Thanks for the compliment, Edmund! I do try to eat the right things.

Interesting post. Mum has long suspected my food is full of rubbish and she wasn't happy to read this. At least some hoomans are doing something about this and raising awareness!

check out realfood4pets.com. my mom goes to the Pet Deli and buys me all kinds of goodied no grains allowed. It is in Fort lauderdale area. They do shipsome things. Lulu the cat

Always check the first ingredients listed!

Eddie, have you done a "how to read your pet's food label" post before? that'd be a good one. Or a good tutorial video.

Also, artificial preservatives and coloring are icky. Not only do wild animals not ravage wheat fields, they don't hunt down science lab experiments.

I switched my puppy from food that was full of corn and other grains because he was lethargic and had runny poop atleast once a day!

I put him on a new food called Orijen and his energy level skyrocketed and his poop solidified!!!

I haven't seen much research on this particular brand of food, but it seems good when I read the ingredient list. Does anyone have any info on it???

My human started buying Blue Buffalo dog food for my friend Pickle the Pit Bull, after the pet food recall of 2007. We lost our friend, Tucker, to kidney failure at that time.

I think Blue Buffalo dog food tastes great, and it doesn't make me throw up like cat food does. There's no wheat, soy, or CORN in the ingredients, and the label says that all the ingredients come from the USA.

Thanks for the article, Eddie - this is a lesson that I've been learning the hard way. My humans have been giving me some wet food each day and then letting me snack on the dry freely... then they wondered why I was so thirsty all the time - turns out that Science Diet's wet and dry for cats are both loaded with corn and wheat products. Well I started having a problem with urinary tract infections, and from the research they've done, it seems that these carbs may be to blame. I'm on the market for a new wet food, the meatier the better. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks Eddie! My mommy has been looking for the best kibble for me, but she's having a hard time finding one. I'm a 9 month old Rottweiler and I eat 6 cups of food every day! We tried "Blue" but it gives me too much gas so we're looking for something that works better with my growing system. If you could give my mommy some recommendations for good kibble it would give her more time to play with me! Thanks :)

Mom is SO glad to see you address this! My three kitty buddies, Gwen, Sarah, and Jack are all raw fed kitties, like I am (though I am a dog!!). The difference is HUGE! Mom tries hard to make sure we have a species appropriate diet by feeding us the whole prey model, with meaty bones, and organs in basic prey model porportions each week (we get fed daily, but a whole prey is divided up throughout the week). Fresh rabbit, chicken, turkey, and organ meals of liver, kidneys and heart. We are so sleek, soft, and our teeth are white as newborns! Even our vets are impressed!

Dry cat food, though, is as addicting (and as bad!!!) as fresh baked whole wheat bread is for mom (she's gluten intolerant and gets really sick!). Gwen was raised on dry cat food, his breeder felt it was best for him. But a 25 lb cat quickly becomes a 35lb cat on that junk, with no energy, dry coat, and smelly breath (not to mention the cat box!!!). Jack, Sarah, and I have been on raw since we could eat solid foods. Mom's human kids really appreciate it, too, since they are the ones who have 'poop duty'!, lol. There's hardly anything to pick up when we are feed right, and our bodies can actually absorb what I eat! But, if I am a bad dog, and go steal even a little chicken feed, I end up itching REAL bad, and turn PINK on my tummy and between my toes! So for me, at least, ANY grain is BAD! The occasional carrot goes right through me, and doesn't offer me any nutritional support at all, but it's fun to eat them, lol.

Anyway, I am excited (can't you tell?) to see Eddie bring this important issue up! I'd recommend that you check out http://www.rawfed.com/ and the Yahoo groups RawFeeding and RawCat, to learn more about feeding your friends the RIGHT way, the way their bodies NEED to be fed, to be in optimum health.

Loki, and his kitty gang

Orijen is a great food, good choice Lauren! I love the fish flavor my mom feeds me for treats. They make dog, puppy, senior and cat chow too! Sampson, you might try Evo my favorite is the red meat. I used to have an itchy rash when I came home from the shelter, but my mom found out I was allergic to Soy and probably corn too. As soon as I switched to Evo it went away and now I feel great. It can get expensive and hard to find (same with Orijen) but it's worth it. Wellness Core just came out with a fish blend and they have a chicken kind on the market as well. It is a little less expensive and easier to find. I've also heard that Solid Gold Bark at the Moon is a great choice, but I've had a hard time finding it in stores, you could order online. If anyone knows of less expensive grain-free food and treats I'm on the lookout. I just got a new sister, Fresca so now there's too of us hungry, high-energy dogs in the house we'd like to have some money left over for toys of course =)

Good article, Eddie! My sister and I have been eating dry cat food our whole lives, and we won't eat anything else. We don't even like fish or chicken. Our mommy has been trying to find a dry food to switch us to that isn't full of grains or meat by-products, but she's had a hard time finding one in stores. I noticed you said in your article that there are plenty of grain-free or low-grain pet foods. Can you give us some of the names so our mommy can look for them? Thanks!

Lola

Wow Lola you need to read Dr. Hodgkins work. She says that there is NO FORM of dry food that is okay for a cat to eat. It doesn't matter that it doesn't have grains, the very process of high heat processing and extrusion makes your cat die a slow death. Just ditch it. That goes for all those so-called "natural" and "organic" kibbles. Kibble is bad, period. It is species-inappropriate. Cats and dogs are carnivores that need to eat meat to survive not cereals, not veggies. Cats especially are obligbate carnivores and canot digest carbs in any form.

Science Diet dog food is not healthy food for dogs! I started my 8 month old puppies on Science Diet and in two months they started chewing non edible items in the house and in the yard. They had never done this before. One of them became very ill and got much worse within two days. I took the pup for emergency surgery for impacted gut, costing hundreds of dollars. They found two acorns, unchewed. These were from a Chinkapin oak in my yard. The acorns are small and slick. At first I thought it was a puppy thing. I started thinking that one acorn might have been an accident, but two…had to have been on purpose. A couple of days later when I was at a feed store I found Science Diet dog food on sale at half price. They were getting rid of it and selling other brands. Two reasons: One, they couldn’t compete with all the veternarians who were also selling it. Two, because it was not good nutrition for dogs. They told me to look at the lable…contains mostly corn…goes right through the dogs. Long story a little shorter…my pups were eating non edible items because they were HUNGRY and lacking good nutrition!! From now on I’ll be feeding Science Diet (whats left of it) to my chickens because that’s good nutrition for them, NOT my dogs!

I feed our pets homemade food (cook it up every two weeks and freeze it). The dog does get rice.

Incidentally, those of you who don't know it, dogs eat a lot of everything. They are closer to omnivores than carnivores, and some vegetable matter in their diet is good for them. Only felines are obligate carnivores.

Carol, that's not true. Dogs don't need any veggies in there diet, and did you know that meat doesn't have to be cooked for them? I feed my dog the raw diet- raw meat and bones- and he's fine, healthier than ever.

Glad you posted this Eddie. Most pet food is crap anyhow.