to arm ourselves with when we make our choices though and I'm glad they compiled it.

Plural kittens? Are they a special breed? There are so many beautiful cat breeds out there... except those freaky hairless ones, I just couldn't get used to those :eek:

[Laura]

They're just run of the mill kitties - a friend had a pregnant stray show up on their doorstep, so we took in two sisters from the litter - both medium hair with gigantic squirrel tails - one's solid black and the other is a tabby.

I've got to say, that if you're considering a kitten - two is no more work (although initial vet bills are a bit of a hit) and they have a blast playing with each other as only kitties can - having two meant they entertained each other in the middle of the night when they were young instead of waking us up.

Although I generally agree with where PETA is coming from ethically, I too often shake my head at their campaigns - I think their media person needs to get fired. While pushing the extremist envelope has a useful role - campaigns like their Ben and Jerry letter just alienates people who may otherwise think they have a point. Sea kittens isn't any better IMO.

I think there are lots of good awareness campaigns they could be highlighting that don't make people roll their eyes. They also have good lists such as this one that could be promoted better.

[Melody]

They're just run of the mill kitties - a friend had a pregnant stray show up on their doorstep, so we took in two sisters from the litter - both medium hair with gigantic squirrel tails - one's solid black and the other is a tabby.

I've got to say, that if you're considering a kitten - two is no more work (although initial vet bills are a bit of a hit) and they have a blast playing with each other as only kitties can - having two meant they entertained each other in the middle of the night when they were young instead of waking us up.

Although I generally agree with where PETA is coming from ethically, I too often shake my head at their campaigns - I think their media person needs to get fired. While pushing the extremist envelope has a useful role - campaigns like their Ben and Jerry letter just alienates people who may otherwise think they have a point. Sea kittens isn't any better IMO.

I think there are lots of good awareness campaigns they could be highlighting that don't make people roll their eyes. They also have good lists such as this one that could be promoted better.

I thought maybe since you got two, they might be a breed that you intended to mate up. Watching kittens play together is hilarious... well until they climb the curtains in full chase mode anyway, but even that's funny if you don't own $800 curtains :laugh: . They sound gorgeous - do you have pictures?

You summed up PETA much better than I did. I suppose it's what put them on the map in the first place. However, I know a lot of people who are very concerned about animals but they can't stand the PETA organization, so it's well past time to tone it down. I don't like how they sometimes get people wound up over issues by not telling the full story. Quite often it impacts someone's income or reputation and that's not fair unless they have a legit reason for doing so. If it's a bonified issue, giving people the whole story won't negatively impact the response.