What’s Wrong with Dog Kibble?

Diabetes, anal gland Problems, itchy skin, leaky gut, liver disease, allergies and Cancer  in our pets –  why? The answer is easy for The Pet Bistro Team Through clever marketing and advertising we have been  taught that a dogs nutrition rattles in a bag and takes the shape of a biscuit, or comes in the form of a dog roll.   We have been taught to  feed them  processed foods that provide little to no nutrition – its that simple! What I find really  sad however  is that most people have no idea how bad the foods we feed our dogs actually are – people have never stopped and questioned what’s in these packets. It is made  worse if they bought the food from a favoured Pet Shop or  Vet  – the very people who are supposed to care about our pets and know what is good for them.  However,  sadly most veterinarians are sponsored by the very companies making sub standard nutrition  and most  people  do not  understand how feeding this food actually causes our dogs to starve, develop the above conditions and why their pets are simply just surviving rather than thriving. Other dog food experts talk about the pitfalls of kibble and other processed pet foods such as the 3 D’s dead , diseased and dying.  Meal Meals are made with basically floor sweepings and often include feathers and beaks amongst other things that would make you feel sick, or they use inferior fillers such as  soy, wheat, sugar beet. But this all pales in comparison to the real problem – there  one common denominator ALL dog kibble shares … regardless of the so called  quality of ingredients that go into it. By the time they’re heated and processed, there’s not much left for your dog to live on! As your about to find all pet food manufacturers  spend a fortune on flavour enhancers and sprays to entice your dog  to want to eat it – without these there would be no way your dogs sensitive nose would consider it.

How Dog Food Processing Destroys Nutrition

In case you don’t know, this is how kibble’s manufactured. The raw ingredients of kibble get mixed up in a giant grinder. Many of the added foods get heated and processed before they’re added to the dog kibble – for example meat meal .  They then heat and steam the entire batch again. After that the kibble gets pushed through a giant screw called an extruder. While processed, it’s once again heated. Then it’s sent to an oven to dry where it’s once again heated. Most of the ingredients in your dog’s kibble get heated and processed four times before they hit the bag. Heating and processing at these high temperatures destroy any nutrients in the food so the manufacturers need to replace these and the flavours – so how do they do this? Well these brown balls are  given a  coating with fats,  before getting sprayed with flavour enhancers and colours   to coax your dog or cat into eating it.  It’s packaged and sent off to stores and shelves where it may six for months.  Still thinking this is quality? … The pet food manufacturers  know their foods are deficient. So they do something to compensate for the deficiency … they add vitamins and minerals to the food, NOW  you might be thinking that’s a good thing. But there’s a problem with those vitamins and minerals – they are fake. They are synthetic nutrition and quite simply that is not good enough for your dog! Your dog needs real nutrition, real vitamins its body can process and benefit from. Synthetic vitamins  and minerals are not food – they are  chemical isolates or fractionated pieces of vitamins. Labs owned by pharmaceutical companies (and often located in China) make them …still thinking kibble is quality? These synthetic Vitamins – are added  every packet of dry  pet food you’ll ever  buy –   without these synthetic vitamins there is literally no benefit to your pet in eating it except to fill its tummy.  Given a choice a  dogs sensitive nose would not go anywhere near these brown balls,  but are we giving them a choice?  Daily we throw the dog his biscuits or fill his bowl and never question if he likes them because he eats them right?  Sadly dogs are given no choice in their diet they simply rely on their owners to choose what’s best for them Your pet needs quality  nutrition – just like you do – its that simple! You don’t feed your dog every day to simply  fill his stomach, most likely you want your pet to eat  a meal to  not only enjoy his food but to  show him how much you love them right?  – no one purposely starves their  pet.    You may even  hope that by buying the expensive brands your pet may  even enjoy his food,  BUT  your pets  food MUST  contain the nutrients it needs to survive and feed all the cells in their body so they don’t break down, if cells break down your dog breaks down Nutrition is vital to your dog’s health and longevity. The old saying of feeding kibble – there is more nutrition in the cardboard packet than there is in the food definitely applies. Dogs cannot  live on nutrient depleted food for very long, they’ll soon develop chronic diseases, itchy skin, cancers and more. For eg A manganese deficiency will cause ACL tears ( the most common knee injury in dogs) , nerve and connective tissue dysfunction. An iodine deficiency will cause obesity, aggression and chronic infections. A zinc deficiency will cause heart disease, GI and skin issues and blindness. Get the idea?

Your Dog Deserves Better

There’s a saying in the pet food industry and I believe it to be true…it goes something like this … “You can make a bag of sand pass AAFCO  (  Association of American Feed Officials)    standards if you add the right premix (a bag of synthetic vitamins and minerals) to it.” The bottom line is that  all your dog is  eating if you feed him kibble or canned food is a bag of low quality ingredients , fortified with fake vitamins and minerals. And as long as those vitamins meet AAFCO’s standards, it’s deemed balanced and complete nutrition!  Appalling right? In our next article we will focus on What  Good Nutrition for Your Dog Looks Like