Claims by Pet Food Companies...True or False?

Recently there seems to be a lot of people running towards the expensive "all natural"  or "grain free" diets so I decided to do some research to help clarify their claims and what they really mean.  Unfortunately in the pet food industry it is very easy to make all sorts of misleading claims about a product.   Advertising is done to get you to buy a product and the more facts you have, the better you can interpret if a product really is "the best." It ultimately comes down to the fact that 95% of dogs and cats will do fine on almost any food available on the market and most people are spending the extra money because it is a food "that you can feel good about giving your beloved four-legged family member." as seen by this quote from one pet food company.  I personally still recommend brands such and Purina, Royal Canin,  and Hills that have not only been "formulated" to meet your pet's nutritional needs, but have gone through rigorous testing and food trials to ensure that what goes in your pet's mouth will actually provide good nutrition and not just pass through. 

Here are some common statements that I have cut and pasted from different pet food web sites.

"modern science proves that your dog or cat still share the DNA of the wolf or wild cat. *****  offers your pet a diet dictated by his genes. It provides your pet with the kind of natural, balanced diet that he could find "in the wild."  We all love to think of fido as a tame wolf, but he is not.  Yes, genetically he is very similar to his wolf ancestor, but he is still not a wolf.  If you can change one single amino acid in a gene and cause a dog to have a long versus short muzzle, then what kind of dramatic changes can be made by changing many different genes.  Domesticated dogs are genetically different enough from wolves (Canis lupus) that they are classified as a whole separate species, Canis familiaris. We have bred dogs for thousands of years to the point that they no longer even communicate with each other the same way that wolves do.  Domesticated dogs have adapted to interact with us, play with us, work with us, and, yes, even eat with us.

"supplemented with fruits and vegetables"  The definition of supplement is:  "Something added to complete a thing, make up for a deficiency, or extend or strengthen the whole."  It amazes me how in the first sentence a pet food will claim that their product gives your pet what they would get in the wild and then in the second sentence makes a claim like this.  While wolves in the wild have been known to occasionally eat vegetables, it is not a very common occurrence.  When you open the bag and there is a whole bison waiting for your pet to chow down on, then they can claim that.  It is also a fact that almost ALL pet foods are supplemented with fruits and vegetables to meet the nutritional needs of dogs and cats.

"All natural" Only a few pet foods today are "artificial" in that they use BHA or BHT as preservatives. Otherwise, food is food. And to be nitpicky, no pet food is "all-natural" if there are added vitamins and minerals (which 99% of pet foods use). So when pet stores say "we only recommend and sell all-natural pet foods" they're lying.  Not to mention rattlesnake venom is all natural, but I seriously doubt many people would claim it is good for you!

"A grain-free formula for all life stages with sweet potatoes and peas..."   I will take this statement in two parts.  The first part is the "all life stages" comment.  The last time I checked the nutrient requirements for a baby or a nursing mother are different than the nutritional requirements for a senior citizen.  A food that is formulated for "all life stages" meets the requirements for the most demanding phases of life.  This is good if you are a growing puppy or a lactating queen, but it may contain too much of something if you are a senior dog that sits on the couch all day.
The second part of this statement is the "grain-free".  Grain free is the most recent fad in the pet food industry.  Back in the 1960's there was the big hype to feed dogs and cats all meat based food.  Then we started seeing dogs and cats with massive and fatal nutrient deficiencies.  In the 1970's research really began to try and create dog and cat foods that are balanced and meet all their nutritional needs.  Now at least pet food companies seem to be smart enough to not promote all meat diets, instead they are getting their ingredients from novel sources.  Instead of using corn or wheat they are using "sweet potatoes and peas."  There is nothing inherently better in sweet potatoes or peas than in another carbohydrate source.  They all have variations in their mineral and vitamin content, but that will be corrected by adding vitamins anyways.  It is theorized that maybe 1% (or less) of the pet population is gluten intolerant (extrapolated from the human population statistics).  Should grocery stores stop carrying gluten containing products because 1 out of 100 people that shop there can't eat them?  Why should we stop feeding our pets corn or wheat because 1 in 100 may have a problem with it?

"Corn, wheat and soy have been linked to allergic reactions in some dogs" If it contains protein you can be allergic to it.  Food allergies in dogs and cats develop over time to something they eat regularly.  Because corn, wheat and soy are common ingredients in pet foods we see more animals with allergies to them.  In fact we see more allergies to beef and chicken than we do to corn and wheat because these are the common meats used.  When companies started making lamb based products it was the big thing because there were no reactions to it because no animals had been exposed to it.  In about 10 years time if these new pet foods maintain their popularity we will start to see more and more dogs and cats allergic to peas and sweet potatoes!  I'm not saying these foods are bad, just that this statement is very misleading.

This brings me to a quick aside for those who want to feed their pets a raw meat diet.  All I can say is that you need to be careful about bacterial contamination and make sure you feed the entire animal.  Going on the theory that you want your pet to eat what it's wild cousins do, remember a wolf does not just cut out a steak and eat it.  Most wild predators go for the belly first to get at the tasty, nutrient rich organs inside and then go for a flank steak.  A dog or cat will protein starve to death on a complete all meat diet.

"many of the well-known pet food brands contain ingredients like chicken by-product meal or poultry by-product meal, corn, wheat, soy or artificial preservatives"  For some reason "by-product" has a very bad reputation.  The definition of by-product is "Secondary products produced in addition to the principal product" (page 355, AAFCO 2011 - chapter six - official feed terms).  This means if you have a factory that produces leather then the prime rib would be considered a by-product because it is a secondary product. 
The legal definition of meat by-products is "the non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat (which is basically muscle), derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does NOT include hair, horns, teeth, and hooves."  (page 369, AAFCO 2011) There is large nutritional value in organ meat and bone.

"poultry by-product meal"  Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poulty, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers." (page 369, AAFCO 2011): The definition of rendering is a "cooking and separating process in which conditions such as time and temperature, with or without pressure, are sufficient to remove water, kill pathogenic microorganisms, and separate fats and oils from other components.” In other words the parts are cooked so that fat can be separated out and the crude protein is left behind.  It usually results in a higher density of protein than meat alone.

Hopefully this will give you some information to help see through the smoke and mirrors that pet food companies try to use to convince us to buy their foods.  Remember the bottom line for any company is the all mighty dollar and there are good and bad points to all of them.  Most of the time when something costs more money it is a better product, but not always.  A company will charge as much as they think they can and still be able to sell their product.  The better the advertising is the more product they can sell at high costs.  Don't believe everything you hear and see, just know that the majority of the good quality foods will provide good nutrition to your pet, you may just pay a little more or a little less depending on the success of their advertising campaign!