Dog and cat food

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Cecil nailed it (of course – how could it be otherwise?) with dog and cat food. Humans, in addition to believing that food (and wine) tastes better the more they pay for it, and that “natural” has any meaning when applied to foodstuffs (turds are natural), and that “farm-grown” vegetables are better than … what? manufactured vegetables? … blindly accept the claim that wheat, corn, soy, and other vegetables are either not liked by pets or in any way deleterious to their well-being.

The worst offender in selling this nonsense is Blue: their commercials talk about how our dogs and cats are descended from wolves and tigers, and that since these critters ate a lot of meat, that’s what’s best for the dogs and cats who descended from them.

Sorry, Blue, they ate what they could get to (hopefully) get the nutrients they needed, and – lacking multiple stomachs or the ability to follow recipes – they couldn’t obtain enough nutrition to support a lifestyle more active than browsing in meadows. [I know, the evolution of carnivores was more complex than this, but the bottom line is that they evolved in ways that led to high-protein diets being best for them … in the wild]

Humans, of course, know better than to accept the fallacy that what our ancestors ate is the best thing for us to eat – no, wait, isn’t that what the Paleo diet is all about? Oh, well, then maybe it’s not so surprising that we’ll buy the same argument when applied to our pets.

Pet foods that contain no corn, wheat, or soy are in fact better – for Blue and other pet food companies: they’re raking in the green. Millions – no, probably over the years, “billions and billions” of dogs and cats – have not just survived but thrived on foods that contain corn, wheat, and soy.

And, as Cecil notes, there’s no intrinsic benefit (other than yuck factor) to muscle meat over “by-products” in terms of nutritional value. And yuck factor isn’t a consideration to a critter that will eat rotting corpses and turds, even if they knew (and cared) that they were eating snouts, ears, and innards. In fact, they may well think “Yum!”

The dogs who have been members of our pack have all gone absolutely ape over cheese, peanut butter, and popcorn, none of which was presumably available to their ancestors; and other than the popcorn they’ve had pretty good nutritional instincts. But for their primary nutrition, they’ve all eaten a high-quality dry food with a good nutritional profile – check out the FDA website and the AAFCO website (which the FDA page endorses) for guidance.

I’d say I was surprised that people are so easily gulled by pseudo-science and outright lies, but in a country where almost half of the population rejects evolution, and a failed real-estate magnate can make it into a presidential election, all bets are off.

2

So many people don’t post a link to the article.

I presume this is it?

What can cats and dogs taste?

3

Sorry. I guess I thought that since it was today’s article, it would be obvious.

4

From National Geographic’s Encyclopedia entry “Carnivore”:

Emphases Mine

So, mixing some vegetable matter in with dog food is okay, and perhaps helpful to their health. House cats this isn’t the case, they can only digest meat and organs … mixing vegetable matter in with cat food is a bad idea.

Purina Cat Chow for my cats or I’ll need a box of band aids …

5

You seem to be drawing your own unsupported conclusions from what Cecil wrote and then unnecessarily conflating the very different subjects of cats, dogs and humans.

6

It won’t always be on the front page. Someone might want to refer to it at a later date. It’s customary to provide a link and keeps others from having to search for it later.

7

This was one of Cecil’s better columns, IMHO. Really enjoyed it.

That’s all. :slight_smile:

8

My understanding is that wild cats get a small amount of grain in their natural diets via the contents of their prey’s stomachs. So a similarly small amount of grain in a housecat’s diet isn’t likely to cause problems. And cats do still need fiber, which is why they sometimes munch on grass. Just because they can’t digest it (neither can we) doesn’t mean it’s not useful.

That said, I do feed my cat grain-free food.
Powers &8^]

9

You forgot to consider that the stomach/contents of a cat’s prey are already partially digested and include bonus enzymes to further aid in digestion.

10

This article again made me wonder why cat food does not have ‘mouse’ flavor. It’s not like tuna and salmon are part of any cat’s evolutionary diet path.

I guess it just goes back to the point Cecil makes about our pets being wired for a certain % fat/protein/carb combo, and if their food is not giving them that, they will fill the gaps somehow.

If that’s the case, I am not sure what gap my dog is filling with goose poo. He thinks it’s candy.

11

Because cat food isn’t marketed to cats?

12

Exactly. Cats eat ALL of what they catch, including, in the case of small rodents, skin and fur, so they get roughage that way. Canned cat food does have roughage-- that’s the ingredient called “ash.” I’m pretty sure dry cat food has some kind of roughage as well, since cat’s can live solely on it-- I’ve had cats prefer it to canned food, and it’s actually good for their teeth, so even cats who get mostly canned food should be offered a little dry.

But yeah, the guts contain grain with enzymes, and so should full-spectrum cat foods. At least according to every vet I’ve ever asked.

And I’ve had cats that liked vegetables. I had one cat who thought peas were delicious. Once on a lark, I bought babyfood peas, and she chose them over canned catfood. I’ve had cats who liked olives, mushrooms, and lettuce. Also, most cats love cantaloupe.

13

Because it is not commercially/financially worthwhile to raise mice just for cat food. If WE started eating farm-fattened mice, you can bet “mouse byproducts” would start showing up on cat food labels tout de suite :).

14

I wonder if they have a similar proportion of the types of taste buds compared to humans. No, I’m not talking about how sweet buds are found on the tip of your tongue or whatever; that’s 100% BS. But Cecil mentions chocolate being sweet and toxic for dogs, but it is only in the last few hundred years that it was sweet. Natural chocolate is very bitter and bitter is a decent sensor for toxicity, while sour might detect other negative characteristics of food to be avoided. Whereas sweet, salt, and umami tend to be positive tastes, at least when they were scarce. Possibly dogs aren’t as good at detecting this?

I would go as far as to say that there is probably a negative correlation between these groups. People who don’t believe in evolution and vote Trump are less likely to shop at Whole Foods than the converse, while the opposite group will be more willing to accept antivax and other fallacies.

Our species is, as a whole, very susceptible to accepting false things.

15

Of course it’s not viable to raise mice for cat food, but that wouldn’t stop them from making “mouse flavor” food. You might have to toss in one mouse per thousand kilograms of food or something to satisfy labeling laws, but you could mostly just do it with marketing puffery.

16

In a nutshell. ALL grocery-store pet food characteristics are optimized for sales and pets don’t do the buying.

You have to go to what are considered “premium” food makers and lines to get pet foods that are formulated and produced more for the pet’s benefit than the buyer/owner’s. Frankly, if a grocery store sells it, I wouldn’t feed it to a dog.

It’s not brand snobbery; it’s product analysis and canine/feline nutrition science. There are many very good foods for both cats and dogs that are no more expensive than the better end of the grocery stuff. You just don’t see them on billboards and TV commercials. (Check out Fromm, for example, possibly the best moderate-cost pet foods made.)

As with so many other things, if the marketing budget is the largest cost component, it’s probably not the best choice. Also, grocery store foods with a high component of vegetable filler simply turn into bigger turds; feed your pet better food, and they digest and use more of it and pass less waste, so the unit cost of feeding goes down even with more expensive/smaller bag foods.

17

The new snap, crackle, pop: puffed mice!

18

Shot From Guns?

19

We know more about nutrition for pets than we do for humans. Purina has a massive research facility devoted to animal nutrition. Their standard Dog Chow and Cat Chow are probably the most nutritionally complete food out there, and they’re cheap. I have no hesitation feeding my cats plain ol’ Purina Cat Chow.

It’s when you get fancier where I find things questionable. Do my pets need gravy? Do they crave goose liver pate? Does my dog really need Elk? Dogs evolved with us humans for the last 10,000 years. They ate our garbage and thrived on it. You want to feed a dog thier natural diet, take the lid off the garbage pail and have them dig in.

Wild dogs and cats ate their entire prey including the offal (aka meat byproducts). We might not eat offal, but if we want to feed our pets what they eat in the wild, buying the premium food that contains no meat byproducts isn’t the way to go.

I have no qualms feeding my pets the cheap stuff – the dry, no mention of what flavor variety. They eat it without hesitation, and thrive on it. It’s the fancier stuff that tells you how good and delicious it is I’m suspicious of.

20

Purina foods come up at the bottom of most independent, nutrition-oriented, lab-based comparisons. Purina is good at making what’s good for Purina - and that means formulations with maximum market appeal and minimum cost. I think you’ve read too much marketing bombast about how great Purina is.

“Fancier” is what you find on the other end of the grocery aisle from Purina, not in truly better dog foods. As was said in the beginning, things like ‘gravy’ and identifiable vegetables and wonderful odors and such are pure marketing hokum. Ridiculous ingredients like elk and venison and this week’s fad food supplement are the same.

Foods like Fromm look like wood pellets, come in plain bags, don’t cost all that much and are only sold by pet food stores that know their stuff… as do their customers. They are formulated for specific pet nutrition (I buy “large breed puppy” right now… and it matters a great deal for my young Dane) and nothing else, by experts who aren’t trying to win supermarket sales wars.

Since Iam’s went corporate and crap, I haven’t seen a truly good pet food in any grocery store… and it’s something I notice. They sell what people have been bombasted into buying, not what knowledgeable pet owners buy.