Pet Food Secrets and Conspiracies

There are web sites and newsletters circulating 'Pet Food Secrets' or a 'Pet Food Conspiracy' by manufacturers of pet food, with horror stories concerning commercial pet food and ingredients. Although these mainly emanate from the US and relate to the US pet food industry, we thought it appropriate to make a considered response to certain myths and how they relate to Burns Real Food in the UK.

see also natural vs. synthetic vitamins, BARF (Raw Food diet), Pet Food Labels

Pet Food Secrets 1

Cooking food kills enzymes essential for digestion

Many people tell us that there are enzymes in raw food and these help to digest the food. Cooking kills these enzymes and this reduces digestibility compared to raw.
I have spoken to a veterinary molecular scientist about the existence of these enzymes. I have searched the literature. I am none the wiser. Simple common sense and experience tell us that cooking actually increases digestibility.

We know from traditional Oriental medicine that if a person has a digestive disorder their food should be cooked for a much longer time in order to make it more digestible. The amount of faeces produced on Burns food is very small. This shows a very high degree of digestibility.

Increasing the digestibility of the food is an important way of treating bowel disease and problems of malabsorption and cooking does this.

John Burns BVMS MRCVS 2003

Pet foods contains cancer causing chemical preservatives including BHA, BHT and Ethoxyquin

We believe that Burns was the first UK company to remove these from the food (and replaced them with Vitamin E and Rosemary Oil) in 1997.

Pet foods contain euthanased pets, zoo animals and road kill.

This may be a myth started by raw food advocates to stop people feeding commercial pet foods. Although some studies in the US claim that pet food contains levels of phenobarbitone (the chemical used for euthanasia) this has not been seen in UK pet foods.

Pet owners wanting to know the type of meat used in a pet food should choose one that lists the source by name rather than a more general term such as 'animal meat' or 'animal derivatives'

All the ingredients in Burns are labeled and we only use chicken, fish, pork, venison, lamb and duck in our diets. Burns is made in the UK.

Pet foods contain added to sugar to cause addiction

Burns does not contain added sugar, in fact some of our diets are suitable for dogs with diabetes.

Pet food manufacturers add stool hardening agents to pet food

We do not add these to Burns. Our view is that loose stools are usually caused by a poor quality diet or by over-feeding not a lack of bulking ingredients in the food. Burns is a low residue diet (dogs and cats produce less faeces) because it is so digestible.

Meat is never the largest ingredient in pet food

In Burns the main ingredient is not meat. We have done this purposely because it helps to keep the protein and fat at controlled levels. In our experience, diets with a high protein and fat content can cause many health problems due to over-nutrition. We do not try to hide the fact that meat is not the first ingredient. This can be easily done by adding several types of carbohydrate to the diet. E.g.

‘Chicken, rice flour, ground rice, rich starch’ If the company were to label the rice as one ingredient it would be a larger amount than the chicken and therefore the first ingredient.

Meat meal is made of derivatives and by-products

Meat meal is the meat, organs and bones of the animal that are left once the meat for the human food industry has been removed e.g. chicken breasts. The meat, organs and bones are then dried and ground and reach the factory in this state. Meat meal does not include feathers, hooves, blood, intestinal content and other undesirable parts of the animal and is a highly digestible source of nutrients.

Pet food manufacturers tell you not to feed table scraps

At Burns we are happy to give advice on producing a home prepared diet; there is also information in our Guide to Natural Health Care about this. Table scraps can be added to Burns, especially vegetables if the dog is health -, however we do not advise adding extra scraps to encourage a fussy dog to eat or if the dog has a health problem.

Top of page

Pet Food Secrets 2

The debate about natural vs. synthetic vitamins

Natural forms of vitamins and minerals are very unstable and consistency can never be guaranteed, this can cause large variations in nutritional levels. These large fluctuations can be detrimental to the quality of the food. The natural forms also have an unknown bio-availability and therefore specific levels cannot be guaranteed; they are also associated with undesirable substances for example heavy metals, which would be detrimental to the pet. The variability is too inconsistent for us to confidently use natural forms of vitamins and minerals.

The NRC (National Research Council) and AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) publish recommendations for the minimum levels of 17 vitamins and trace minerals that should be present in nutritionally complete pet foods. These figures are based upon deficiency and toxicity cases presented to vets, and some feeding trials. Natural ingredients, by definition, are very unlikely to contain consistent quantities of these nutrients (e.g. due to seasons, weather, soil type, etc) therefore, supplementation with exact quantities is necessary in order to prevent chronic deficiencies or toxicities.

Whilst it could be possible to reach the minimum levels necessary (using natural vitamins), the balance between nutrients is very important. For example, seaweed can contain high levels of magnesium which interferes with the uptake of zinc and copper from the diet. Also, in order to meet the minimum levels of less prevalent nutrients such selenium; you would need to add high quantities of seaweed, which could in turn lead to toxic levels of other nutrients, such as iodine.

Many vitamins found in nature do not survive the cooking process. For example, the natural form of vitamin E is delta-tocopherol but this is virtually destroyed with mild processing temperatures. We add alpha-tocopherol, which survives very well and is absorbed efficiently from the gut.

Top of page

Pet Food Secrets 3

Raw Feeding

The BARF or “Evolutionary” Diet is based on the principle that domestic dogs should be fed on a diet which replicates as closely as possible the diet of the wild dog. According to Dr Billinghurst domestic dogs have been fed on processed (cooked) foods for only approximately 70 years and this is not a long enough time to adapt to cooked foods.

To replicate the diet of the wild dog he recommends that all carbohydrate should be avoided and pet dogs and cats should be fed on a diet based on raw meaty bones and raw vegetables . Dr Billinghurst insists that because of this evolutionary history the BARF DIET is the ONLY correct way to feed the modern domestic pet dog.

The problem with the evolutionary argument is that domestic dogs bear little relationship to the original wild dog. Very early in their association it is likely that man selected and bred those animals which suited his purpose e.g. guarding, hunting, more docile, less independent – even better suited to the food provided by man.

There are practical reasons why the diet of the wild dog is not automatically suitable for the domestic dog. The modern dog and its lifestyle bear no similarity whatever to the wild dog. We provide shelter in heated houses, they do not have to forage or compete for food, they eat every day, and they have little exercise compared to a wild dog.

Many dogs have dietary sensitivity which means that they need a highly digestible diet, low in protein and low in fat. I can’t see how that could be achieved with a BARF diet.

Modern farm livestock is reared in such a way that the fat content, even in “lean” meat is very high. So a diet high in meat will inevitably be high in fat too.

John Burns BVMS MRCVS

For a considered review of BARF follow this link (pdf file) or a shorter version

Top of page

Pet Food Secrets 4

PET FOOD LABELS – SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Adapted from a seminar led by Carvel G. Tiekert, DVM (Animal Clinic of Harford City, Bel Air, MD) at the North American Veterinary Conference – 2003 Proceedings

Over the past few years a plethora of new foods have shown up on the market with all kinds of claims and counterclaims. Various marketing strategies have only led to confusion as to what these claims mean. This paper hopes to at least let us grasp some understanding of what the label means.

As we look at a label for the supposed purpose of the food (and here we look mostly at dog food, though now we have the same thing happening for cat foods), we see there is one for puppies, one for maintenance, one for seniors, etc. The focus of these differences is primarily on what levels of protein (crude) and fat is in the food. Interestingly, according to AAFCO (American Association of Feed Controls Officials, a quasi-federal regulatory agency), 18% protein, that level which is in most ‘senior’ formulas is adequate for all stages of life.

We’ll start by looking at the major components of a food, protein, fat and carbohydrates.

PROTEIN

Protein, particularly the level of the protein, is the component of the food that most people make their most serious judgment of which food they want to use.

Unfortunately, this is also one of the most confusing issues to look at. Since protein is listed as ‘crude protein’ it can be difficult to determine just how ‘crude’ and thereby digestible the product is. Digestibility is critical to the body for proper utilisation of the food. A poor level of digestibility changes the significance of the percentage of protein in the food.

In my experience, many animals do better on foods with moderate to low levels of high quality protein. Remember, protein is only needed for maintenance and repair (primarily of muscles); otherwise it becomes an expensive energy source.

WHAT CAN WE TELL FROM THE LABEL.........

HIGHLY DIGESTIBLE: Egg, Meat or Meat Meal, Chicken or Chicken Meal or Lamb Meal etc. A clean combination of flesh and skin with or without bone. This supplies the best quality animal protein for maximum digestibility and reduced work for the system.

POORLY DIGESTED: Meat By-Products, Lamb By-Products or Chicken By-Products. Consists of hard to digest animal heads, feet, lungs, spleens, stomachs, etc.

WHAT WE CAN’T TELL FROM THE LABEL........

Ingredients must be put on the label in order of the amount of the ingredients. With an 18% protein product, we would normally expect the animal protein source to be the second or third ingredient. Since high quality whole grain has protein, if the animal protein source is high quality, it should not be the first ingredient.

FATS AND FATTY ACIDS

Fats and fatty acids are also supplied in various ways. The animal protein meals contain fat, grains contain fatty acids and both fats and oils are available as single ingredients.

WHAT WE CAN TELL FROM THE LABEL...........

Fat is normally of animal origin and is usually listed as either ‘animal fat’ or poultry fat’. Oils are usually from vegetable sources, and unless stated are normally of varied sources. Oils do not contain all of the essential fatty acids.

WHAT WE CAN’T TELL FROM THE LABEL..........

Again, the quality and type is at the discretion of the manufacturer and can be anything from tallow to table grade fat. Lower grade fats are more difficult for the animal to utilise and they require more preservatives to stabilise them.

Smaller amounts of table grade fat (good quality) can deliver the same level of energy as a larger amount of poorer quality tallow fat. This may be something you can determine from the guaranteed analysis.

CARBOHYDRATES

These vary from whole grains, which not only supply high quality complex carbohydrates to products which have been stripped of most of their nutritional benefits.

WHAT WE CAN TELL FROM THE LABEL...........

GOOD: Ground whole grains e.g. ground brown rice, ground yellow corn, oatmeal etc.

POOR: Ground grains or flour e.g. ground wheat, wheat flour, rice flour, brewer’s rice.

Basically simple carbohydrates. Sometimes by-products of other industries and inexpensive for manufacturers to buy. They tend to be stripped of essential vitamins and minerals.

WHAT WE CAN’T TELL FROM THE LABEL..........

In this situation, we again can’t tell the quality of the ingredient from the label.

OTHER THINGS WE CAN TELL FROM THE LABEL...........

What preservatives are used in the food? Most pet foods (and for that matter most human foods) are preserved with a variety of chemicals. The average 25 pound dog will consume between 6 and 9 pounds of chemical preservatives a year if fed on a diet preserved with chemical additives. Not in my opinion, the best thing nutritionally.

Pet foods can also be preserved with natural antioxidants (primarily Vitamins E and C). Besides being natural preservatives, Vitamins E and C have nutritional benefits.

A food requiring one cup per 25 pounds of body weight is of higher quality than a food that requires one cup per 15 pounds of body weight. (The lower the feeding recommendations the higher the quality of food).

NB: Foods containing BHA and BHT chemical preservatives may be labelled such as:

‘Contains EC permitted preservatives, or contains EU permitted antioxidants’

Top of page