5 Shocking Facts About Commercial Dog Food

After publishing an article online about my dog Joe and his battle with Canine Liver Disease, I was inundated with e-mails from dog owners worldwide whose pets were suffering from diseases of the heart, kidneys and various chronic digestive problems.

In many cases, after simply changing their pets diet I was fascinated to note there were major marked improvements in the health of their dogs across a wide range of canine diseases.

After many hours of research I made a series of shocking discoveries about the commercial dog food that many people feed their much-loved pethere is just a sample of the information that I was amazed to find

Meat or Poultry by-products are very common in wet pet foods. The better brands of pet food, such as many super-premium, natural, and organic varieties, do not use by-products. On the label, you'll see one or more named meats among the first few ingredients, such as turkey or lamb. These meats are still mainly leftover scraps; in the case of poultry, bones are allowed, so chicken consists mainly of backs and framesthe spine and ribs, minus their expensive breast meat. The small amount of meat left on the bones is the meat in the pet food. Even with this less-attractive source, pet food marketers are very tricky when talking about meat

So-called 4D animals (dead, dying, diseased, disabled) were only recently banned for human consumption and are still legitimate ingredients for pet food.

Contrary to the myth propagated by pet food companies, dry food is not good for teeth. Given that the vast majority of pets eat dry food, yet the most common health problem in pets is dental disease, this should be obvious. Humans do not floss with crackers, and dry food does not clean the teeth.

A claim that a named meat (chicken, lamb, etc.) is the #1 ingredient is generally seen for dry food. Ingredients are listed on the label by weight, and raw chicken weighs a lot, since contains a lot of water. If you look further down the list, you're likely to see ingredients such as chicken or poultry by-product meal, meat-and-bone meal, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, or other high-protein meal. Meals have had the fat and water removed, and basically consist of a dry, lightweight protein powder. It doesn't take much raw chicken to weigh more than a great big pile of this powder, so in reality the food is based on the protein meal, with very little chicken to be found. This has become a very popular marketing gimmick, even in premium and health food type brands



Feeding recommendations or instructions on the packaging are sometimes inflated so that the consumer will end up feeding and purchasing more food. One of the most common health problems in pets, obesity, may also be related to high-carb, high-calorie dry foods. Both dogs and cats respond to low-carb wet food diets. Overweight pets are more prone to arthritis, heart disease, and diabetes.