What should Dogs & Cats be eating?

Aside from what they can steal off the table and any wild animals they might happen to catch and consume, your pet’s nutrition is your total responsibility. You determine both the quality and the quantity of what they are fed. Cats are obligate carnivores. This means that they must eat meat to survive. According to veterinarian Dr. Gary Richter, “The vast majority of a feline diet should be meat based, and all the protein should be sourced from meat.” Depending on who you ask, dogs are either carnivores or omnivores. Ultimately this just means that dogs have a bit more flexibility in their diet in that they’ll eat non-meat food. That being said, most dogs do best on a meat-based diet.

The Trouble With Kibble 

What do we mean by “kibble”? It’s those hard, dry pellets that come in bags and boxes that people purchase to feed their pets. It’s so common that when many people think of “pet food,” kibble is what immediately comes to mind. But this wasn’t always the case… Only 100 or so years ago most dogs were being fed table scraps. House and barn cats caught mice, birds, and other small animals and were given saucers of milk to drink. As more people moved from the country to the city, however, the demand for convenient pet foods increased. People were eating canned foods themselves and thus the natural evolution was canned foods for pets. But during WWII this became a problem when metal was being rationed and cans were no longer available for pet food. This was the advent of dry food for pets. Then in the 1950s, the Ralston Purina company (now Purina) innovated a new process for creating dry pet food called “extrusion.” Extrusion is when ingredients are mixed together to create a soft, dough-like substance that is heated and extruded (pushed) through a small hole. The dough expands and cools and becomes a uniform piece of pet food known as kibble. The same basic process for creating kibble pioneered by Purina is still used today. Along with the rise of pet food manufacturing, an organization called the Pet Food Institute was formed in the 1960s. The Institute started a campaign warning pet owners that feeding table scraps was dangerous. Instead, pet owners should only feed “complete” foods. In other words, they should only feed processed pet foods that they purchased.

The Pet Food Institute still operates today and states on its “About Us” page that its members “make 98% of all U.S. pet food products.” As an industry association it’s primary purpose is to promote and protect the pet food industry. By the way, according to the website Statistica.com, the pet food market in the United States alone was valued at 24.6 billion dollars in 2016.

Do Pet Food Standards Provide a False Sense of Security?

Most commercially-produced foods you’ll find on store shelves will proudly display an AAFCO stamp on their packaging. You’ll often see claims such as “our pet food meets or exceeds AAFCO guidelines” and “this food provides complete and balanced nutrition.” But what do these claims really mean, if anything? And what is the AAFCO? According to their website, the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) is “an independent membership association of local, state and federal agencies charged by law to regulate the sale and distribution of animal feeds and animal drug remedies.” AAFCO doesn’t have any regulatory authority itself, but its guidelines are used by government agencies. As it turns out, the phrase “complete and balanced” is actually a legally-protected term which can only be used on foods that meet AAFCO standards. In other words, a pet food manufacturer can’t make the claim unless their food passes the AAFCO testing process.

This all sounds great, and it must mean that any food bearing this claim must be healthy for your pet, right? Well… maybe not. When it comes down to it, the AAFCO testing isn’t all that rigorous when it comes to ensuring the quality of pet food. The basic testing process goes something like this:

1 Ingredients are reviewed to make sure they are not overly toxic and include some representation from the basic food groups.

2 The food is then tested on a minimum of eight (8) healthy animals.

3 Blood samples are taken and the average group number for each test is determined. The results are considered “normal” if the average blood test values shows no anemia and there are normal values for liver enzymes, protein levels, and hemoglobin.

4 As long as the animals don’t die of “nutritional causes” and the blood test values are satisfactory, the food passes. It doesn’t matter if the animals are itchy, lame, sickly, gain or lose weight, or dislike the food. This seems like a pretty low bar for a product that an animal can potentially be eating for its entire life. Hence it comes back to you as a good pet parent to take a closer look at what’s actually in those packages and cans you’re giving your precious pet.