Notes

Pet Food Marketing Hype - THE WITHIN Scoop From the Holistic Veterinarian
A trip down the pet food aisle nowadays will boggle your brain with all the wonderful claims made by manufacturers because of their particular products. But what's the reality behind all of this marvelous hype? You may be very surprised...let's take a look.

1. Niche claims. Today, when you have an inside cat, a canine athlete, a Persian, a Bloodhound, a Yorkie, or perhaps a pet with a tender tummy or itchy feet, you can find a food "designed" simply for your pet's personal needs. Niche marketing is here in a big way in your pet food industry. People like to feel special, and something with specific appeal will sell better than a general product like "puppy food." However the reality is that there are only two nutritional standards against which all pet foods are measured (adult and growth/gestation/lactation)-everything else is marketing. Your best bet is really a food made with top quality ingredients that satisfies "All Life Stages."

2. "Natural" or "Organic" claims. This is of "natural" adopted by AAFCO is quite broad, and permits artificially processed things that most of us would consider very unnatural indeed. The word "organic," on the other hand, includes a very strict legal definition that the USDA has ruled pertains to pet food. However, some companies are adept at evading the intent of the rules. For example, the name of the business or product could be intentionally misleading. For example, some companies use terms like "Nature" or "Natural" in the brand, whether their products fit the definition of natural.

3. Ingredient quality claims. A lot of pet foods claim they contain "human grade" ingredients. This is the completely meaningless term-which is why the pet food companies escape with using it. Exactly the same applies to "USDA inspected" or similar phrases. The implication is that the food is made using things that are passed by the USDA for human consumption, but there are numerous ways around this. For shake shack yelp , a facility may be USDA-inspected throughout the day, however the pet food is made at night after the inspector goes home. The use of such terms should be viewed as a "Hype Alert."

4. "Meat is the first ingredient" claim. A claim that a named meat (chicken, lamb, etc.) may be the #1 ingredient is normally seen for dry food. get more info are listed on the label by weight, and raw chicken weighs a whole lot, since contains a large amount of water. If you look further down the list, you might see ingredients such as chicken or poultry by-product meal, meat-and-bone meal, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, or other dry protein. Meals experienced the fat and water removed, and basically consist of a dry, lightweight, high-protein powder. It generally does not take much raw chicken to weigh greater than a great big pile of the powder. Not only that, but the "chicken" found in dry food is truly a slurry around 90% water; so in reality the food is based on the protein meal, with hardly any "chicken" to be found.

This has turn into a very popular marketing gimmick, even yet in premium and "health food" type brands. Since everybody is currently deploying it, any meaning it could once have had is so watered-down that you may equally well ignore it.

5. Special ingredient claims. A lot of the high-end pet foods today rely on the marketing selling point of people-food ingredients such as fruits, herbs, vegetables, and a number of supplements such as for example glucosamine or probiotics. However, the levels of these items actually present in the meals are small and not therapeutic. Fruits and vegetables are usually scraps and rejects from processors of human foods-certainly not the whole, fresh ingredients they want you to picture. Such ingredients don't provide a significant health benefit and so are only a marketing gimmick.

It's a jungle on the market...Pet food marketing and advertising has become extremely sophisticated over the last few years. It is important to know what is hype and what is real, so you can make informed decisions in what to feed your pets.

Dr. Jean Hofve is really a retired holistic veterinarian with a particular fascination with nutrition and behavior. Her informational website, http://www.littlebigcat.com, features a thorough free article library on feline health and pet nutrition, as well as a free e-newsletter. Dr. Hofve founded Spirit Essences Holistic Remedies for Animals (http://www.spiritessence.com) in 1995; and it remains the only type of flower essence formulas created by a veterinarian. She is an avowed Medicine Woman within the Nemenhah Native American Traditional Organization who uses holistic remedies as a part of body-mind-spiritual healing.
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