GMO foods extremely harmful to animals - Page 1

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/massive-health-problems-linked-to-gmo-foods/

Not a terribly surprising, albeit depresing, article. Out of curiosity, does anyone know HOW to find out if a food is using GMO ingredients? It's startling to say the least, as many premium grain free kibbles use potatoes as a substiture for grains. Of course, you can feed raw...but what do you think the animal whose meat you're feeding ate?

Allergies, GI issues, cancer are on a startling rise. I work with a few hundred dogs yearly and it's shocking how many have issues. As purebred dog fanciers we want to blame genetics for everything, and certainly they do play a major role- but so does the toxic world we live in.

Yes, I have stopped all types of potatoes, including sweet potatoes and of course white along with all grains and rice.  Sometimes I feed organic quinoa; but not too often.  All starch's like potatoes, rice, etc. turn into sugar immediately in a dogs system;  did not want that any more for my dogs.  Look where that has gotten our dogs...  So sad we did not have this info 20 years ago as we would be having WAY less health issues with our dogs of today.  Great days,  Nan

Nan,
So, for people like me who cannot afford Raw, what food would you suggest?  And what other filler is good for our dogs?  
I had not heard of this concern before, so I'm interested in learning more.

~Brandi~ 

Brandi, if you are savvy and willing to do some work, raw can be cheaper than most high end dry foods! Compare the prices per pound, for example, TOTW averages $1.25/lb near me. You can walk into the most overpriced chain grocery store and find meat on sale for less, and that's going the expensive, easy route. I get my raw for free- heads, backs, necks, and other scraps. Heck, I have one dog that fishes, grabs bluegills out of the water and eats them whole before you realize what she's doing. Look into butcher shops, game processing facilities, ethnic grocers have GREAT deals of meat. You'd be amazed! And since I moved over to feeding even half raw, I saw a huge skin/coat/energy improvement in my dogs.

Well you can also go with a prepared raw diet like Bravo but your cost is a little higher;  Also you could look into The Honest Kitchen formulas;  You could try their Preference and just add ground raw meats like turkey, chicken, beef if you can get reasonable price, ground raw pork and add to the honest kitchen diets, even if it is a small amount.  It is still better than dry kibble.  Or if you insist on using kibble just add some ground meat once in a while.

I buy 10 pounds of chicken leg quarters (human grade) for $5.99;  that is .59 cents per pound, you can't get a good dog food for that price unless it may be pedigree or?? god knows what else.  One leg quarter can be a meal for one dog.  Nothing else but water.  Those probably each weight about a pound.  That is cheaper than kibble. 

I also get ground liver/kidney/heart ground and mixed together and it ends up about $1.55/pound;  fresh human grade.  I found at ethnic butcher shop so all is very fresh and I buy 25 pounds at a time so they don't mind grinding it for me buying that amount.  So a little inquiring around town you may find it is not as expensive as you think.  I did have to do some shopping around though and now that I have done that I know exactly where to go to buy everything I need.  I even found a local pet supply store that carries green tripe.com xcaliber formula so that is what I use for ground organ meats and tripe in one.  Makes it easy that way.  Chicken farmers, goat farmers, hunters that hunt large game, cattle ranchers, all are willing to help you with raw scraps etc so call around;  or just call local butchers and ask for their scraps and ask them what price you could get them for;  stock up your freezer.  You will need a freezer;  I bought a small box freezer for $50.00; go to craigs list and watch for a good price on one or your local 2nd hand stores might have something or even your local news paper.

I hope I have given you some ideas or food for thought.  Best of luck  Nan

Oh and Brandi:  You don't want to use fillers for your dogs to eat;  use a chicken quarter instead or you can get turkey wings, and necks really cheap this time of year use that instead of fillers like potatoes, pasta, etc.  Dogs get their energy from fat, not carbahydrates like people;  makes it somewhat easier, go buy some beef fat and add to their kibble; start in small amounts, beef fat is cheap, grass fed is best but get what you can.  Or supplement with beef heart/kidney/liver you don't have to grind it up;  just give whole but watch the amount at first until their systems get used to organ meats as it can cause terrible digestion upsets when over fed at first.  Nan

I posted an article about GMO foods quite a while ago and it went largely ignored.  The more startling thing is, what do you think YOU'RE eating?  Yep, and there's no labeling required! 

Most grains, canola used for cooking oil, especially CORN (the first GMO crop), soy, alfalfa, tomatoes, fruits... and the list goes on.  You can thank the FDA since there is a revolving door for employees going back and forth between there and Monsanto.  Now the drug companies are jumping on the band wagon. 

Monsanto has patents on all of their seeds and they've been suing farmers found to have GMO crops and taking their land.  Of course, the farmers were NOT using Monsanto seeds, the wind cross pollinates.  Pretty soon our whole food supply will be GMO and there will be nothing that can be done about it, except to use only food grown in a controlled environment.  Can you imagine how expensive THAT will be?  I really find it kind of funny that people pretty much ignored the evidence because we've come to TRUST the government, but when it affects our PETS, all of a sudden it's important!  What are you feeding your children?????

It's probably already to late to stop it, but there is a bit of hope.  Europe would not approve Monsanto crops and the Bush administration was so up in arms, they actually threatened retaliation against France for publishing their research and saying "NO WAY!"  Look it up, it was part of WikiLeaks.  And BTW, it was the Reagan administration that opened the door for them and Daddy Bush was the one who pushed it through.

Edited to add:  BTW, guess who was behind the hormones given to dairy cattle to increase milk production and the antibiotics that were then given to deal with problems that arose as a result?  If you guessed MONSANTO, you win the prize!

If you want more information about GMO foods, this is a FB page that deals with it.  Most of the best articles are linked from their page.  You have to sift through to get the good articles, but it's a push to label GMO and they're FINALLY gaining ground.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/HELL-NO-GMO-Boycott-Monsanto/361508314728

There's an app for your cell phone that tells you what foods are GMO.  It's called Non-Gmo Shopping Guide.  It also has a section on pet foods that lists the brands that don't contain GMO ingrediets.

Judy

Well, I would venture to say that unless each food is tested, that wouldn't even be accurate, Judy.  Mainly because there are an unknown percentage of farms that are growing GMO crops and don't even know it!  I'm sure it's better than nothing, though.  Thank you for sharing that, I will certainly look into it!