Notes

Pet Food Marketing Hype - THE WITHIN Scoop From the Holistic Veterinarian
A trip down your pet food aisle these days will boggle your brain with the wonderful claims created by manufacturers for his or her particular products. But what's the reality behind all this marvelous hype? You might be very surprised...let's take a look.

1. Niche claims. Today, should 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 will discover a food "designed" simply for your pet's personal needs. Niche marketing is here in a big way in the pet food industry. People prefer to feel special, and a product with specific appeal is bound to sell better than an over-all product like "puppy food." But 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 very best bet is 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 ingredients that most people would consider very unnatural indeed. The word "organic," on the other hand, 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 the rules. For instance, the name of the company or product could be intentionally misleading. For example, some companies use terms like "Nature" or "Natural" in the brand name, whether or not 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 the pet food companies get away with using it. Exactly the same pertains to "USDA inspected" or similar phrases. The implication is that the meals is made using ingredients that are passed by the USDA for human consumption, but there are many ways around this. For example, a facility may be USDA-inspected throughout the day, but the pet food is manufactured at night following the inspector goes home. Using such terms ought to be viewed as a "Hype Alert."

4. "Meat is the first ingredient" claim. A declare that a named meat (chicken, lamb, etc.) may be the #1 ingredient is generally seen for dry food. Ingredients are listed on the label by weight, and raw chicken weighs a whole lot, since contains a lot of water. If you look further down the list, you might 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 generally does not take much raw chicken to weigh greater than a great big pile of this powder. Not only that, but the "chicken" used in dry food is truly 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 extremely popular marketing gimmick, even yet in premium and "health food" type brands. Since everybody is currently using it, any meaning it could once have had is so watered-down that you might just as well ignore it.

5. Special ingredient claims. Most of the high-end pet foods today depend on the marketing selling point of people-food ingredients such as 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. Fruit and veggies are often scraps and rejects from processors of human foods-certainly not the whole, fresh ingredients they want you to picture. Such ingredients don't give a significant health benefit and so are just a marketing gimmick.

It's a jungle out there...Pet food marketing and advertising is becoming extremely sophisticated over the last few years. read more is critical 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 interest in 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; and 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.
My Website: https://thegadgetflow.com/user/mackayjohnson903