Scary stuff out there, folks. Pets dying, rat poison, plastic by-products, who knew this stuff was in our pet food? Who would’ve known if not for the pet food recalls?
I did. Or at least I did once I did the research on my own. This is what I found out. In our pet foods the following are regularly included and are, in many cases, the major components that make up the ‘nutrition’ in pet foods.
Dead cats and dogs that were euthanized and stored in freezers at the vet’s office until they could be picked up by the company that bought them. Including collars, flea collars, tags and other things left on the pets. Yes, your vet may be selling his patients’ remains to the very companies we rely on feeding our animals. The phenol barbital used to euthanize pets doesn’t break down either in the rendering process, so our pets are eating that too.
Trays upon trays of rotting meat from grocery stores. Maggot-infested rotten meat, styrofoam trays and plastic wrapping all get tossed in to be rendered down and used as ‘nourishment’ for our animal companions. Why are the trays and plastic included? Simply because it’s too expensive and slows production too much to have workers unwrap the rotting meat. In other words it’s less hassle to just toss the trash in with the ‘good meat’.
Feathers, rotting chickens from slaughter houses, rotting offal from slaughterhouses. Dead and rotting cattle, pigs and horses are included as well.
The grains used as filler for the majority of foods isn’t good for our pets either. The grains make our pets feel full but our dogs and cats don’t have the necessary digestive equipment to digest and metabolize cereals like we do. They don’t need them, get no benefit from them, and all it does is raise their blood glucose levels and make more poop as it passes through them.
I’m not worried about my animals because I make their food for them. In much the same spirit as cooking my own food instead of using convenience foods I make food for my pets. This way I know what’s going in the food exactly. I know how much, where it came from and how it was handled and prepared.
But the best part is that it’s not terribly expensive and it’s pretty easy to do. The benefits? Besides the obvious one of not having to worry about the next terrible discovery? No more dog smells, no more stinky breath, less shedding, healthy teeth and gums, less water consumption, smaller and less frequent poop that dissolves into the ground in a matter of days, less chance of bloat and less vet visits.
Those are just a few of the benefits and there are many to be had.
Before deciding to feed your dogs a raw diet you should certainly read all the available research, even that which denounces the benefits of feeding raw, and make your own decision about it. Do a Google search on ‘feeding raw’ or ‘BARF diet’ and read the material. Beware the zealots, there seem to be a lot of them in the BARF community. There’s no need to be militant, in my opinion. For many people this may not be practical for whatever reason, and that’s fine, dogs and cats do (normally) ok on commercial diets. But if you’re going to feed commercial food then you should do so with your eyes wide open and fully aware of what, exactly, you’re feeding your beloved pets.
A sample meal for my dogs consists of the following:
1-2 raw chicken backs for each of the bigger dogs
1 chicken wing for the chihuahua
1 broccoli crown
1 tomato
4 carrots
1000mg vitamin C
3000mg fish oil
2 eggs or equivalent piece of liver or other offal
Everything but the chicken is blended together in the food processor and divided among the dogs. The chicken is eaten raw, bones and all. Some days they don’t get veggies and other days that’s all they get (with eggs or offal, of course). While we need to make sure we’re providing our animals with complete nutrition we need to keep in mind that every meal doesn’t have to be a scientifically balanced diet. As long as you feed a variety of foods the nutritional needs are likely to be met.
Just remember, don’t rely only on what you read from one or two sources, do your own research. There is myriad information to study from all sorts of perspectives. You should figure out which perspective you assign the most veracity to.
