People tend to think that commercial dog food, especially if it has been recommended by their veterinarian is of good quality and is giving your dog the best chance in life. Right?
Wrong!
While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.
After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.
In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.
After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.
This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.
Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.
Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?
Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?
Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.
Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.
As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.
It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.
So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?
Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Healthy Dog Food - How do You Find One
Most people don’t stop to think about the food they are giving their dog. The colourful packs on the laden supermarket shelves are normally as far as people give dog food a thought. You may be one of them, but are now branching out and looking for something a bit healthier.
Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.
But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.
Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.
Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.
Period.
There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.
Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).
A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:
A typical commercial dog food consists of:
So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.
If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.
I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?
That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.
However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.
Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.
But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.
Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.
Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.
Period.
There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.
Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).
A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:
- raw food
- lots of raw bones
- internal organs are consumed, but these are scarce compared with the muscle meat
- carbohydrates which are limited to the stomach contents, so is small in the overall content
A typical commercial dog food consists of:
- cooked food (many vitamins, enzymes and other nutrients are destroyed by cooking)
- the meat is of poor (often extremely poor) quality (humans get the good stuff)
- carbohydrates, in particular sugar, are a major part of the food - it’s cheap and bulks out the ‘meat’
- the food is fortified with strong preservatives (not allowed in human food for their dangerous impact on health) - DESPITE WHAT THE LABEL SAYS
- to try to redress the nutritional imbalance, isolated and synthetic nutrients are added - nutrients which can’t be properly absorbed and utilised when they are in isolation, or if they are synthetic
So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.
If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.
I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?
That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.
However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Raw Dog Food - How Can You Be Sure It’s Healthy?
Most people feel reassured by the pictures of smiling veterinarians and dog breeders paying tribute to the commercial pet food they feed their dog. Or perhaps, you’ve been convinced by your own vet that the food they sell is sure to be nutritionally balanced.
For your dog’s sake, be a bit suspicious. Don’t be convinced by anyone (including me) that what they are trying to sell you is necessarily in your dog’s best interest.
Instead, it may be in their own best interest if they gain a sale from convincing you.
If you’re having a problem getting your head around the idea of raw dog food, then I suggest it’s your problem, not your dog’s.
Dogs evolved on a diet of raw food over millennia. Humans have only recently taken an interest in making dog food.
Do you really imagine, for one moment, that humans have been able to change the domestic dog’s digestive and immune system in fifty odd years?
You may well say that humans have had an impact on the way dogs look, with all the different breeds. Yes, that’s true. But have you also noticed that pedigree dogs are also the most unhealthy? What I call a Heinz 57 dog, is normally much healthier.
So in breeding a selective type of dog, humans have gone against nature, by isolating one or more traits, until the breed becomes what the breeder wants.
And so it is with food. Humans tinker about with food, under the guise of ‘science’. I call it junk science, because there’s nothing scientific about commercial dog food. The word ‘science’ has come to be revered by the majority. Just as the word ‘natural’ is currently enjoying popularity.
So a clever commercial dog food manufacturer will incorporate the word ‘science’ and/or ‘natural’ in the advertising, to lure you in.
That doesn’t mean there’s anything of quality within the packet or can It could be anything. You have no way of knowing how the food was prepared or what is in each pack.
Raw dog food, on the other hand, contains all the nutrients essential to a healthy dog.
I appreciate that it may take you time to get your head around the idea, because you’ve probably been brought up on the idea that commercial pet food is the healthiest way to go.
If that was true, how cum that dogs health invariably improves when a switch from commercial to raw dog food is made? The only way you’re really going to find out for sure is to try it out yourself.
You may be worried about parasites and bacteria in raw dog food.
Neither of these are an issue for dogs, whose digestive system is very robust, with powerful digestive juices. Dogs aren’t carnivores, they’re omnivores, which means they can eat anything (as long as it’s raw), including vegetation and rotting carcasses.
In fact, you will notice that when you feed a raw dog food, fleas and worms decrease and almost disappear.
Dogs have problems with unnatural foods - those that are cooked, those that contain preservatives. Neither of these are natural. Cooking destroys many vitamins and denatures other nutrients.
I can genuinely assure you, that your dogs health will improve considerably when you start feeding a raw dog food. There may be a ‘de-toxing’ period initially, but this is normal, natural and only takes a short time to go through.
Why not try it for a month and see for yourself? What have you got to lose?
For your dog’s sake, be a bit suspicious. Don’t be convinced by anyone (including me) that what they are trying to sell you is necessarily in your dog’s best interest.
Instead, it may be in their own best interest if they gain a sale from convincing you.
If you’re having a problem getting your head around the idea of raw dog food, then I suggest it’s your problem, not your dog’s.
Dogs evolved on a diet of raw food over millennia. Humans have only recently taken an interest in making dog food.
Do you really imagine, for one moment, that humans have been able to change the domestic dog’s digestive and immune system in fifty odd years?
You may well say that humans have had an impact on the way dogs look, with all the different breeds. Yes, that’s true. But have you also noticed that pedigree dogs are also the most unhealthy? What I call a Heinz 57 dog, is normally much healthier.
So in breeding a selective type of dog, humans have gone against nature, by isolating one or more traits, until the breed becomes what the breeder wants.
And so it is with food. Humans tinker about with food, under the guise of ‘science’. I call it junk science, because there’s nothing scientific about commercial dog food. The word ‘science’ has come to be revered by the majority. Just as the word ‘natural’ is currently enjoying popularity.
So a clever commercial dog food manufacturer will incorporate the word ‘science’ and/or ‘natural’ in the advertising, to lure you in.
That doesn’t mean there’s anything of quality within the packet or can It could be anything. You have no way of knowing how the food was prepared or what is in each pack.
Raw dog food, on the other hand, contains all the nutrients essential to a healthy dog.
I appreciate that it may take you time to get your head around the idea, because you’ve probably been brought up on the idea that commercial pet food is the healthiest way to go.
If that was true, how cum that dogs health invariably improves when a switch from commercial to raw dog food is made? The only way you’re really going to find out for sure is to try it out yourself.
You may be worried about parasites and bacteria in raw dog food.
Neither of these are an issue for dogs, whose digestive system is very robust, with powerful digestive juices. Dogs aren’t carnivores, they’re omnivores, which means they can eat anything (as long as it’s raw), including vegetation and rotting carcasses.
In fact, you will notice that when you feed a raw dog food, fleas and worms decrease and almost disappear.
Dogs have problems with unnatural foods - those that are cooked, those that contain preservatives. Neither of these are natural. Cooking destroys many vitamins and denatures other nutrients.
I can genuinely assure you, that your dogs health will improve considerably when you start feeding a raw dog food. There may be a ‘de-toxing’ period initially, but this is normal, natural and only takes a short time to go through.
Why not try it for a month and see for yourself? What have you got to lose?
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