Do you feed your Pet Supermarket Food?

If you do, please take a couple of minutes to consider a couple of facts about what you're feeding them.

Cheap Pet Foods Are Cheap for a Reason!

Even the 'better' brands you feed have ingredients in them that may qualify them as the equivalent of "Junk Food". Look on the side of the bag or tin for a list of ingredients. The odds are that the first ingredient will be, "Whole grains and cereal by-products". Next, "Meat By-products and Meat". Look further down the list, and you'll probably see Sugar, Preservatives and Colours.

Let's have a look at these ingredients and why they may not be the best you can do for your Pet.

Grains

Grains are a natural part of your Pet's diet - as long as they are present in a particular way. Your Dog or Cat would naturally eat some grain and seed from the stomach of their prey - most likely from grasses - that have been chewed and partly fermented. Grains in this form contain fibre and nutrients your Pet has evolved to deal with.

Commercial foods contain grains. They have been ground up, cooked so they're easier to digest and added to the food. Where's the problem?

How much Grain is Good?

So - we know that grains are OK... but let's look at that again.

Grains are OK in the context of a natural diet. Think about your Pet's natural prey (if you can!). Any grain or vegetable matter they would come from the stomach of it's prey. That means the balance of grain and vegetable matter would be in keeping with the amount present in it's prey - and that means more meat, bone and other bits than grains or vegetable stuff. Makes sense right?

Here's the first point. Cheap foods are mostly grain. Is that good or bad? Dr. Bruce Syme from Vet's All Natural says this:

"This cereal is cleverly flavoured with meat render (boiled offal and carcass remains), and is often disguised as “meaty chunks” using food dyes. The simple fact is that dogs and cats are not designed to eat such a high content of highly refined starch (cereals ground into flour). These cereal flours are used as cheap fillers, to bulk out the pet food, and increase profit. Cheap starch has little nutritional value, except for calories, and can result in a diet with too much refined sugar."

But it looks and smells great! My pet LOVES it!

Commercial foods have been designed as much for us as they have your pet. The ads on TV make you laugh and feel warm and fuzzy. You get the food and your Pet eats it. Everyone's happy, right? Think about the food for a second. You might feed a food that has different coloured pieces. Some of them might be soft and squidgy - others shaped like bones or little fish. You give it to your Pet and they wolf it down. Everyone's happy, right? Maybe not. Your pet doesn't care what colour the food is. The manufacturer's put colour there for you, the Pet's owner - not your Pet. Green means vegetables. Red means meat. Brown means... who knows what.

The other things you might find in the food is sugar and flavours. Your Pet will generally eat food that smells good and tastes nice... similar to 8 year old child visiting the local Junk Food shop. Give your child sweet-salty-oily food and everyone's happy, right? Maybe not.

The problem with this diet is that in the longer term, we all know that too much junk food is bad for our children. It's the same for your Pets.

But I've fed my Pet this food for years - and they're perfectly healthy!

Maybe! Many Pets live a long and happy life eating all sorts of foods. Some don't do so well. The fact is that it's unlikely that these foods do any direct harm to your Pet... but it's also possible that they aren't helping them either.

The things that cause disease and health issues in older age are the same for your Pets as us. If we eat a poor diet, we're more likely to suffer from disease as we go through life than if we eat a healthy diet. The fundamental rule - a healthy diet means we get the best chance at living a long and healthy life. It's the same for your Pets.

Feeding your Pet a diet high in grains, additives and poor quality proteins means they're not getting the best chance you can give them. A healthy diet can mean your Pet enters older age in better condition. Their teeth and gums will be stronger, joints in better condition and overall health stronger and more vital.

Purina - manufacturers of Pro Plan - conducted a study that showed Dogs fed their 'Life Plan Nutrition Program' can enjoy:

All of that sounds great - but I can't afford to feed more expensive foods.

People are often don't actually know the cost of feeding their animals and are actually surprised how little it can cost to feed a good quality diet. Here are some common mistakes people make.

The more expensive foods are almost $100 for a bag! That's too much!

It may seem like it's too expensive to feed better quality food - but let's have a closer look.

The following comparison is based on purchasing the largest bag available of a common 'better quality' supermarket brand dog food and the largest bag of a Super Premium dog food from a specialty store.

Bag Size

Bag Cost

Cost per Day (25kg Dog)

Supermarket Brand

8kg

$25.05

$1.39 per Day

Super Premium Brand

17kg

$104.50

$1.74 per Day

Add to this the effect of reduced Vet bills and feeding your Pet a better quality diet isn't so expensive after all.

AARGH!!! This is all too much! I'm not going to do anything!

We know it can be confusing to decide what's best - especially when you want to do the right thing by your animals. There are many many choices these days. We believe we've done a lot of the leg-work for you. We only stockfoods we recommend - and that includes a selection of 'cheaper' foods as well.

If you need help deciding what's best for your Pet, we're more than happy to make recommendations - and WHY we recommend them. We're also happy to give you information so you can make an informed decision.

We pride ourselves on our service and quality products. Once you visit us, you'll realise this is what we do - it's not just words on a web site or the "Sorry - You're On Hold" marketing prattle.