Dog food and how it's listed

[Sam I Am]

An interesting small article.

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/dog-food-ingredient-splitting/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Dogs%20Naturally%20Magazine

[Sam I Am]

Oops sorry yet again Brad for posting in the wrong category .

[bradl]

May all our problems be so small

[Autumn & Lola]

Wow, this is disturbing. Why are companies so damn deceptive??!!  It's ALL GREED!!!  They do it to our food; they mangle ingredients lists until they are completely unreadable. Unless one is a raw foodist or eats a 100% whole food diet, you can never be sure what you're eating. I don't know how manufacturers can sleep at night, filling our food and our pets' food with poison and garbage. I despair!

[Hillscreek]

I guess Angus should have longer walks or at least more time in the fields where he may have more luck in catching local wild voles. He hunts so hard, he pounces so professionally but too often they get away.He demolishes the whole thing when he does get one. 

I posted a pic of a vole but deleted it.Thought pic of cute lunch snack might cause too many tears among readers.   

As you know we live in huntin' country where folks often go get their meals themselves.  OMG I hear you say. How primitive.  Grouse, turkey, deer, ducks, geese, trout etc.

Alas, I'm not a hunter but I often wish I were. Very reluctant to eat meat and fish from the supermarket when I know how they were raised.

 

 

 

[Autumn & Lola]

I was actually quite good at fishing while I lived in Alabama. I couldn't bait my own hook, but I could catch the fish and reel them in.   Best fish I ever had.

[Malcolm's Dad]

I was on the coast of North Carolina with a co-worker. We went to a seafood restaurant. Mentioned I never had fish that tasted so good. He said yes, these fish are fresh from the ocean most likely caught that morning. He said what you get in Chicago have been frozen and shipped. Nothing like fresh unprocessed food if you can get it. Either grow it in your yard like my grandmother used to do or go hunting out in Hillscreek's territory.

[MegsMom]

And the link below explains why a *named meat* meal isn't so bad  vs  a label stating *named meat* or "fresh" *named meat* is pretty much hokey.  When I read a dry food label I'm looking for: 1) how much *named meat* meal is in the first 5-10 ingredients, 2) noting how many times a variation of any other ingredient is listed in those 5-10 items, 3) along with how many ingredients of plant material is listed in an attempt to 'inflate' the overall protein level or dilute the overall quality of the food.  Of course there are variations in the quality of a *named meat* meal, so hopefully by buying a quality product you're also getting a better quality meat meal. [Glutens and plant proteins are almost exclusively used for inflating protein levels on dog food labels.]

 

Remember the "basic label rule":  ingredients are listed in order of their weight.  A beef chuck roast will weigh more than 1 cup of dry beef meal, but the true protein contribution to a food is vastly different once the chuck roast is dehydrated of approx 3/4 of it's water weight.  [simply put: how many dehydrated, ground up chuck roasts will it take to make 1 cup of beef meal. 4-7 roasts?]

 

Note: meat meals listed/included are required to be Dry, as are most other ingredients on a label, so their order in the list is on an equal footing with the majority of ingredients listed. 

 

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=meat-meal

[Hillscreek]

Another article. And a reminder that several brands are often owned by the same big companies. Look at the 'high end' foods under the the Mars Pet Care Parent Company for example.

Paying more may not mean getting better food.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pet-food-safety_55b67875e4b0a13f9d1976e7?kvcommref=mostpopular

[Sam I Am]

Unfortunately unless you home cook, you have no control what goes into your pets food. A very similar rule applies to the garbage that is put into foods for human consumption. A lot of hype and advertising has a lot of us fooled, only to be told a few years down the line, oops, sorry we found out it causes this disease or that disease. If most of us(and our animals) just ate whole unprocessed foods, that aren't wallowing in pesticides, herbicides and genetically altered, or radiated, I am sure that health benefits would be obvious in future yrs. ok I am off my soap box now.

Oh not quite ...my Gran, a little Scottish lady lived to 102, as did a lot of her relatives reaching many yrs of heathy robust living, ate butter, cream, had a wee drop of brandy ever night, didn't eat fast foods or frozen packaged foods (because they didn't make this in her time) . We are what we breath, eat, drink...that goes for our dogs also.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Terrier lover

[kieiras mom]

for a while,i cooked for Keira and many and I do mean many of my "friends" looked at me as if i had lost my mind. Am now considering doing it again. 

[Tuesday]

We are strongly considering cooking our own Murphy food in the near future.  We recently (within the last year) have been able to eat food from our own farm (chickens, eggs and soon to be a goat).  I want to get to a point where we share that with Murphy.