Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats (4 page)

All of these are widely used in pet foods. Such ingredients would certainly boost the
crude
protein content, but provide relatively little nourishment. (It’s surely not
my
idea of a good meal for an animal.)

Because of the addition of tough, fibrous ingredients, dogs are typically able to utilize only about 75 percent of the protein in meat meal. And all meat meal is made even less digestible by the high cooking temperatures required to sterilize it. Dried blood meal, another cheap ingredient, contains even less usable protein.

As with protein, other basic ingredients can vary widely in both quality and digestibility.

Carbohydrates
can be an excellent source of nutrients. In many products, however, as in a soft-moist dog food, they usually come from such empty-calorie sources as sugar (sucrose), propylene glycol, and corn syrup. I have also been told that leftover donuts from the fast-food industry have been used as carbohydrates in pet food, as well as moldy and rancid grains unacceptable for human consumption. Higher quality products, on the other hand, will contain complex carbohydrates from whole grains—which are much more nutritious. Except for the sugars, it is difficult to tell by reading the label just what you are getting in your pet food.

Other examples of carbohydrate sources are:

• Rice flour—finely powdered, usually the end process of milling and of very low nutritional value.
  
• Beet sugar—the dried residue from the sugar beet.
  
• Corn gluten meal—dried residue from corn after the removal of starch, germ, and bran. Little, if any, nutritional value.
  
• Brewer’s rice—rice sections that have been discarded from the manufacturing of beer, which contain pulverized, dried, spent hops. Little, if any, nutritional value.
  
• Rancid or moldy grains—unacceptable for human use.
  

Fats
most often come from animal fats rejected for human consumption. Such fats may be rancid, a state that makes the fats actually toxic to the body. Rancidity also robs fats of essential vitamins.

Fiber
may simply come from whole grains and vegetables, or it can mean that extra filler fiber has been added from sources like peanut hulls, hair, or even newspapers.

As you see, by itself the chemical analysis on the label does not mean a whole lot. To underscore this point, one veterinarian concocted a product containing the same composition of the basic proteins, fats, and carbohydrates as a common brand of dog food by using old leather shoes, crankcase oil, and wood shavings. My point is that labels don’t always tell us enough. Be especially wary of pet food that lists its ingredients in generic categorical terms like these:

• Meal and bone meal
  
• Meat by-products
  
• Dried animal digest
  
• Poultry by-product meal
  
• Poultry by-products
  
• Digest of poultry by-products
  
• Liver glandular meal
  
• Chicken by-products
  
• Dried liver digest
  
• Fish meal
  
• Fish by-products
  

The Pet Food Institute, which represents the industry, has repeatedly sought permission from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use more of these collective ingredient terms. The industry members argue that it allows them to choose a “least cost mix” from each class of ingredients. Some of the sought-after terms have included “processed animal and marine protein products,” “vegetable products,” and “plant fiber products.” Can you see how a term like “vegetable products” doesn’t really tell us anything about what is in the food? After all, a vegetable product can mean any part of any plant or the residue of any plant after manufacturing. They want these labels to be used because they are so vague and ill-defined, and it gives them much latitude in choosing what to put in the food under the same label term.

Can you imagine “poultry by-products” or “dried animal digest” used by less reputable manufacturers to include such waste ingredients as feathers or hair in your pet’s dinner? The supposition isn’t farfetched. I remember reading a news story some years back of a large commercial bakery using wood pulp as a fiber source in one of its bread products for
humans
.

The second factor that complicates comparisons among pet food labels is varying moisture content. To compensate for its effect on the nutritional analysis, you would have to do a little math.

For instance, the label on a can of dog food may say that the protein content is 6 percent. Yet the label on a box of inexpensive kibble may say the contents are 20 percent
protein. Sounds like a lot more, doesn’t it? Well, that comparison can easily mislead you.

To compare percentages of any nutrient in pet foods accurately, you must first level the playing field by converting each food to a percentage of the total dry weight. It is only fair that we compare fresh, canned, or kibbled foods after we take the water factor out, isn’t it? The more water present in the food to start with, the less concentrated the different ingredients are.

Imagine squeezing every single drop of water out of the canned food or the kibble and
then
measuring the proportion of protein in the solids that remain. That figure is the percentage of protein by
dry weight
. If that is done with each food we are going to compare, then we are able to make direct and accurate estimations of the content of each nutrient. And it is usually the case that, with the water removed, canned foods actually have a higher proportion of protein than dry foods.

But remember, there’s no easy way to determine what percentage of protein is actually usable by the animal, and this is where you can be fooled again by the labeling.

W
HAT
ABOUT
V
ITAMINS
AND
M
INERALS
?

While various vitamins, minerals, and amino acids are usually added to pet foods to make up for what is lost in processing, the exact amount is not stated. Additionally, some of the vitamins present in the original ingredients, or added by the manufacturer and therefore listed on the label, may be lost before your animal ever eats the food. They can be destroyed by heat processing, especially in the presence of oxygen, and by interactions with other substances, like chemical contaminants, or by exposure to air during the shelf storage of the product.

Vitamins A, E, and B
₁
, all important in fighting disease, are particularly susceptible to such loss. For example, researchers report that a number of cat foods are so low in vitamin B
₁
that they create deficiencies after only a few weeks of feeding them to your cat. Another study shows that the processing method used in a certain cat food altered its vitamin B
₆
in a way that made it useless to cats’ bodies, and deficiency symptoms followed. Furthermore, cats fed low-fat diets absorb vitamin A rather poorly. This problem is of most concern for cats on dry food, which is, by necessity, fairly low in fat. Vitamin A is essential to health, important in resistance to infections, repair of tissues, and for maintenance of good vision. Deficiency can result in loss of appetite, loss of smell, soft teeth that decay easily, and several other unpleasant outcomes.

Minerals
added to a product may be chemically complete in their basic chemical form, but can lack the associated complex organic structures found in natural foods. These naturally formed complexes in which minerals are stored in the body are often referred to as chelates. Sometimes this association is created artificially and sold as
“chelated minerals” in natural food stores, but, of course, the best form is that available in whole foods.

Undoubtedly there is a great deal we still don’t understand about the way nutrients act and interact within the body. Manufacturers might add a number of synthetic or isolated vitamins and minerals and still not fully replace those natural forms lost in processing or insufficiently supplied in the first place. As I see it, this also means that trying to provide a natural diet that is as nutritious as possible is safer and more beneficial than using denatured or low-quality food and then trying to compensate by adding in a few isolated nutrients. Through our ignorance, we may be leaving out crucial but little-understood ingredients.

INSTA-MEAL

In spite of our discussion thus far on the inadequacies of labeling, let’s imagine that somebody actually put together a packaged food that has all the nutrients that have been discovered as necessary so far. It is marketed as a “complete” diet for human beings called “Insta-Meal.” At last science and business have combined their know-how to provide you with a simpler, cheaper way to handle the daily chore of planning and preparing meals.

The label looks good. It says this product contains all the recommended daily requirements for fats, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals needed to keep you ticking. To compensate for any loss of natural nutrients in processing, the manufacturer has added an array of synthetic vitamin and mineral compounds bearing such impressive names as pyridoxine hydrochloride, calcium pantothenate, iron carbonate, potassium chloride, and manganous oxide—everything that nutritionists have found necessary.

To make Insta-Meal look more appetizing, the manufacturer has added a sprinkling of FD&C Red No. 40 and seasoned the mixture with a dash of disodium guanylate (a flavoring commonly used in instant soups and processed Chinese foods). And to give the product a long shelf life, the makers have tucked in a little butylated hydroxy-anisole (a common preservative known as BHA).

The least expensive version of this revolution in eating is blended, extruded, and cut into bite-size chunks about the size of croutons, then baked until crunchy. According to the ads, you can now have a complete diet for less than half the cost of eating the old-fashioned way. And all you need to do is shake some of the bits into a bowl and serve a little tap water on the side. What could be simpler?

Worried about variety? You might try these exciting variations:

• To every three cups of Insta-Meal, add one cup of hot water. Mix and let stand a couple of minutes. New Insta-Meal makes its own tasty sauce.
  
• Mix two cups of Insta-Meal with two cups of milk, broth, or water in your blender. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350°F for 20 minutes. Presto! InstaCasserole!
  
• Prefer a hearty, meaty style? Try our five canned flavors—Tuna Twist, Chunky Chicken, Mulligan Stew, Turkey Dressing, or, for vegetarians, Savory Soylinks.
  
• For that occasional sweet tooth, try new soft-moist Insta-Patties, preserved with sugar. This item comes in four fruity flavors.
  

The whole concept of Insta-Meal for humans is repulsive. Who would want to eat this same food over and over again? It is obvious that the “variations” are a joke. Yet, somehow, we have accepted the idea that such a diet is right for our pets. Perhaps the thought of eating kibbles for the rest of your own life helps make the point that pets forced to do so are being shortchanged.

O
KAY
FOR
Y
OUR
P
ET
, N
OT
O
KAY
FOR
Y
OU
?

According to the manufacturer and several authorities on nutrition, the insta-system is much better than the old haphazard way of eating. In fact, you’d do best to eat only Insta-Meal the rest of your life.

But
would
you? Certainly you’d refuse such a diet, even if there were a “natural” variety, free of artificial additives. Not only would you long for the taste of a varied and natural diet, but your body would know something was missing.

Most people would soon be climbing the walls in frustration, desperate for a salad or some fruit—anything whole and fresh. Or just different! And while lying awake at night, you might wonder about the true meaning of some common Insta-Meal label ingredient terms like bakery by-products, poultry meal, and (shudder) sterilized restaurant by-products.

I have nothing personal against the makers of processed foods for pets, nor do I seek to put them out of business. They’re probably doing their best to provide nutritionally balanced products at reasonable prices, making use of materials that might otherwise go to waste or just be used as fertilizer. It’s just that I don’t believe
any
version of completely cooked, dried, canned, or frozen prepared food constitutes an optimal diet for the good health of either human or beast. I believe all of us—humans and animals—should have a variety of fresh, wholesome, unprocessed food included in our daily diets.

At first many Americans are surprised at the idea of feeding pets what they call people food. It doesn’t seem proper. However, Europeans feed their dogs much more naturally, minimizing the use of commercial foods. Many breeders have commented to me that such European dogs are far healthier than American dogs. No diet that we can formulate from least-cost products and process for convenience and long storage can ever rival those mysteriously complex fresh-food diets offered for eons by Nature herself.

OBJECTIONS TO COMMERCIAL PET FOODS

The many objections we can make about the nutritional quality of animal convenience foods fit into two categories. First, they
don’t
contain some things we wish they
did
: adequate quantities and qualities of proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals, as well as the more intangible qualities unique to live, fresh foods. Second, they
do
contain other things we wish they
didn’t
: