What You Should Know About Your Pet’s Food:
MeOW Welcome to Service Cats and Everything Feline on Furidays. We’re workin’ hard on exposin’ the truths behind the ingredients in your pet’s food. Who knew it could take so long to find definitions and reasons fur everythin’ pet food companies put in those bags and cans or pet feed. It’s fur sure nufffin’ like you humans walkin’ up to the butcher and orderin’ a grass fed steak as opposed to grain fed. Anyways, ifin you’ve missed any of the posts in this series you can ketch up by clickin’ the links on our Training Tips and Everything Feline page. And don’t furget to submit your own questions or topic suggestions by leavin’ a comment below or sendin’ us a purrivate email via our Contact page.
The following post will be written in human English for reader and translator ease. Our Service Cat posts aren’t intended to be an all inclusive Training Manual but rather Tips, Tricks and Techniques used/developed by mommy A thru her many years of animal training, cats in purr-ticular. And to offer insight into your questions about Everything Feline. Always remember, successful Training is all about Repetition and Rewards.
So, we thought we’d break things up a bit. There’s just too many ingredients in most pet feeds to list in one post anyways. We will be covering a lot of ingredients in this mini-series. Not all the ingredients we’ll cover are in every food/feed on the market. These posts are just to make you aware of what you need to look for and/or avoid. More than a few years back, the standard for label reading was to check for the first 3 ingredients listed. The idea was that those 3 ingredients made up the bulk of the contents of the bag or can. The problem with that theory is that you don’t often know where those ingredients come from, the quality of those ingredients or how they were processed.
Protein:
Let’s talk about Protein. Protein is required for your pet to live. Cats being obligate carnivores must have Meat. We can’t survive, much less thrive without it. But, what kind of meat or protein is found in most pet foods? The truth is, you can never be completely sure unless you’re preparing it in your kitchen. Pet food companies want to put pretty pictures on their labels to make it appear as if top shelf meat is contained within the packaging. However, often the protein is comprised of meat meals and by products that you would never feed kitty or doggy if you actually knew the truth. Rarely do they contain anything that remotely resembles the photo on the package. Pet food companies are allowed to use not only appropriately sourced and rendered meats, but also diseased, and non slaughtered animals, such as those killed by lethal injection (phenobarbital), road kill, drowned due to acts of God, etc.. Not only are these animals used, but they also throw in the feathers, hooves, beaks and everything else.
It’s then cooked at high temperatures, removing most if not all nutritional values, bleached/sterilized and then dried to be made into pet feed. At this stage it’s no longer called meat, it’s called meat meal. Now, pet food manufacturers would have you believe that meat meal provides a higher quality of protein for your pet than the actual meat does. If that’s the case, why don’t you humans eat meat meal? Why doesn’t the USDA (truthaboutpetfood.com) approve of these meats for human consumption?
Fanky fankfully, mine’s dinner is made with human grade meats
processed in a facility overseen by the USDA.
Mommy says she remembers a time when all pet foods had a statement on the label that warned against using the same utensils for pet food as one would use for human foods, even though those utensils would be washed between uses. That’s when mommy got serious about looking into the food she fed. After all, if whatever is contained inside that package is so toxic that it can’t even be cleaned off a stainless steel utensil, then how could it possibly be safe for us to eat?.
Time fur a nap.
The reality is, that there are far more deceptive tactics and ingredients in the pet feed industry. However, Not every company or food is bad. The best thing one can do is to educate themselves, and know the products you’re buying and serving to Fluffy and Fido. We’ll delve into more ingredients in the coming posts. Until then, get your questions asked and topic suggestions in. Just leave them in the comments section below or send us an email. And don’t furget to check out the other posts in this series on our Training Tips and Everything Feline page in our menu. We’re joinin’ Comedy Plus fur Feline Furiday. Our purrayers go out to all affected by the weather and storms.
Till the next time……………………………………………….Be Blest!!!
Luv and Hugs and Kitty Kisses
Deztinee and RaenaBelle
Service Cats U.S. 
Our pet food peeve is those crazies who insist that a vegetarian diet is healthy for cats. We can’t transfer our feelings over in what our cats do – it’s not fair and it only hurts them!
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You’re right awnty Kat. That makes us angry too, cuz it really is harmful to us kitties. We hope that writing this post helps kitty pawrents to make better choices fur their furry purrers. Big hugs
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
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Much “food for thought” in delving into this topic. We feed what the vet says because we have two cats with special dietary needs. It’s expensive stuff, but i figure i pay now for expensive food or a i pay much, much more later for vet care.
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Excellent post, I look forward to more on food. I get so confused. I am very careful about added vitamin K since you warned me about that. XO
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Very important post, ladies. We’ve had problems with finding good dog food this end as we have two that came to us with health problems and not eating the right food has exacerbated their issues. And this is so important what you wrote for all pets. Thank you. Hope ya’ll have a really good weekend. ❤
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Fank you. Food can make a huge difference in a pet’s health. Obviously we have strong opinions ’bout what animals should eat, but this is more ’bout just makin’ peeps aware of what’s in the food they buy and makin’ the bestest choices they can. We sure hope and purray your puppies are better. Big hugs
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
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I agree, terrific post on a mighty confusing topic, which should be confusing at all. I sure wish someone would fix the honesty in pet food labeling. Love ya sweeties!
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dezi N raena….a grate post two day N thanx for sharin…. it reminds uz oh what R pal de catfather said once; whitefish iz de furst ingreed but …well, itz like a BUNCH oh fish iz called whitefish, sew which one iz IN….de can… !! 🙂 ♥♥
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It is a nightmare trying to figure out what to feed my cats. I just go by not feeding them any one thing or brand but a variety, so they don’t get a concentration of any one “bad” thing that might be in the food. Can’t always believe the manufacturer’s. Their motive is “sales”. Have a great weekend.
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That’s so true. It’s a shame the pet food companies want to lie and the agency that oversees them doesn’t care fur our pets either. Big hugs
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
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I do admire the folks at home who formulate and made their own “real” cat food, but who has time for that, especially when feeding multiple cats? Then, what if the picky eater does not want it? You know, they like some new food and eat it all up, and when you buy more, they sniff it and walk away! I hate that! Don’t you?
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Yeah, mommy has made fresh, bought pre-packaged and fed crap through the years. And yes, it’s bad when a kitty turns their noses up. But, a few years ago, me got really sick. Me would only eat this one food. And me means me wouldn’t eat anything else. Mommy finally has to “let me starve” till me would eat the new food. Ifin she didn’t, me could have died. Trust me, after a couple of days, me was purretty much ready to eat anythin’ she put in front of me. Now, me will actually try new foods more readily. We also know, most of the peeps that make their own food, make large freezable batches at a time. Mommy did when she purrpared home made and is considerin’ doin’ it again. She just hasn’t decided to make the leap yet and we’re eatin’ freeze dried raw, so we’re on a great diet. But we totally get where you’re comin’ from. Big hugs
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
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Thanks for all the information, Audra.
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Stay tuned, there’s so much more coming. We’re going to break after the next post till after the new year. I need a little extra time. There’s way too much to cover in just a couple of posts.
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I got where I wouldn’t buy pet food from China. So many babies lost because of that food. Not right. We always checked with the vet to see what food is best. We never had a problem.
Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Florida too. Horrible storm.
Have a purrfect Feline Friday. My best to your mom. ♥
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Way to go ladies! Our Humanmom is always checking out our food. She herself wants to eat veggie/vegan and organic and she wants the best for us too. We get organic kittiesfood!
Purrs from Annie & Charlie
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Thank you for the good post on pet food I sure wish that the FDA would inspect food and set standards for pets like they do for humans!
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