The pet food industry is a bad joke

[FoxEye]

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.

 

[FoxEye]

My nan used to take slippery elm as a hot bedtime drink. Swore by it.

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.

 

[FoxEye]

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.

You make it sound like pet food manufacturers are a noble lot performing minor miracles. In reality, the majority of recognised pet food brands are peddling absolute garbage.

Most of the supermarket brands contain the most horrific trash ingredients, which they label as "animal derivatives". Anything from sawdust to ground up cartilage and other tissue that's not really edible or nutritious. The listed ingredient is merely 4% only of the final product, and I'd be amazed if the animal could even tell what it was supposed to be.

In real life, there are two criteria for (most) pet food.
1. It mustn't kill the animal, or at least mustn't kill so many that it invites a class action lawsuit.
2. It must make maximum profit for the manufacturer and shareholders.

Like most things in this day and age, shareholder returns are king, and the marketing dept probably has 100x the budget of the R&D department.

 

[FoxEye]

We went through quite a few foods before settling on

PRO PLAN® Delicate Digestion Turkey Dry Cat Food Our PRO PLAN® Delicate Digestion Turkey Cat Food recipe is made from high quality ingredients that your cat's sure to love. Shop now. www.purina.co.uk

Maybe some better foods out there but it stopped her having the squits. The last time she was ill was down to the mouse/rat/shrew brains.

Purina makes Felix and well as other hot garbage (sadly, Felix is one of the few brands mine will eat, despite my knowing it's awful).

I'm glad yours gets on with it. But let's say mine pukes up back up. So then I turn to the ingredients, and note that it contains 81% non-turkey ingredients (hey, it's better than the 4% titular ingredient in Felix!)

Among others:
"Corn protein meal*
Rice*
Pea protein*
Soya protein powder*
Corn starch
Corn*
Dried chicory root
Digest
"

So, which of these does she have an issue with? It's impossible to say, isn't it..

Now, what's "digest"? Knowing Purina, it's something awful. OK, top Google result is a Purina page dedicated to busting the "myth" that digest is a low-quality ingredient. Red flag right there, my friend!

Let's try the first non-Purina link...

Excuse me, Myth?

Purina says that it is a myth that the pet food ingredient Animal Digest is considered substandard. Here's some facts about this pet food ingredient, then you decide if you agree with Purina.

truthaboutpetfood.com

Oh dear. But possibly the least surprising thing I've read this week

 

[FoxEye]

@gingergundog also this

The Shocking Truth About Commercial Dog Food | Dog Food Advisor

Learn what can legally go into your dog's food and how the pet food industry has become a sinister waste disposal vehicle for many human food manufacturers.

www.dogfoodadvisor.com

Do They Really Use Dead Dogs and Cats to Make Pet Food? | Dog Food Advisor

Discover the shocking truth about the dog food industry's use of dead pets to make dog food and how you can avoid buying one of these shameful products

www.dogfoodadvisor.com

Purina admits to using animal "renderers" to source the ingredients in their products, although they say they shouldn't have "diseased or disabled" animals in there. That still leaves all the other undesirable waste products that get "rendered" down to a slurry/powder, and then bunged into Felix.

 

[FoxEye]

Sounds like there's a gap in the market here, I'll invest a few k to anyone wanting to start it up.

Yes and no. The best solution appears to be, "Go to your local butcher and buy human-grade ingredients, instead."

Once you start trying to build a business out of it, the goal becomes profitability, instead. And sooner or later, YOU are Purina

 

[FoxEye]

Tbh the Animal Digest doesn't sound great although the whole euthanised pets thing sounds a bit far fetched.

The thing is the Purina goes down well and she has solid poos, we tried Applaws which is arguably better but it was in one end and out the other.

The dogs eat Millies Wolfheart, and we were considering getting some of their cat food, but it may not agree with her.

I start with the opinion that all companies are Lawful Evil (hope you are familiar with 2e ) until proven otherwise.

If something is lawful, then no matter how sinister, it's probably happening. Especially if it happens to be insanely more profitable than doing things the ethical way.

 

[FoxEye]

Purina is the worst.. If you look at the small print.. They make pretty much all of the cheap nasty brands of pet food sold in super markets. Whiskas, pedigree chum etc.

What's worse is that I already know this, but Felix is (almost) the only pet food she'll eat. I've tried almost everything from Zooplus, etc. She won't eat pate, full stop, and most of the "premium" stuff is produced as a pate, or so it seems.

Raw is just about the only option I've not yet tried.

 

[FoxEye]

There was a news report I read about a place that was putting rotting meat not fit for human consumption into the food chain using bleach (yes really) and something else to get rid of the stink and probably the taste and this reporter said the huge pile of meat stank. What got my attention though is that though unfit for human consumption its apparently supposed to be destined for the pet food trade, no wonder they go off it/vomit every now and then I think I'd do the same if i had to eat that.


Dogs can eat vegetable protein but cats need more i.e. amino acids etc found only in meat. Theres an old saying though "as fit as a butcher's dog" which rings true all those offcuts of raw meat.

Which is why this rancid mix is cooked for several hours at 240 degrees. Because you wouldn't let it anywhere near your pet if you knew what it was.

But you can't cook out chemicals used to put down stray animals:

Dog Food Brands Found to Contain Pet Euthanasia Drug

Could this poison have come from shelter dogs ground up into pet food?

www.newsweek.com