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Pet Food Marketing Hype - The Inside Scoop From the Holistic Veterinarian
A trip down your pet food aisle these days will boggle the mind with the wonderful claims created by manufacturers for their particular products. But what's the truth behind all of this marvelous hype? You might be very surprised...let's take a look.

1. Niche claims. Today, should you have an indoor 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" just for your pet's personal needs. Niche marketing has arrived in a large way in your pet food industry. People like to feel special, and a product with specific appeal will sell better than an over-all product like "puppy food." But the reality is t here are only two nutritional standards against which all pet foods are measured (adult and growth/gestation/lactation)-everything else is marketing. Your very best bet is really a food made with top quality ingredients that satisfies "All Life Stages."

2. "Natural" or "Organic" claims. The definition of "natural" adopted by AAFCO is very broad, and permits artificially processed ingredients that many of us would consider very unnatural indeed. The word "organic," alternatively, has a very strict legal definition that the USDA has ruled applies to pet food. However, some companies are adept at evading the intent of these rules. For example, the name of the company or product could be intentionally misleading. For instance, some companies use terms like "Nature" or "Natural" in the brand name, whether their products fit this is of natural.

3. Ingredient quality claims. Plenty of pet foods claim they contain "human grade" ingredients. This is the completely meaningless term-which is why your 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 ingredients that are passed by the USDA for human consumption, but there are lots of ways around this. For instance, a facility might be USDA-inspected during the day, but the pet food is manufactured at night after the inspector goes home. Using such terms ought to be viewed as a "Hype Alert."

4. get more info may be the first ingredient" claim. A declare that a named meat (chicken, lamb, etc.) is the #1 ingredient is normally seen for dry food. Ingredients 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're likely to see ingredients such as for example chicken or poultry by-product meal, meat-and-bone meal, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, or other dry protein. Meals have had the fat and water removed, and basically contain a dry, lightweight, high-protein powder. It doesn't take much raw chicken to weigh greater than a great big pile of this powder. Not just that, but the "chicken" found in dry food is actually a slurry around 90% water; so the truth is the food is based on the protein meal, with very little "chicken" found.

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

5. Special ingredient claims. Many of the high-end pet foods today rely on the marketing appeal of people-food ingredients such as for example fruits, herbs, vegetables, and a number of supplements such as glucosamine or probiotics. However, the levels of these items actually within the meals are small and not therapeutic. Vegetables and fruit are often scraps and rejects from processors of human foods-certainly not the complete, fresh ingredients they want one to picture. Such ingredients don't provide a significant health benefit and so are just a marketing gimmick.

It's a jungle on the market...Pet food marketing and advertising is becoming extremely sophisticated during the last few years. It is critical to know what is hype and what is real, to help you make informed decisions about what to feed your pets.

Dr. Additional info is 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, in addition to a free e-newsletter. Dr. Hofve founded Spirit Essences Holistic Remedies for Animals (http://www.spiritessence.com) in 1995; also it remains the only line of flower essence formulas created by a veterinarian. She actually 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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