My Take on Pet Food

I just read Yvonne's post about Pet Food and I found it quite interesting. I've worked in the Pet Food industry since 1986, I think. Hard to remember that far back. I worked for Hill's Pet Nutrition® for three years. They make Prescription Diet and Science Diet products. I worked for Purina® for almost 17 years in their veterinary business, consumer marketing for both Purina ONE® and Pro Plan® and finally in product development and innovation. I was the president of The American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition during the early nineties. 

I think I know my pet food. I'd like to give you my brief perspective on some of the issues Yvonne touched on in her post.

 

First of all pets require nutrients not ingredients. They need protein, fat, vitamins and minerals in the proper proportions. While they don't have specific requirements for carbohydrates, virtually all commercially available pet foods use carbohydrates to supply energy. These same carbohydrate sources provide protein, vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids to the diet. They also need water.

 

These nutrients can be provided in any number of ways through a large variety of ingredients. This last fact is the source of virtually all the marketing claims and provides the basis for all the arguments made about who makes the best pet food. 

 

I'll let you in on little secret. From a purely nutritional point of view much of that debate is conducted while dancing on the head of a pin. To be specific, most of the higher quality foods, the products that cost more, are much more alike than they are different. Products like Iams® and Science Diet®, Purina ONE®, Nutro®, Eukanuba® and Pro Plan® to name a few, are very similar in both nutrient content and the ingredient sources that supply those nutrients.

 

Marketers like to argue about ingredients to make the case for their product. You'll hear them saying things like, "Poultry meal is better than poultry by-product meal," and that, "Real chicken is better than both." The truth is that all three ingredient sources provide very similar nutrient profiles. The protein, fat, mineral and vitamin content is very, very similar and the dog or cat that eats any one of them is going to get the nutrients they need from what is essentially chicken.

 

Pro Plan was the first product to use real chicken through a proprietary cooking process developed by Purina in the late 80's. Now, many products use real chicken plus chicken in some other form like poultry meal. Is real chicken better? It may taste better to a dog or cat and it sounds more appealing to a human than something like poultry meal, but both provide essentially the same nutrients.

 

The next generation of ingredient arguments centers on claims like "human grade" or "natural," hormone free, organic and RAW. Assuming that the "raw" products are formulated properly according to established nutrient (not ingredient) standards, the nutrients provided by these products are similar too. At least they better be. The marketing claims associated with these products appeal to humans, not dogs or cats. 

 

To a dog, that road killed jack rabbit, tenderized by the sun and numerous subsequent vehicles, is very tasty, in fact, just as tasty as organic, pasture rotated, humanely (?) slaughtered, hormone free beef. From a nutrient point of view the dog would be better off with the jack rabbit assuming the dog ate the entire jack rabbit carcass; intestines, internal organs, etc. Much better balanced and complete than cow muscle meat.

 

I'm not saying all these arguments are entirely specious. I buy organic breakfast cereal and organic soy milk every week. I prefer to buy food at the local Co-op as opposed to a giant super anything. I really like my tomatoes out of my garden or my neighbor's garden as opposed to trucked in from some farm in California. I prefer slow food to fast food, but most of all I'm in it for the nutrients.

 

My only problem is consistency. With the variety of stuff us humans eat it's hard to tell whether the nutrients are there in proper proportion sometimes. Fortunately, dogs and cats that eat a quality commercially produced pet food get the same nutrients consistently from bag to bag. As a result, they eat better than many humans.

 

Darcie ate either Pro Plan or Purina ONE her entire 18 year life and for my money there's nothing better. That's because I know both these products inside and out. She never got fat and she never missed a meal. Miles is eating Puppy Chow® because Claire is on a budget and Puppy Chow just happens to be a really good choice for a large breed puppy in my opinion. Not too much fat which means he's not likely to grow too fast and get into trouble as we've discussed so many times before.

 

We are really lucky in America to have choices. You could throw a dart in the aisle at the grocery store or the pet store and hit a good product for you pet. The product you choose should be based on what you want and how you feel about feeding your pet. It should also be based on experience, either yours or someone else's in the know. Be wary if you start to hear ingredient based arguments. No corn, no soy, no wheat, real this or real that, human grade, blah, blah, blah. Most of those arguments came from focus groups. 

 

Have people grown healthy puppies and kittens on it? Has it been tested against scientifically established nutrient profiles and feeding tests for the life stage of the dog or cat it is formulated for? Does the breeder recommend it? What does your vet say? And finally, how does your dog or cat respond? Are they healthy? Do they have a nice shiny coat, bright eyes and are they ready to go for a nice walk every day? Those are the questions you should ask.

 

My good friend Ernie Planck worked for Purina almost as long as I did. He worked with breeders and show dogs most of his career. Under his watch the majority of the top 100 show dogs in America, la creme de la creme, made the switch to Pro Plan. Ernie used to say that arguing about pet food was like arguing about religion.

 

People have their preferences and their closely held arguments about which religion is the best, and, in some cases equally strongly held opinions on which pet food is best. Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists can all claim they have a one way ticket to heaven. But, from the way I understand it, and I'll admit I'm on thin ice when it comes to religion, the ticket taker isn't getting hung up on a specific brand name at the pearly gates. He or She, is more interested in the record of performance.