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What Is Your Dog Eating?

The Best Food For Your Dog or Cat Is . . . Fresh food!
 
Fresh chicken and turkey and beef.  Fresh raw vegetables and fruits.  Fresh yogurt, eggs, and cottage cheese.  For pets "fresh" means raw!
 
This is not "people food." Calling real food "people food" makes it sound as though people are the only living creatures who are entitled to eat fresh foods.  Virtually all living creatures thrive on real, fresh food.
 
Listen to what Dr. Martin Goldstein D.V.M. has to say about fresh food for your pet:  "You can boost your pet's health profoundly by making one simple decision. All you have to do is change his diet from commercial-brand fare to something you may never have imagined giving him: real food. The fresh food you buy at the market for yourself is the food you should give your pet, too."
 
Generations of dogs lived to ripe old ages on fresh foods... before the pet food corporations came along.
 
Pet food corporations -- "Just say no!"  What is in your pet's processed, modern food?  Do we really know what is in that bag of processed pet food?
 
Commercial dog food has only been around since the 1930s when cereal companies were trying to find something to do with their rejected grain -- their wheat and rice and corn that failed USDA inspection because of mold, rancidity, and other contaminants.  They discovered that the meat industry faced the same dilemma.  Meat that couldn't pass USDA inspection because it had spoiled or because the livestock was diseased.  The idea of mixing the rejects together and calling it "pet food" was born. Marketing firms were hired to plant this lamentable term in the public's mind, but their product was not then -- nor is it now -- "pet food." It's simply a processed artificial diet created for the benefit of the grain and meat industries and the pet food corporations.  REAL "pet food" was, is, and always will be fresh foods grown in the ground and produced by our farms - that's what your dog should eat!
 
Listen to what Dr. Richard Pitcairn D.V.M. has to say about artificial diets for your pet: "The whole concept of Insta-Meal for humans is repulsive.  Most people would soon be climbing the walls in frustration, desperate for a salad or some fruit -- anything whole and fresh, or just different!  Perhaps the thought of eating kibbles for the rest of your own life helps make the point that pets forced to do so are being shortchanged.  All of us - humans and animals - should have fresh, wholesome, live enzyme / un-cooked, unprocessed food in our daily diet."
 
Let's look at those ingredients:
  • THE GRAIN:    Virtually all artificial diets are heavily based on grains and cereals.  But dogs are not cows.  A dog has the large stomach and short straight digestive tract required to digest meat.  A cow has several small stomachs and the long winding digestive tract required to digest fibrous grain.  The two are not interchangeable!
    Even worse, many dogs are allergic to corn and soybean and wheat. They develop chronic digestive problems (loose stools, spitting up, gassiness) or itchy skin.  You'll see them licking their feet or rubbing their face against the carpet.  You might never think to associate these problems with the grain in your dog's diet, but that is often the case. 
  • Finally, the quality of this grain is suspect.  The good grain is reserved for the human market.  What goes into the pet food bin is deemed unfit for human consumption.  Mold, rancidity, contaminants - yuck!
  • THE MEAT:  Contrary to what they show you on the TV commercials, don't even think about sirloin. 
  • Your dog gets:  The "4D" meat that didn't make the cut for the human market, which means it came from livestock that was diseased, disabled, dying, or already dead when it arrived at the slaughterhouse.
  • The "by-products" - a catch-all term used by the pet food industry to mean anything stripped off the carcass other than meat, i.e. beaks, feet, head, lungs, blood, and other unmentionables.
  • To make matters worse, the meat and byproducts are laced with the hormones fed to the livestock to make them grow faster, and the antibiotics fed to the livestock to prevent massive outbreaks of disease in their crowded living conditions.  These hormones and antibiotics trickle through to your dog.
  • THE GREASY FAT:  Many dogs gobble up their kibble, yes - because it's sprayed with greasy fat to make it smell yummy. But we don't allow our children to eat only junk food because they love the smell or taste, do we? 
  • The relish with which a dog eats doesn't indicate whether something is "good" for him.
  • THE CHEMICAL PRESERVATIVES:  Preservatives are always used in artificial diets so the bags and cans last longer. That's convenient for the manufacturer, yes, who can leave it sitting in his warehouse for a long time.  Convenient for the retailer who can leave it sitting on his shelf for a long time.  Convenient for the owner who can dish it out for a long time.
  • But what is this stuff that keeps ingredients from spoiling? 
  • The most common pet food preservatives are:  Ethoxyquin - Which is actually manufactured by the giant chemical corporation Monsanto as a rubber preservative. The containers are marked POISON. The Department of Agriculture lists it as a pesticide. OSHA lists it as a hazardous chemical. BHA and BHT -- both of which cause liver and kidney dysfunction, and bladder and stomach cancer.  These chemicals are all banned in Europe.
  • Most pet foods list these preservatives right on the bag or can, but even when it doesn't say so, it's usually in there, anyway.
How can this be?  Because a legal loophole allows manufacturers to only list ingredients that  THEY themselves put into the bag.  If they buy some of their ingredients from a supplier who has already added the chemical to those ingredients...   The pet food company doesn't have to disclose that on the bag.   Isn't that nice to know?
 
Australian veterinarian Dr. Ian Billinghurst says:  "If you look at the ingredient list on a can or a bag of pet food - with understanding - you will realize that what is being listed is a heap of rubbish.  Definitely not the wholesome, nutritious food you would want to feed to a valued member of your family!" 
 
How commercial pet foods affect your dog's health?  Every day, unhappy dogs & cats parade through veterinary offices.  They suffer from:
What are these dogs eating?   Artificial diets, virtually every one of them.
 
"Most modern dog owners are taught to believe that feeding dogs is such a difficult task, it is best left to the dog food companies.  Nothing could be further from the truth." says Dr. Billinghurst.  Do the research -- It’s worth it!!  Click here to read about fresh pet dog food and what it can do for your pet. 
 
The Dog Bowl would like to invite you, the pet owner, to learn how nutrition is the MOST IMPORTANT EFFECT on your pets' health.