People tend to think that commercial dog food, especially if it has been recommended by their veterinarian is of good quality and is giving your dog the best chance in life. Right?
Wrong!
While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.
After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.
In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.
After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.
This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.
Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.
Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?
Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?
Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.
Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.
As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.
It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.
So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?
Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.
Showing posts with label homemade dog food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homemade dog food. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, February 16, 2009
Homemade Dog Food for The Busy Human
Busy people generally tend to shy away from home prepared food for themselves as well as their dogs. But relying on others for your and your dog’s nutritional needs is likely to ensure your dog’s health will suffer, if not your own.
What it really boils down to, is time. You think preparing homemade dog food is not time efficient, perhaps messy, and how can you be sure it’s healthy? Don’t commercial pet food manufacturers know more than you do?
No. Commercial pet food manufacturers are chasing the mighty dollar, just as most people are. Generally, they have very little interest in good quality. By the time you have finished reading this article, you’ll know more than they do.
Is homemade dog food preparation going to be messy?
No, not once you have the hang of what you’re doing, which is where I come in. I’m here to help you every step of the way.
Does it take a long time to prepare homemade dog food?
No, once you’ve got the hang of what you’re doing, it incredibly quick and easy.
Just as it can be in preparing your own homemade food.
So I’ve knocked away some of the most common excuses for not preparing your homemade dog food. But, as you still hesitate, there may be one hurdle in the way, which we haven’t covered.
You have been accustomed to believe commercial dog food is better than anything else. Your vet may have told you. Your parents may have told you. You see people feeding commercial pet food all the time. Can they all be wrong?
Yes!
Because none of them are looking to their dog’s origins. Dog evolved in the wild over many thousands of years, hunting in packs in times of plenty and eating carrion or plant matter in times of famine.
In contrast, commercial dog food typically pellets, is not raw or of the quality a hunted animal is. Dogs digestive systems and nutritional requirements have not changed or adapted, just because they are now domestic.
The best way to ensure your dog maintains not just good, but excellent health is to make homemade dog food, based on a wild dog’s diet. Sure, it isn’t possible to exactly duplicate a wild dog’s diet, but we can come so close that it won’t affect your dog’s health.
When you’re shopping in the supermarket, it’s just as easy to buy raw meat and bones as it is to purchase a packet. You can buy enough to keep your dog going until the next time you shop. Freezing food is an acceptable way to keep it, as it is not so destructive as cooking. Three or four days of fresh food and the rest thawed frozen food will be absolutely adequate to maintain good health.
Once you’ve measured out the food the first time, it’s just a matter of routine.
Keeping all the ingredients together means it’s convenient.
By making your own homemade dog food, you have control over the quality and the ingredients. This is critical to your dog’s good health as many ingredients in commercial pet food is toxic, not natural, not nutritious and certainly isn’t raw.
Try your dog on raw meat and bones for a month and you’ll see a big smile on his face!
Couple that with his drastically reduced health bills, and you’ll be the next one grinning.
Warning: in older dogs there can be an initial clearing period. This is natural and normal, but can look alarming if you don’t know what’s happening.
What it really boils down to, is time. You think preparing homemade dog food is not time efficient, perhaps messy, and how can you be sure it’s healthy? Don’t commercial pet food manufacturers know more than you do?
No. Commercial pet food manufacturers are chasing the mighty dollar, just as most people are. Generally, they have very little interest in good quality. By the time you have finished reading this article, you’ll know more than they do.
Is homemade dog food preparation going to be messy?
No, not once you have the hang of what you’re doing, which is where I come in. I’m here to help you every step of the way.
Does it take a long time to prepare homemade dog food?
No, once you’ve got the hang of what you’re doing, it incredibly quick and easy.
Just as it can be in preparing your own homemade food.
So I’ve knocked away some of the most common excuses for not preparing your homemade dog food. But, as you still hesitate, there may be one hurdle in the way, which we haven’t covered.
You have been accustomed to believe commercial dog food is better than anything else. Your vet may have told you. Your parents may have told you. You see people feeding commercial pet food all the time. Can they all be wrong?
Yes!
Because none of them are looking to their dog’s origins. Dog evolved in the wild over many thousands of years, hunting in packs in times of plenty and eating carrion or plant matter in times of famine.
In contrast, commercial dog food typically pellets, is not raw or of the quality a hunted animal is. Dogs digestive systems and nutritional requirements have not changed or adapted, just because they are now domestic.
The best way to ensure your dog maintains not just good, but excellent health is to make homemade dog food, based on a wild dog’s diet. Sure, it isn’t possible to exactly duplicate a wild dog’s diet, but we can come so close that it won’t affect your dog’s health.
When you’re shopping in the supermarket, it’s just as easy to buy raw meat and bones as it is to purchase a packet. You can buy enough to keep your dog going until the next time you shop. Freezing food is an acceptable way to keep it, as it is not so destructive as cooking. Three or four days of fresh food and the rest thawed frozen food will be absolutely adequate to maintain good health.
Once you’ve measured out the food the first time, it’s just a matter of routine.
Keeping all the ingredients together means it’s convenient.
By making your own homemade dog food, you have control over the quality and the ingredients. This is critical to your dog’s good health as many ingredients in commercial pet food is toxic, not natural, not nutritious and certainly isn’t raw.
Try your dog on raw meat and bones for a month and you’ll see a big smile on his face!
Couple that with his drastically reduced health bills, and you’ll be the next one grinning.
Warning: in older dogs there can be an initial clearing period. This is natural and normal, but can look alarming if you don’t know what’s happening.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What You Need to Know About Commercial Dog Food Before Buying Any More
People tend to think that commercial dog food, especially if it has been recommended by their veterinarian is of good quality and is giving your dog the best chance in life. Right?
Wrong!
While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.
After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.
In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.
After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.
This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.
Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.
Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?
Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?
Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.
Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.
As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.
It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.
So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?
Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.
Wrong!
While vets should be the best people to advise about dog food, sadly they’re not. Why? Because the top commercial pet food manufacturers now financially contribute to many veterinary schools. They have a foot in the door. They can, and do, influence the students.
After all you generally don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
In most countries of the world, there are, at least some basic laws governing the quality of human food, whether it’s fresh produce, meat or fast food.
In no country are there laws (which are enforced) that insist commercial pet food manufacturers use quality ingredients. That means anything can, and does, go.
After all, if meat is of good quality, wouldn’t you sell it to the highest market - the human market? So, it’s only the poorest quality meat, more often meat by-products (such as hair, intestines and contents, chicken feet, brain, skin, grizzle, fat, etc) that goes for dog food.
This means that the overall nutrient quality is as poor as it gets, as different proteins have different nutritional absorbability.
Pet food is always bulked out with inert (or not as the melamine scam from China testifies) filler. Typically, this filler will be the current cheapest carbohydrate. There’s often a world glut of something, driving down the price. It may be sugar one year, wheat the next.
Do you think the addition of sugar into your dog’s diet will serve to improve his health?
Why do you think that diabetes in dogs is on the increase?
Dogs may bulk out their food in the wild, but it would be on fresh plant matter that’s available, such as fruit or leaves.
Cooking destroys many vitamins and enzymes which are critical to the overall health of your dog.
As most dog food is dried pellets, which keep indefinitely at room temperature, preservatives must be used. Some manufacturers claim they have not added preservatives. Look carefully at the wording. They did not add it. This may be true. But preservatives will always have been added to the meat before it was delivered to the manufacturers.
It’s impossible to keep meat products at room temperature indefinitely without the use of strong preservatives. Preservatives that would never be allowed in human food, because of their poisonous effect.
So your dog may be well fed as far as volume is concerned, but will be starving for quality food. How can your dog remain healthy if he’s fed garbage?
Most people would be appalled at the process that goes into the making of commercial pet food. That would be a really good incentive not to feed it. I’m attempting to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, so you can give your dog the best dog food available within your budget and within your time available.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Healthy Dog Food - How do You Find One
Most people don’t stop to think about the food they are giving their dog. The colourful packs on the laden supermarket shelves are normally as far as people give dog food a thought. You may be one of them, but are now branching out and looking for something a bit healthier.
Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.
But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.
Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.
Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.
Period.
There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.
Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).
A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:
A typical commercial dog food consists of:
So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.
If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.
I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?
That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.
However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.
Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.
But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.
Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.
Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.
Period.
There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.
Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).
A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:
- raw food
- lots of raw bones
- internal organs are consumed, but these are scarce compared with the muscle meat
- carbohydrates which are limited to the stomach contents, so is small in the overall content
A typical commercial dog food consists of:
- cooked food (many vitamins, enzymes and other nutrients are destroyed by cooking)
- the meat is of poor (often extremely poor) quality (humans get the good stuff)
- carbohydrates, in particular sugar, are a major part of the food - it’s cheap and bulks out the ‘meat’
- the food is fortified with strong preservatives (not allowed in human food for their dangerous impact on health) - DESPITE WHAT THE LABEL SAYS
- to try to redress the nutritional imbalance, isolated and synthetic nutrients are added - nutrients which can’t be properly absorbed and utilised when they are in isolation, or if they are synthetic
So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.
If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.
I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?
That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.
However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.
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