"Natural And Organic
...I say the list is ridiculous
not because such ingredients may not be wonderfully nutritious but because the consumer does not really
know what part of the ingredient is being put in, in what form, how it is being protected from degradation
and toxin formation and, as you will see below, the economic math does not add up.
...Although the idea of organic agriculture is excellent, the use of the organic name just for marketing
isnt. Something may be labeled organic to entice customers but only contain a small percentage of organic
(see below). Or, it may be that the particular organic ingredient may be of low nutritional merit chicken
heads, feet and feathers can be organic. Regardless, even if the food is 100% organic prime rib, that is not
an argument for the exclusive feeding of the food to pets. ...
Human Grade
Then there are claims about USDA approved ingredients, human grade ingredients and
ingredients purchased right out of the meat counter at the grocery store. Again, at first glance and
superficiality is what marketers like to deal with it may seem that such foods would have merit over
others. But such labels only create a perception of quality. People would not consider the food pets are
designed for in the wild whole, raw prey and carrion human grade or USDA approved. Because
something is not human grade does not mean it is not healthy or nutritious. For example, chicken
viscera is not human grade but carries more nutritional value than a clean white chicken breast.
Americans think that chicken feet would not be fit for human consumption but many far eastern countries
relish them. On the other hand, human grade beef steaks fed to pets could cause serious nutritional
imbalances and disease if fed exclusively. Pet foods that create the superficial perception of quality (USDA,
human grade, etc.) with the intent of getting pet owners to feed a particular food exclusively is not what
health is about.
There are also the larger concerns of the Earths dwindling food resources and swelling population.
Should human grade food products be taken out of the mouths of people and fed to pets with all of the
excellent nutritional non-human grade ingredients put in the garbage?"
...Doing The Math
Now when I go to the grocer or health food store and find these type of ingredients in raw,
unprocessed, fresh packaged form, I dont see hardly anything for $1 a pound, let alone 50 cents. Some of
the organic meats are more than $15 a pound! Somethings afoul. But people are just not putting two and
two together. How could a producer buy such expensive ingredients (as they are leading the public to
believe they do) transport them to their human grade factory, grind, mix, extrude, retort, freeze,
package, ship, advertise and pay salespeople and hefty margins to distributors, brokers and retailers and
then sell them at retail for less than the cost of the bare starting materials? They cant. So obviously
manufactured pet foods making such claims are misleading (to put it gently). They may have organic filet
mignon and caviar in the food but it would have to be an inconsequential sprinkle at best. Consumers
must do the math and get realistic in their expectations.
Are By-Products Evil?
In the processing of human foods there are thousands of tons of by-products that cannot be readily
sold to humans. Does that make them useless or even inferior? No. Such by-products could include
trimmings, viscera, organs, bones, gristle and anything else that humans do not desire. Should these
perfectly nutritious items be buried in a landfill? As I mentioned above, while Earths resources continue
to decline and people starve around the globe, should we feed our pets only human grade foods and let
perfectly edible and sometimes even more nutritious by-products go to waste? How is that
conscionable or justifiable for either the consumer or the producer?
Road Kill and Euthanized Pets
This shift to human grade for pet foods is partly due to a variety of myths that have gotten much
stronger legs than they deserve. Lore has spread in the marketplace that road kill and euthanized pets are
used in pet foods. I have never seen the proof for this outrageous claim and after twenty years surveying
ingredient suppliers I have never found a supplier of such. However, fantastic myths easily get life and the
more fantastic they are the more life they have. Its the intellectually lazy way and what lies at the root of
so much misery. Sloppy superficial thinking is what leads to racism, sexism, religious persecution and
wars. People would like to think the world is sharply divided into right-wrong, good-evil, black-white.
Marketers capitalize on this by trying to create such sharp distinctions for consumers to easily grab on to:
human grade = good/all others = evil; organic = right/all others = wrong; rice = white/corn and wheat =black ...
Digests, Meals And Other Boogeymen
Many producers attempt to sell their products by claiming they contain no digests or meals. The
idea is that these are wicked ingredients and consumers should stay away from all products that contain
them. A digest is a product created when enzymes break down foods. After you eat a meal and it is
subjected to the acids and enzymes in the digestive tract it becomes a digest. Fermented (digested) foods
made from soy, dairy and vegetables are among the most nutritious of all foods. Some primitive peoples
bury food in the ground to rot and ferment and then uncover it later to consume it with great savor and
nutritional benefit. Scavengers survive, and survive quite well, on fermenting, rotting and digesting foods.
Meats, organs and trimmings can be likewise digested in vats creating both liquid and dried forms of
commercial pet food digests. Being predigested they are highly concentrated and nutritionally efficient. If
we are to listen to the taste buds of pets they would vote yes on digests since they find them highly
palatable.
A meal is a food product that has been ground, mixed and dried. Meals are often used in pet foods
because they are stable, easily transported, stored and handled. Dried pet foods themselves are ground,
mixed and dried meals. So that makes an interesting dilemma for those who promote their products as
having no meals.[/b]
