The pet food industry is a bad joke

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

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And it's not even the just cheap stuff. After trialling another "premium" brand*, and clearing up puke from every room in the house, I have to vent some. *(£1 per 50g or so.)

Just about every brand of cat food inexplicably includes some vegetable or other non-meat ingredient. Vegetable oil. Ground nut oil. Palm oil. Sesame oil. Potato. Rice. Grains.

But buy the more expensive brands and you still get delights such as sweet potato, asparagus, green beans, tomatoes... you name it. Seaweed extract. Seaweed extract? Why not add some cookies and hot chocolate while you're at it... Some of this stuff I had to look up as I don't even know what it is. One of today's bonus ingredients was "slippery elm extract." What the actual cluck is that? Oh, it's some horse**** supplement some hipster types are taking now. Great.

Cats are bloomin' obligate carnivores. They want meat, and minerals, and that's it. What consumer is asking cat food brands to add non-digestible vegetable ingredients? What consumer is demanding this? "Oh yes, little Tibby is very partial to some asparagus and slippery elm extract. I'll buy this one for sure!" I doubt anyone is that dense (or do I?)

So perhaps it's just a cheap, filler ingredient to bulk out the product. But then why is this all the rage in expensive foodstuffs, too? Why are the "premium" brands throwing in non-meat foodstuffs that could be an allergen? You're already charging more than most human foods cost, why muck about adding vegetables you know cats can't even digest? Yes, not all cats will be allergic to this nonsense, but some will be. Why add potential allergens when all you really want is meat, meat and more meat?

I'm going to have to go raw, I think. I probably should have gone raw years ago. Lack of effort on my part. But damn, the pet food industry is soooo useless.
 
My dog has never liked pet foods i.e. dog meat, biscuit mixer etc. He's always turned his nose up at it. He gets fed human food i.e. good quality beef, chicken, ham slices.
 
one of my three can go raw (other two were too old and set in their ways to move from the brands of wet they like) and I don’t mind it. It’s pretty reasonable up my way at 1.90 per 500g
 
marinersfan said:
My nan used to take slippery elm as a hot bedtime drink. Swore by it.
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Trouble with most of these supplements is there is zero scientific evidence (in the form of clinical trials) to back up any of the purported benefits.

Even less so in animals.

Quite a few plants (such as St John's Wort, one of the most commonly taken supplements) can actually be harmful in certain circumstances, as they can interfere with prescribed medicines.

Yet you can find any number of websites recommending slippery elm as a tonic for cats, too. For just about every ailment under the sun. Might even make their farts smell better, too. The problem is, none of it has any supporting evidence.

We do know that cats can't digest plant material, and many plants can be allergens in cats. Even tomatoes, which we humans eat by the bucketload.

The more plant ingredients in your cat food the more potential problems, and the benefits are dubious in the extreme.
 
There are two customers for pet food. The animal that eats it and the human that buys it.

The No. 1 sin in pet food manufacture is to make the food so the animal won’t eat it. And what that usually means is it has to be super-consistent. The same thing in the packet every time.

The next biggest sin is to present the human customer with something difficult to clean up after. And I mean excrement, not vomit. So you need to get a firm stool and keep the animal regular.

And then you need to meet the nutritional requirements of the animal. Dogs can and will eat almost anything. Cats are obligate carnivores only because they need the essential amino acid taurine and it’s difficult to impossible to supply them with enough lysine, threonine, methionine and cysteine from anything other than meat or synthetics.

They also need oils only found in fish or exotic plants like slippery elm.

The nutritionists who formulate pet food have to make a diet for your animal that you’ll buy and the pet will eat all without ever changing anything. Pretty tough job.

And to the person feeding your animal ‘human’ food. Hard no. You’re basically killing the animal.
 
FoxEye said:
And it's not even the just cheap stuff. After trialling another "premium" brand*, and clearing up puke from every room in the house, I have to vent some. *(£1 per 50g or so.)

Just about every brand of cat food inexplicably includes some vegetable or other non-meat ingredient. Vegetable oil. Ground nut oil. Palm oil. Sesame oil. Potato. Rice. Grains.

But buy the more expensive brands and you still get delights such as sweet potato, asparagus, green beans, tomatoes... you name it. Seaweed extract. Seaweed extract? Why not add some cookies and hot chocolate while you're at it... Some of this stuff I had to look up as I don't even know what it is. One of today's bonus ingredients was "slippery elm extract." What the actual cluck is that? Oh, it's some horse**** supplement some hipster types are taking now. Great.

Cats are bloomin' obligate carnivores. They want meat, and minerals, and that's it. What consumer is asking cat food brands to add non-digestible vegetable ingredients? What consumer is demanding this? "Oh yes, little Tibby is very partial to some asparagus and slippery elm extract. I'll buy this one for sure!" I doubt anyone is that dense (or do I?)

So perhaps it's just a cheap, filler ingredient to bulk out the product. But then why is this all the rage in expensive foodstuffs, too? Why are the "premium" brands throwing in non-meat foodstuffs that could be an allergen? You're already charging more than most human foods cost, why muck about adding vegetables you know cats can't even digest? Yes, not all cats will be allergic to this nonsense, but some will be. Why add potential allergens when all you really want is meat, meat and more meat?

I'm going to have to go raw, I think. I probably should have gone raw years ago. Lack of effort on my part. But damn, the pet food industry is soooo useless.
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Our 2 have Royal Canin dry biscuits (vet’s recommendation) for breakfast and dinner but lunch is some John West tuna. We’ve tried cooking fish for them (I know, I know) but they won’t touch it. It’s got to be line caught tuna in mineral water :D
 
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Our idiot has Barking Heads kibble and loves veg with it. Pepper, green beans, cauli, sprouts, kale. His treat from being a baby was a frozen green bean. We started giving him them when he was teething to help cool his gums. Obviously he gets plenty of meat, I like ox liver so obviously the greedy sod gets his share.
 
tyke_ said:
My dog has never liked pet foods i.e. dog meat, biscuit mixer etc. He's always turned his nose up at it. He gets fed human food i.e. good quality beef, chicken, ham slices.
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It's actually quite difficult to make your own dog food that has all the required vitamins and minerals they need.

www.webmd.com

Homemade Dog Food: Cost, Recipe Advice, Nutrition, and Storage

Want to make homemade dog food? Do it right with these tips from WebMD and pet nutrition experts.
www.webmd.com www.webmd.com

Both our dogs eat https://www.orijenpetfoods.co.uk/ it's really good. I've done raw food before but it was a pain to handle and many dog sitters wouldn't allow it.

Orijen ingredient list is extensive! Mostly raw meat.

Raw beef (12%), raw wild boar (5%), raw bison (5%), raw lamb (5%), raw pork (5%), raw beef liver (4%), raw whole pilchard (4%), fresh eggs (4%), raw pork liver (4%), dehydrated lamb (4%), dehydrated beef (4%), dehydrated herring (4%), dehydrated mutton (4%), dehydrated pork (4%), dehydrated sardine (4%), whole red lentils, whole peas, whole chickpeas, whole green lentils, whole pinto beans, lentil fibre, pea starch, pollock oil (2%), raw lamb liver (2%), beef fat (2%), raw wild boar liver (2%), raw beef kidney (2%), raw beef tripe (1%), raw lamb kidney (1%), raw lamb tripe (1%), dried kelp, fresh whole pumpkin, fresh whole butternut squash, fresh whole zucchini, fresh whole carrots, fresh whole apples, fresh whole pears, dried chicory root, fresh kale, fresh spinach, fresh beet greens, fresh turnip greens, whole cranberries, whole blueberries, whole saskatoon berries, turmeric, milk thistle, burdock root, lavender, marshmallow root, rosehips.
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Seaweed extract is probably for omega 3. Slippery elm will be to aid digestion as it contains mucilage, whether that actually does anything is a different matter.

Maybe start your cats in a raw diet? Or something like Thrive.
 
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