Most people are aware of the benefits of organic food, which is food grown without chemical fertilisers or pesticides. Nutrient content is much richer. Although supermarket food looks good, generally, its nutrient content is very poor.
If organic food is good for people, is it also good for dogs?
A resounding YES, is the answer to that...
But!
There’s always a but isn’t there?
You need to look at the whole picture.
If you are buying the commercial organic dog food, then you really aren’t getting what you’re paying for.
Why not?
If you look at what goes into commercial dog food, the benefits that the organic origins give to the food are swamped by all the other chemicals.
Let’s look at the meat content of dog food first. The source for the bulk of commercial pet food comes from rendering plants. These take the waste from slaughter houses (heads, hooves, intestines, etc), road kill, euthanised pets from vets and zoos and dead animals from farms. If the slaughter house rejects come from some organic farms, that’s helpful. But the overall mix is far from organic.
Even if the protein comes from organic waste meat, is that meat certified organic, or has the supplier just put an organic label on the packet to lure in unsuspecting buyers?
So the end product should be certified organic dog food. Not just one ingredient.
Now lets look at the dried food. Meat (or more likely meat by-products, the end product from rendering plants) is kept indefinitely at room temperature. The only way you can do this is by adding a strong preservative.
As there are no laws governing the quality of dog food in most countries, any preservative can be used. Even those considered unfit for consumption. Such as ethoxyquin. And formaldehyde.
Both these preservatives cause huge health problems simply by being in contact with them. Imagine what it does to your dog’s health if he consumes them, and on a regular basis.
That alone makes the idea of organic dog food of little importance.
Even when the label on the packet proudly proclaims that no preservatives have been added, they are simply stating that they haven’t added preservatives. The rendering plant may have done it for them.
Logic tells you that meat cannot be kept indefinitely at room temperature any other way.
Because the rendering plants boil the ‘food’ for long periods at high pressures, there is little nutrient content left.
To address this shortfall, isolated and synthetic nutrients are added. Neither humans nor dogs can utilise isolated and synthetic nutrients. These should come from the food, in a complex and balanced form.
I suggest that organic dog food is no different from any other commercial pet food.
You can’t use the USDA organic seal or *certified organic* claims without getting into troubles with the law.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately supplementation with isolated minerals and vitamins will also be allowed in the upcoming organic pet food standards. Unfortunately, many consumers are not aware that most of the supplements used to make their pets' foods 'balanced' or 'complete' are a far cry from wholesome.
Like my company, Onesta Organics (www.onestaorganics.com), other manufacturers *can*, and some of them *do*, choose the best quality ingredients. It is up to the consumer to pay the higher price for convenience foods that are indeed as good as home prepared foods.
I know that no undefined ingredients (such as the sad meat concoction from various sources that you describe) can be used in certified organic pet food products.
Since each ingredient in certified organic pet food products has to be fully traceable back to the farm where it was grown, use of rendered ingredients, byproducts, or any ‘non-definable’ ingredients is strictly prohibited in certified organic pet food products.
Only *certified* organic pet food claims are regulated and enforced by US law, while any other (non-certified) organic claim can be used without restriction or third party verification by any pet food company that wants to market their foods as organic.
Therefore organic claims can be deceiving if they are not certified organic.
I do not understand why you would choose one organic ingredient and mix it with conventional (unhealthier, less safe, less nutritious) ones (well, it is a matter of profit – as conventional ingredients are significantly cheaper than organic ones).
Concerning the lack of freshness of most dry foods. Manufacturer can do it rigth. We at Onesta Organics for instance don’t mass-produce. We store both our ingredients and products below room temperature to preserve nutrients.
I disagree with your conclusion that organic dog food is not different from other commercial dog foods. I restrict my disagreement to *certified organic* dog foods where all organic claims have been independently verified.
As soon as you have a certified organic dog food, the majority (more than 95%) of ingredients have to be certified organic; the remaining 5% are restricted to ingredients that are not available in organic form (e.g., fish, calcium carbonate,...).
Organic means healthier (more nutrients) and less toxicity (no pesticide or herbicide residues, no exposure of ingredients and products to toxic sanitizers, cleaners or fumigation during manufacture or storage, no toxic synthetic compounds allowed as ingredients, no irradiation, no GMO…).
Even if many manufacturers of certified organic pet foods add the synthetic mineral and vitamin premixes to their products to follow consumer demand, these certified pet foods are *clearly* healthier and safer for your pet than conventional products. Also, as mentioned above, most unhealthy ingredients that can be used in conventional pet foods, are strictly prohibited in certified organic pet food products. I know this also because I see what the organic certification agency looks at during their inspections of our products and facility -- they want to see full documentation about all used ingredients, manufacturing methods, and facility maintenance.
Not even certified organic pet foods are not necessarily healthy. If ‘refined’ ingredients or clearly allergenic ingredients are included, how can a food product be healthy for your pet? However, if you’d compare products that include the same unwisely chosen ingredients, the organic one still would beat the conventional one by far, simply because the toxic load is lower in organic than conventional products.