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Has (how has) Big Pet Food co-opted our educated good intentions with targeted marketing to increase their profits.
Let's do a "10 Things the Pet Food Companies don't want you to know" focusing on Their Idea of Grain-Free.
I have found some Very interesting information on many sites.
Look for industry magazine/websites, advertising, focus groups etc. as well as the usual sites.
Some of the cat forum sites are just focus groups and propaganda machines for Big Pet Food, can you find the connections?
Be creative, look well beyond the first few results pages, follow a hunch ... and bring back what you find, even if it's still "raw" data ...
With all of us taking a closer look at the ways we may be being manipulated, perhaps we can make some of the money Pet Food Companies have spent on advertising and calculated good will gestures as meaningless as some of their claims.
My initial look into how a Grain-Free product is approached by Pet Food companies showed that many/most substitute a starch, even in wet, canned cat food, where it is not necessary for the manufacturing process as it is when producing dry cat food.
What are these non-grain substitutes, and what are the health implications of feeding our cats These non species appropriate ingredients?
Has (how has) Big Pet Food co-opted our educated good intentions with targeted marketing to increase their profits.
Let's do a "10 Things the Pet Food Companies don't want you to know" focusing on Their Idea of Grain-Free.
I have found some Very interesting information on many sites.
Look for industry magazine/websites, advertising, focus groups etc. as well as the usual sites.
Some of the cat forum sites are just focus groups and propaganda machines for Big Pet Food, can you find the connections?
Be creative, look well beyond the first few results pages, follow a hunch ... and bring back what you find, even if it's still "raw" data ...
With all of us taking a closer look at the ways we may be being manipulated, perhaps we can make some of the money Pet Food Companies have spent on advertising and calculated good will gestures as meaningless as some of their claims.
I have been toying with the idea of changing my cats' food, although they seem to be doing just fine with their current big name brand. I guess I have fallen victim to the marketing ploys, if that's truly what they are. I read the attached articles, but I'm still not sold on this grain-free phenomenon being a ploy. One of my cats does have allergies and I wonder what would happen if I switched to a less grain formula. Are there any other opinions out there? It would be great if people would let us know whether they did or didn't see a difference after a switch! Thanks!
I had a cat with allergies who could not tolerate grains and these formulas were very valuable - but I also question the wisdom of substituting tapioca for rice, that sort of thing. This is why I read the ingredients and I avoid carb fillers as much as possible and grains completely.
The problem is, no matter what you choose to feed, a commercial cat food is going to have undesirables in it.
But choosing the lesser of evils, I go with canned foods that, while they may contain tapioca, guar gum or carageenan, or carrots and potatoes, they at least do not contain artifical preservatives, powdered cellulose (sawdust), artificial flavors, DYES, sodium nitrite or sodium nitrate or menadione sodium bisulfate (or it's variations).
I can at least pick the carrots and potatoes out, though I admit it irks me to be paying for something I am throwing away.
Any thing that appeals to the consumer is going to be latched onto and exploited. I don't trust ANY pet food company, even the ones I buy, which is why I feed as much as a variety as my cats with tolerate.
"Natural" "holistic" "grain free" are all just marketing ploys now. If we care what goes into our cats, we each, as individuals, have to do our own research and make our own informed decisions.
It's helpful when threads are started like this, and links posted to help people sort things our for themselves.
But we can drive ourselves crazy trying to find the best food. And I often do. (Drive myself crazy over it I mean)
I mainly look at the first few ingredients in my kittens food and look for actual meat. Each and every food will have it's downfalls but I select what seems the healthiest based on my research.
Many vitamins and minerals are put into the food as assembled packets or a mixture. The packets/mixtures are made up in the USA - this way the manufacturers can put a USA claim on their label. However the vitamins and minerals are still SOURCED from outside of the country.
I read the ingredients and make a judgment call. Grain-free alone doesn't mean enough to me, although it can be a starting point. That said, even just the other day I bought a can that had chicken and rice, just on the off chance that because it appeared to not be gravy (and I was right on that count!) maybe the cat would eat it (basically wrong on that count, LOL!)
Unfortunately I've found it hard to avoid menadione, often just listed as "Vitamin K Supplement". I know there are brands out there that don't use it, but I also have the picky cat who will only touch a chunkier canned food, which rules out a lot of possibilities. Again, a judgment call: have her eat some canned food even though it has that in it, or have her eat little or no canned food at all, which would be the other way around? I haven't tried everything, but I've tried lots of things. Starting from raw meat from the supermarket or butcher isn't in the cards for us.
Most of the stuff about pet food is a marketing ploy as it isn't well regulated. Although words like natural and holistic aren't well regulated for human food either. Being informed enough just to know this will turn out far better for your cat IMO. At least you're thinking about things and not just blindly giving in to the marketing like the masses.
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Thanks!
