Wholesale Organic

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

7 Things To Avoid In Dog Food

We all want our pets to live as long and healthy as possible. The problem is big pet food companies only care about their bottom line. A lot of these dog food companies go to great lengths to make their food sound and look professional, even by indirectly bribing veterinarians to promote and recommend their food.

The sad fact is most dog food is loaded with slaughterhouse waste, toxic chemicals, waste fillers, many preservatives, unnatural additives, and even heavy metals and pesticides. Not even all organic dog food blends are good. Many lack the necessary fatty acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and fiber your dog needs to live longer.

So how do we pick the best dog food? The answer lies in the pet food labels. The pet food companies are required by law to list the ingredients in the order of the amounts they contain. Whether you are going to buy our organic dog food or shop for your own make sure you stay away from these 7 ingredients:

1. Unhealthy filler ingredients like soy, animal by-products, and corn, listed in the top 5 ingredients (or even further down the list of ingredients)
2. By product meals or meat by products - They usually contain slaughtered animal parts (Ears, bones, skin, you name it)
3. Bone Meal or Meat Meal - Regular meal is usually okay but not meat meal as these are parts of animals that have died from all kinds of trauma, or disease. It is well documented that up to 25-50% of meat meals are contaminated with Salmonella bacteria. This can even legally include dead animals form roadkill or pets dead pets from a vet’s office!
4. Preservatives and or artificial additives like Propyl Gallate, Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA), Propylene Glycol and Ethoxyquin, Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT), - all nasty chemical additives used as preservatives. Also Ethoxyquin is actually a pesticide that cannot be added to human food.
5. Wheat gluten meal - a cheap waste filler that provides incomplete, very poor-quality proteins
6. Poultry or animal fats - most often listed animal fat, oils or restaurant grease not edible for humans;
7. Any kind of trace minerals in the form of mineral oxides or sulphates.

Of course we also believe buying natural and organic dog food to be another necessary requirement for healthy dog food.