Food For Thought -Long Post - Page 3

What Consumers Can Do
Write or call pet food companies and the Pet Food Institute and express your concerns about commercial pet foods. Demand that manufacturers improve the quality of ingredients in their products.
Print out a copy of this report for your veterinarian to further his or her knowledge about commercial pet food.
Direct your family and friends with companion animals to this website, to alert them of the dangers of commercial pet food. Print out copies of our Fact Sheet on <http://www.api4animals.org/articles?p=361&more=1>Selecting a Good Commercial Food. (You may also <http://www.api4animals.org/catalog/index.php?main_page=document_general_info&cPath=20&products_id=95>download this fact sheet as a pdf.)
Stop buying commercial pet food; or at least stop buying dry food. Dry foods have been the subject of many more recalls, and have many adverse health effects. If that is not possible, reduce the quantity of commercial pet food and supplement with fresh, organic foods, especially meat. Purchase one or more of the many books available on pet nutrition and make your own food. Be sure that a veterinarian or a nutritionist has checked the recipes to ensure that they are balanced for long-term use.
If you would like to learn about how to make healthy food for your companion animal, read up on "<http://www.api4animals.org/articles?p=360&more=1>Sample Diets," which contains simple recipes and important nutritional information.
Please be aware that API is not a veterinary hospital, clinic, or service. API does not and will not offer any medical advice. If you have concerns about your companion animal’s health or nutritional requirements, please consult your veterinarian.

Because pet food manufacturers frequently change the formulations of their products and API would not have conducted the necessary testing, we are unable to offer endorsements for particular brands of pet food. Many of our staff choose to make their own pet food or to purchase natural or organic products found in most feed and specialist stores but we cannot recommend brands that would be right for your companion animal or animals.

Continued

Sorry this article is so long but it has a lot of informative information in it.

Birdy...

Two things:

First:  I believe if we had such a thorough "looking into" of human foods, such as they did here for pet foods, we would stop eating.  At least for a few hours.

Second:  It has always been my opinion that the higher priced dog foods are only marginally better than the lower priced dog foods, as seems to be indicated by this article.  I believe that using a lower priced dog food, supplemented with, let's say, raw eggs and table scrapes, may not be a bad way to go.

Thanks Birdy.  Very informative but nothing I did not really suspect in my heart and intellect already.  I would guess that RAW is the way to go, but if you have many dogs, it is difficult.  I will keep giving my dogs a medium priced dry dog food, supplemented with raw eggs (from my own chickens) and table scrapes, plus the occasional meat treat that they like so much.  Like weiners (and we know what weiners are made of, just about the same things that dog food are made of).

Thank you so much Birdy for that imformative post. I have saved it in my favorites. I usually feed a RAW diet but do ad some dog food at times. My meat grinder died on the 31st of July and a new one should be here today. I have had to use more dog food than normal and cringe everyday I am feeding it. I was using Orijen and felt pretty good about that but I ran out when my order was back ordered, kind of a fluke the company told me. I just look at those nasty little nuggets that I have no way of knowing what is really in them and want to puke.

Thank goodness I switched to RAW a little over a year ago.

It is really no big deal anymore to feed my pack of 7 (3 GSD'S, 2 Border Collies, 1 Aussie/Kelpie and 1 deaf Aussie Foster Failure).

All the butcherblock workers in my area know me as the "Dog Lady"

Claudia

Cool article- I used to feed raw extensively and will do it again some day when I am not so busy.

First things first- getting my family and myself off of the proccessed foods that we are so addicted to- that stuff has to be just as bad as the pet food.

My dogs will stay on EVO and be supplemented with raw food- but what are they feeding to the animals that produce the raw food?

I need my own organic farm