Processed Pet Food - The Vicious Cycle

In this blog I want to write a bit about processed dog food i.e. dry food and canned (wet) food. In our research before we put Atlas on TED it didn’t turn up much beneficial reasons to feed your companion processed food besides the obvious one of convenience. But who would sacrifice the health and wellbeing of our companions just for a quick and easy meal...

Processed pet food was first introduced in Australia in the 1960’s and most likely earlier in America and Europe. Prior to this time diseases such as cancer, autoimmune disease and diabetes were almost unheard of as well as allergies like rashes, runny eyes and nose.

There are 2 major problems with processed food and then a score of other smaller issues:

·        *The first major problem is the fact that dry and wet foods (mostly dry food) are full of fillers to bulk out the food to make it appear like there is a lot of food and fill the dog up. However, the fillers are cooked grain, which are completely un-digestible and just come out the other end. If you put your companion on a raw food diet you will immediately notice the difference in stool size and smell. A raw food diet produces tiny stool and virtually no smell. These cooked grains also bind to essential nutrients and make them unavailable.

·        *Major problem number 2 is the fact that both wet and dry foods are cooked to increase shelf life and is a part of the canning process in wet foods. Any beneficial fats and oils are destroyed and the liver does not know what to do with these changed fats and just stores them in the body. Also the cooking of food is widely known to significantly reduce the nutritional content of food. This is also true for important enzymes and biologically active essential fatty acids (EFAs). All processed pet foods are disease promoting as they lack appropriate EFAs. I have also talked to many people who don’t feed their animal companions processed pet food but cook their food at home using things like rice, pasta, cooked mince and chicken and cut up veggies but this is not much better from the processed food as:

1)      The food is cooked so nutritional content is reduced by as much as 60%

2)      The cut up veggies are not nutritious as cats and dogs have a much shorter digestive tract than humans due to the fact they primarily live of meat (this is more so for cats than dogs as I have seen numerous vegan diets for dogs, cats MUST eat meat).  To make fruit and veggies to the nutritional standard of animals in the wild, these fruit and veggies must first be completely pulverised by using either a food processor or juicer. Grating or finely cutting up the food is not good enough.

Almost every processed dog food I have ever looked at claim to make the coat shiny but how do they do it? They do this by using polyunsaturated fats (and lots of it) that is cooked and gives a shiny coat but long term problems include degenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and rheumatoid arthritis.

Processed pet food contains huge amounts of refined sugars and salt which can lead to processed food addiction just like the human epidemic of processed sugar addiction. It also contains chemicals used for colouring and flavouring (notice in some dry food the different bits are different colours, it does not come from a natural source) this is a major cause of cancer, arthritis and allergies.

Phytochemicals found in veggies that number at over 100,000 are not present in processed dog food due to the lack of veggies in the food and then the cooking process. Unlike whole raw foods which contain these in abundance. It takes many years for the loss of these nutrients to be noticed and even then the degenerative diseases that develop are just assumed to be part of the aging process. The world’s oldest recorded dog called “Bluey” an Australian cattle dog lived to be 29!!! He was born in 1910 about 50 years before processed food. Some people may pass this off as a coincidence and that processed food couldn’t possibly be responsible for the massive explosion of disease in our animal companions, but all you need to do is follow the money. Processed pet food sales in the US in 2005 were $14.5 Billion so it’s a very lucrative market and on top of that you have all those visits to the vet to deal with all these health issues which in the same year came to $17.4 billion the whole pet care industry is like a vicious circle designed to maximise profits (see below).

                                                                          

Love & Light xox