I think the new Dog foods that are *supposed* to be fabulous and organic is a response to the actual high quality and expensive Dog foods that are made from human grade foods. Clearly, there is a market for dog food that is not made out of chicken feathers and road kill. I think one way to separate the real high quality foods from the fake quality foods is the presence of corn in the ingredients as well as the food coloring added.
Dogs don’t care what color their food is and just because kibble is green and orange doesn’t mean it’s made out of vegetables. This is especially true when one of the main ingredients in the food is either corn or corn gluten. There is a very successful line of Dog food that is filled with artificial color and tons of corn and it amazes me that people think that because it has happy Doggy shapes(bones) and is very colorful that it has any food value whatsoever.
Corn is almost nutritionally useless to dogs. Dying corn orange and green does nothing to increase the value of corn for your Dog. I’ve found that less gimmicks and more substance is the way to go when I’m choosing what foods I feed both my Dog and my parents Dog and when I’m talking with friends about what they give to their pampered pets.
Remember, the more color in your Dogs food the more likely it is that you’re feeding them *Lucky Charms* for Dogs. You wouldn’t want to live on a diet of filler and they shouldn’t either. The Dog food manufacturers put the different colors into food to make the owners happy and to sell more Dog food. I’m still amazed that such a simple and transparent campaign has worked so well. Last week I had to have my car towed and the wonderful tow truck driver told me that he fed is Dog *XYZ* food because it was mainly about vegetables and I know that the first ingredient is corn and that it’s not the best food for his Puppy. I was only with him for the 10 minute drive to the garage so there wasn’t time for me to say anything about what he was actually feeding his Dog so I let it go. But it never fails to amaze me that people think that colorful Dog food has the best ingredients……
Emily on October 6th 2007 in Dog Nutrition
| It’s difficult for me to not insert a frowny face in here but Mary said not to do that kind of thing anymore….and again, that comment deserves a frown as well!When Thurber was staying with me we had a little problem of him not wanting to eat dog food. Thurber typically eats a died of a high quality kibble complemented with either salmon or fillet mignon. I was giving him hamburger with some salmon but I didn’t think he was eating enough and he had a stomach ache so I wanted to trick him into eating pumpkin to help his system relax. For the last year I’ve heard about *the best dog food ever* and it’s supposed to be the best because it’s all human grade food and looks just like beef stew.I’ve bought this food a few times in the past, for Bae, but because so much of the can is gravy I figured that I was spending my money on some food and a lot of water and I stopped considering it. I bought it for Thurber because of the gravy and figured that because it had real pieces of meat in it that he would like it. He didn’t like it at all which was not all that surprising considering that the list of food he won’t eat is about a mile long. I knew Bae would love it so I picked up her dish and started spooning out the ’stew’ for her. Because the cubes of meat looked so real I chose to pick one up between my thumb and index finger to find out what the texture was.
To make a horrible story short, this *thing* between my fingers was not meat at all but this molded combination of bone meal and God knows what and when I smelled it it smelled nothing like any meat product I’ve ever been exposed to(insert huge frowny face). It was so disgusting that I threw up when I was describing the event to Mary.
So why go to the effort of shaping this awful potion into what looks like real meat and more importantly, what the $%@# is it really?
I feed Bae a combination of wet food, kibble and meat and because I buy what I know is a high quality dog food I haven’t questioned how dog food is made. Now that I know how repulsive one of the leading brands of dog food is and that they go out of their way to make it look like what most of us grew up eating I’m going on a quest to break down what really goes into dog food. Given the fact that I’m sensitive to grossness this may not be fun but I have to tell you that I felt badly that Bae was so happy with the fake cubes of meat.
Look forward to learning about the good, the bad and the ugly about the dog food industry but at the end of this I will have more information about what I’m feeding my dog and you will have a better idea about what you’re feeding your dog(s). |
Emily on September 19th 2007 in Dog Nutrition
