Eddie's Blog
About Eddie: I'm a dog on a mission. With your help, I'm going to change legislation in the U.S. to make sure chemicals are safe before they're put on the market. Read more or contact Eddie.
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National Pet Week: Good food, bad food
So, as you may have heard, I really want to test pet food. There could be all kinds of stuff in there, and I won't be satisfied until I've seen the science myself (err... until I've had someone from EWG explain it to me). Click here to find out how you can help Pets for the Environment test pet food for safety.
But even before we test the stuff, there are certain things we already know about pet food. Put them all together, and you get a pretty good pet-food shopping guide! Here's the low-down:
Avoid this stuff:
- Meat product or by-product. That means they took out all the good parts and gave them to humans, and gave us the ground-up leftovers -- bones, feet and all. Yuck.
- Rice, wheat, corn, sorghum, or any kind of flour, especially if it's high on the ingredient list. These ingredients aren't there to be nutritious, just to make you feel full. That's why they're called filler grains.
- Sugar. Yup, that's right -- some foods taste so gross that the company adds sugar to make sure pets will eat it. No wonder there's an obese pet epidemic!
Pick this stuff instead:
- Meat! A really good food will list a kind of meat as one of its first five ingredients. Some of the best list several different kinds of meat. Meat is a dog or cat's staple food.
- Fruits and veggies. A pet food with a mix of fruits and veggies (not grains) in it adds nutrition and flavor. Personally, I'm a big fan of peas. Mmmpeas...
So now you know what to look for in cat or dog food. Unfortunately, the good stuff tends to be pricey, and the less expensive stuff is full of filler and meat by-products. I don't know about you, but I think that sounds totally unfair. Shouldn't all of our food be made with safe, healthy ingredients?
My dog hates peas! He'll actually eat around them in if they're in his bowl with other food and just ignore them if they're all alone.
Carrots are good, too! Also, dried sweet potato snacks make better chewies than rawhide. I'd make sure they're the ones from the US and not the ones from China though. The ones made in China have a ton of added sugar and are eaten by people as a sweet. NOT a good idea for dogs. Definately watch for sugar.
I'm looking forward to seeing the results of these tests! Thanks for raising awareness, Eddie!
Yes the good stuff is more expensive. I have three cats on a raw meat diet and it makes a dent in my bank statement. But it's nothing compared to the vet bills (office visits and surgeries) I was paying for my overweight, pre-diabetic cat we switched just in time, and my other cat with kidney, liver, and bladder problems. And does anyone know the average cost of treating a cat or dog with cancer? Prevention, prevention, prevention!
And the so-called good stuff might not necessarily be so good either as lots of us learned from the 2007 pet food recalls. I would love to know what you find after getting food tested, Im guessing theres more than peas and carrots....
I only feed my cats the "good stuff". I have found that even though they are more expensive, they last longer. I ran out of my normal stuff and had to feed the cheaper stuff and I ended up feeding twice as much of it. My cats were always hungry with it and the litterbox smelled like something died in there.... Once we went back to our normal food, I went back to feeding a lot less every day. That makes me wonder how much "cheaper" the ones will fillers actually are. Also, I don't know about anyone else, but my cat gets furocious diarrhea from anything with grains in it.
I'm with Cate--my kitties only eat Fromm (with frequent snacks from Stella & Chewy) after the pet food recall, when the "natural" food we had been feeding them ended up on the recall list. Did some research, found our new brand, and couldn't be happier with the results. Draggy and KissE have great coats, shed and eat less, and the litter boxes are just dreamy!
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