Food For Thought

Food For Thought was Originally Posted on October 3, 2012 by lavarock

The Whole Dog Journal recently published a University of Georgia, 20-year retrospective, study on causes of death in dogs by breed and age. Study included nearly 75,000 dogs in 82 breeds with at least 100 representatives. Among adult dogs, CANCERS accounted for the most deaths in 71 breeds and was the second most common cause in the other 11 breeds. Second most common cause of death was trauma (i.e., being hit by vehicles, stepped on for toy dogs). Mixed breed dogs died most often from cancers.

Dr. Robin Woodley said that 50 years ago, very few dogs died from cancers. The rise of cancers in dogs coincides with the growth in popularity of commercial pet foods and the capture of veterinary schools by global pet food companies. Vets are taught that commercial pet foods are “100% complete and balanced” nutrition, based on short-term studies of a few dogs that didn’t die during the feeding trial. You may think I am kidding, but I am not. Until the 1960s, most pet owners fed meat trimmings and human left-overs, which turn out to be a far healthier diet for carnivorous pets than starchy commercial foods.

So, 50 years ago was the 1950’s and 60’s. What wasm happening back then?

Although kibble has been around for a century, however, according to Feline-Nutrition.Org: (http://feline-nutrition.org/features/a-brief-history-of-commercial-pet-food)

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In the 1950s and 60s, many companies added pet foods lines to their “human lines” of products. Companies such as General Foods, Quaker Oats, Campbell’s Soups, Mars, Lipton, Post, Carnation and Nabisco saw pet foods as a profitable way to market by-products. Most canned cat food at this time was fish.

The next big innovation came in the 1950s with the use of the extrusion process by Purina (Dog Chow and Cat Chow). The ingredients are cooked together in a liquid form, pushed through a mechanical extruder, which expands the food, and then it is baked. The end product is larger and lighter than either of the previous methods, which also gave the food a “more for your money” appeal. Convenience was the biggest marketing point with these foods. The foods must contain large amounts of starch for the extrusion process to work. Nutrients are added back in to make up for the loss due to being cooked twice at high temperatures. Fats and flavorings are sprayed on the end product to make them palatable.

Companies began marketing their products as “complete” foods, and started the idea that feeding table scraps was actually dangerous. In 1964 the Pet Food Institute started a campaign warning consumers about the dangers of feeding table scraps and the importance of feeding processed food to pets.⁸ Dry foods especially were marketed to the owner through a myriad of shapes and colors and catchy names. The next big change came with the marketing of “prescription” foods, sold primarily through veterinarians. This was initially done by Hill’s (which was purchased by Colgate Palmolive in 1976) after their parent company had enormous success marketing toothpastes through dentists. Part of the message in this kind of marketing was that pet food is complicated and best left to the “professionals” who were the only ones who knew what pets really needed to eat.

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So there you have it. Can I guarantee that packaged kibble is bad for your pets? No, I am not a researcher, but have you seen any of these pet food companies compare their product to real meat or just to say that it is “nutritionally complete”? I can take a product and add vitamin capsules to add chemicals to it, but is that as good as food?

Go investiggate and come up with your suggestions as to why dogs are dying of cancer in horrible percentages, that they didn’t do back then.