Commercial pet food – what's in that bag?

If you think for a moment… cats and dogs didn’t always eat from a bag or can.

Prior to the 1950’s (when commercial pet food became more the norm), family pets were fed meat and table scraps… “people food”.

Today pet care sales are in the neighborhood of $28 Billion a year.

Watching pet food commercials you’d definitely think dogs and cats need specially formulated, mysterious “pet food”.
But then – oddly enough – the commercials also imply the more human like the pet food is, the superior it is.

So what’s the deal?

Well, dogs and cats – like humans – need protein, fat and carbohydrates (but in different proportions).

Dogs and cats – like humans – shouldn’t have chemicals mixed in with their foods.

The first point – protein, fat and carbohydrates – we’ll set aside for another article. The second point – chemicals – we’ll talk about here.

First you should understand that pet food is not regulated like human food is. So you can’t assume a certain level of safety that you expect with people food.

Animal food is regulated (sort of) by the FDA via the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The CVM regulates animal feed products including medicated feed, food additives and animal drugs… primarily livestock stuff.

The FDA “partners” with AAFCO – the American Association of Feed Control Officials – to satisfy it’s mandate for pet food. AAFCO is a private advisory board which includes some government agencies and a number of pet food manufacturers.

Any packaged food will have preservatives basically to prevent it from quickly spoiling. Most of the dangerous chemicals found in a lot of pet foods are preservatives. While they do extend the shelf life of the food, they may shorten the life of your pet.

Let’s look at a few.

BHA – Butylated Hydroxyanisole and the related compound BHT – Butylated Hydroxytoluene are used to preserve fats from breaking down and going rancid.
BHA is suspected to cause hyperactivity, liver damage and stomach cancer.
BHT is suspected to cause liver damage and thyroid and bladder cancer.

Ethoxyquin is used to preserve fats and is also used as a pesticide. The FDA does not allow the use of Ethoxyquin in human food, but does allow it in pet food. Hmmm.
They did – in 1997 – request a VOLUNTARY decrease in the amount used.
According to studies Ethoxyquin has been found to increase kidney, stomach and bladder cancer. It’s also been linked to autoimmune diseases.
Some pet food manufacturers simply list “E” on the ingredient label. You don’t think they’re trying to imply the food contains Vitamin E rather than Ethoxyquin do you?

Propyl Gallate is another fat and oil preservative. It’s linked to allergic reaction, stomach and skin irritation and kidney and liver disease.

Propylene Glycol is also a preservative. It’s been linked to liver abnormalities and kidney damage. Additionally, cats tend to get addicted to food with Propylene Glycol.

What are some good preservatives?

Vitamin E, Tocopherols and Vitamin C are the most common non-chemical preservatives.
Rosemary extract is also a preservative which you might find in some of the natural/organic pet foods.

Before grabbing that next bag or can of pet food and heading to the check out counter, flip it over and scan through the ingredient list. Know what you’re feeding your companion.

Pets – like people – have basic nutritional needs. They can survive eating poor quality food. But there’s a cost…
Generally their health will be compromised and their life shortened.


Natural Dog and Cat Care 101 explains the nutritional requirements of cats and dogs, the short comings of popular commercial food products and how to read ingredient labels.



How to read a pet food ingredient label

Food is very important – critically important. It supplies the building blocks for a healthy body. Keeping your companion nourished and healthy can mean avoiding many of the sicknesses a lot of our pets currently experience (and the vet bills that accompany them… which could be hundreds or even thousands a year).

Lets say you want to be sure the food you buy for your pet is quality, healthy food.

How do you know?

Aside from having the capability to fully analyze the food yourself, your biggest clue is in the label… and the knowledge of how to decode it.

One large difference between food manufactured for pets and food manufactured for people is what’s known as the “4–D Rule”… Commercial pet food can contain parts from animals that are Dead, Diseased, Dying or Disabled. Human food cannot.

When animals are slaughtered, the lean muscle is trimmed away for human consumption.
That accounts for about half the animal. The rest – “remnants” (bone, blood, ligaments, beaks, hoofs, ect. as well as organs) – become “by products” and are used in pet food, animal feed and other products.

Similarly when it comes to grains – that which is waste from human food processing is used for pet food.

When you're scanning the ingredient label, in general,

You WANT: real/human grade meat, vegetables and fruit, whole grains, phytonutrients, antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, natural preservatives.

You DON’T want: BHA, BHT, Propylene glycol, Ethoxyquin, phosphoric acid, benzoic acid, sodium nitrate, MSG, sodium metabisulphite, formalin, dyes, by-products, “meal”, fractions, middlings and gluten.

Ingredients are listed by quantity in descending order. Generally, the top ten ingredients account for about 80% of the total.

To start, you want the first ingredient to be an animal based protein.
“By–products” can be “everything else” that you wouldn’t find in the meat department at a grocery store. Stuff such as hair/feathers, beaks/nails/hooves, tendons, ect.

Inexpensive and not very nutritious or digestible.

One gauge of the protein quality is ash content. The lower the better. 2–3% is good. Ash content is often not listed on dry food.

Food fractions – “middlings”, gluten – are what’s left over from human food processing. Corn husks, peanut shells, wheat chaffe, ect. Inexpensive and not very nutritious or digestible.

Commercial pet food should have antioxidants: Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin E.
It should have Essential Fatty Acids.
Preservatives: Vitamin C, Vitamin E and mixed tocopherols are good.
BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin and Propylene Glycol are NOT good.

Avoid artificial flavor enhancers such as MSG and phosphoric acid.
Avoid artificial colors including any dyes, Azo and sodium nitrite.

The price of the product alone is not a true indicator of the quality of ingredients.


Natural Dog and Cat Care 101 explains the nutritional requirements of cats and dogs, the short comings of popular commercial food products and how to read ingredient labels.



What's in a (pet food) name?

When shopping for pet food the product name and packaging are what you notice first. And in many – if not most – cases your choice to buy that product is because of the “message” portrayed by the name and packaging.

When you’re walking through the produce section of the store, a bin of apples can be labeled “Apples”. A bin of oranges can be labeled “Oranges”. You can clearly see the label matches the product.

A whole different set of rules and definitions apply to pet food. And you probably don’t know that.

AAFCO – the American Association of Feed Control Officials – writes the rule book for pet food naming. AAFCO is a private advisory board which includes some government agencies and a number of pet food manufacturers.


We’ll take a look at the:

  • 95%/70% Rule
  • 25% or “Dinner” Rule
  • 3% or “With” Rule
  • The “Flavor” Rule


Before we look at the rules, we first need to mention the difference between dry weight and total contents. Dry matter in a given product is 100 minus the moisture content.

For example, let’s say a package of dry dog food lists 20% protein and a can of wet dog food lists 10% protein.
Look for the moisture in each package.
Let’s say the dry food has 6% moisture and the wet food has 55% moisture.
For the dry food you divide 20% into 94% (100 – 6% moisture). Your protein is 21.3%.
For the wet food you divide 10% into 45% (100 – 55% moisture). Your protein is 22.2%.

The 95% Rule

The 95% rule applies to products that are primarily meat, poultry or fish which is generally limited to canned food.
When the product name includes an ingredient from an animal without any further qualifiers, that ingredient must be at least 95% of the product not including added water and condiments.
And that ingredient must be at least 70% of the pruduct including added water and condiments.

For instance:
“Beef Dog Food”. At least 95% of the dry ingredients must be beef and at least 70% of the total contents must be beef.
“Chicken For Cats”. At least 95% of the dry contents and 70% of the total ingredients must be tuna.

If the product includes multiple ingredients – such as “Chicken And Liver Cat Food” – then:
A) the combination of both ingredients must be at least 95% of the dry weight, and,
B) the first ingredient listed must be greater than the second ingredient listed.

The 95% rule applies only to ingredients from animals – meat, poultry, fish. It does not apply to grains. So a product named Lamb and Rice Dog Food must contain 95% lamb.

The 25% “Dinner” Rule

Add the word ‘Dinner’ to the product name and the named ingredient can drop to 25% of dry weight. So if the product name was “Chicken Dinner For Cats” instead of “Chicken For Cats”, the product only need have 25% chicken.

To add another dimension of confusion, the specific word “dinner” isn’t the only allowable word. The rule allows for any “qualifying descriptive term” such as “platter”, “entree”, “nuggets”, “formula”… basically any words other than dog, cat or food should give cause for further examination.

Ingredients are listed in order of weight. Turn the can or bag over. If the ingredient is not the first ingredient in the list, it surely is not 95% of the total product content.

The 3% “With” Rule

Whatever ingredient follows the word With only needs to be 3% of the dry content. So “Cat Food With Chicken” need have only 3% chicken.

Often manufacturers take advantage of the “With” rule for special ingredients rather than the main protein source. This makes the product seem to be more premium.

Eamples of the “With” Rule:

  • Turkey WITH Garden Veggies and Greens
  • Beef WITH Cheese
  • Ocean Fish WITH Crab

The word with is a sure give away tho you should still take a look at the ingredient label to get a more full picture.

The “Flavor” Rule

The Flavor Rule requires no percentage. In fact it doesn’t even require the actual ingredient. To pass the Flavor Test animals who have been trained to prefer a specific flavor must react to the food. So dogs who have been trained to like beef must react favorable to beef “flavored” food.

Manufacturers often use “digests” for flavor. Digests are materials treated with enzymes and/or acids to create a concentrated flavor. A can of Chicken Flavored Cat Food could easily have less than a single bite of chicken… and that chicken flavor may have been developed from chicken bones.

What’s IN A Name…

  • Chicken Cat Food – 95% Chicken products
  • Chicken Formula For Cats – 25% Chicken products
  • Cat Food With Chicken – 3% Chicken products
  • Chicken Flavor Cat Food – Perhaps no chicken at all


Natural Dog and Cat Care 101 explains the nutritional requirements of cats and dogs, the short comings of popular commercial food products and how to read ingredient labels so you can choose food that better supports the health of your companion.



Cat Vaccinations – current best practices

Yearly vaccinations became customary back in the 1950’s, more so for dogs than cats. While there wasn't any scientific research to justify the annual re–vaccination, neither were there any known risks at the time.

That has changed… dramatically. It’s now known there are many serious adverse reactions to vaccines.

Over the past decade all 27 Veterinary schools in North America have updated their recommendations, as have these industry associations:

  • American Veterinary Medical Association
  • American Animal Hospital Association
  • World Small Animal Veterinary Association
  • Australian Veterinary Association


Current recommendations for re–vaccination range from “3 or more years” to “7 or more years” to never.

Adverse Reactions

Vets generally only see immediate reactions. Symptoms can appear up to 45 days or even years later.

Ideally, the virus is destroyed by the cats’ immune response and the additional toxins are purged from the body. But often – particularly with repeated vaccinations – toxins and foreign substances remain in organs, muscle and joints creating low–grade inflammation and weakening the immune system.

For instance the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) created a Vaccine–Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force. They conducted several studies to find out why 160,000 cats a year develop terminal cancer at or near vaccine injection sites.

They acknowledged the cancer is due to vaccines and now recommend changing the injection site from between the shoulder blades to the tail or hind leg so it can be amputated if cancer develops.

Other adverse reactions include:
Allergies, chronic skin problems, inflammatory bowel disease, colitis, pancreatitis, kidney failure, liver failure, arthritis, thyroid disease, epilepsy, seizures, paralysis, auto-immune diseases.

Vaccine Protocol

There’s two parts to a vaccine protocol for your cat.
 – Which vaccines
 – How often

Cat vaccines include: Panleukopenia (cat distemper), Rhinotracheitis, Calici virus, Feline Leukemia virus (FeLV), Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP).

Panleukopenia is life threatening. It causes vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and low white blood cell count.

Rhinotracheitis and Calici virus are respiratory diseases. They’re not life threatening and like a cold they cause runny nose, runny eyes and fever.

Feline Leukemia virus requires direct, intimate, cat–to–cat contact. You may want to consider this vaccine if you have an outdoor cat. Indoor cats are realistically not at risk. It does cause chronic immune suppression and can lead to cancer.

Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), also called Feline AIDS. FIV is believed to be spread only by bite wounds. If infected, the cat usually gets through a period with a fever and swollen lymph glands. However, months or even years later some other immune system stressor can re–activate the disease and it becomes chronic and can lead to death.
Indoor cats are not at risk.

Feline Infectious Peritonitis vaccine (FIP) is generally not very effective and is associated with severe side effects. FIP is caused by the corona virus and can be spread from cat to cat. It’s an upper respiratory infection.

Rabies vaccine.
Indoor cats are not at risk. However, rabies vaccination is often required by municipalities.
Rabies immunity duration studies overwhelmingly support a duration of at least 3 years. Hopefully your municipality doesn’t require yearly shots.

A conservative vaccination approach recommended by Dr. Pitcairn is for a single Distemper (Feline Panleukopenia) shot at 16 weeks.

It’s best to get a single vaccination at a time however, most vaccines come as a combination. For cats you’ll likely get “3–in–1” – Panleukopenia, Rhinotracheitis and Calici virus.

Additional recommendations:

  • Don’t vaccinate if your cat is sick or immune compromised.
  • Don’t vaccinate if your cat is receiving pharmaceuticals, especially steroids.
  • Don’t vaccinate near or at the same time as surgery such as spaying/neutering.
  • If there’s any adverse reaction at all stop or at least slow down the schedule.
  • Minimize stress as much as possible.
  • Maintain a good diet.



Natural Dog and Cat Care 101 explains the history of vaccination for cats and dogs, the risks, the current science and recommendations from leading Vets. Get the best information to make the wisest care choices.



Dog Vaccinations – current best practices

The practice of yearly vaccinating took hold back in the 1950’s.
But it wasn’t based on scientific research.

To be fair, at the time it was believed there were no risks associated
with vaccines. We now know that’s very much incorrect.

As it became known there are many serious adverse reactions to vaccines more leading Vets questioned the practice.

All 27 Veterinary schools in North America have updated their recommendations, as have these industry associations:

  • American Veterinary Medical Association
  • American Animal Hospital Association
  • World Small Animal Veterinary Association
  • Australian Veterinary Association

Current recommendations for re–vaccination range from “3 or more years” to “7 or more years” to never…

Dr Ronald Schultz, expert in immunology and member of the WSAVA
Vaccination Guidelines Group and American Animal Hospital Association Canine
Vaccine Task Force:
if a puppy is immunized for parvovirus, distemper virus and adenovirus “there is every reason to believe the vaccinated animal will have up to life–long immunity”.

Adverse Reactions

First, there is no reporting system or reporting requirement for adverse reactions due to vaccines. So there’s no official accounting of problems.
And there’s no national database a Vet can get information about a particular vaccine from.

Second, for the most part, Vets only see immediate reactions. The range of symptoms that develop later – perhaps an hour, perhaps a week, perhaps years, are not identified as being caused by the vaccine.

Ideally, the virus is destroyed by the pets’ immune response and the additional toxins are purged from the body. That doesn’t always happen tho, particularly with repeated vaccines. These toxins and foreign substances can remain in the body taking up residence in organs, muscle and joints and creating a low–grade inflammation and weakened immune system.

Autopsies consistently show vaccine materials deposited throughout the body.

Reactions can be immediate, or they may not be obvious for some time.
They can be minor, but they can also be a severe as death.

Adverse reactions associated with vaccines include:
Allergies, chronic skin problems, inflammatory bowel disease, colitis, pancreatitis, kidney failure, liver failure, arthritis, thyroid disease, epilepsy, seizures, paralysis, auto-immune disease, cancer.

Also behavior problems such as aggression, suspiciousness, restlessness,
aloofness, separation anxiety, excessive barking, destructive behavior, tail chewing.

Vaccine Protocol

There’s two parts to a vaccine protocol for your dog.
 – Which vaccines
 – How often

Primary dog vaccines include: Distemper, Parvovirus, Hepatitis (Adenovirus), Leptospirosis, Parainfluenza.

Bordatella, Coronavirus and Lyme disease are less often given.

Parvovirus is considered deadly to puppies but rarely effects adult dogs.

Distemper is rare, but can kill.

The Hepatitis vaccine (Adenovirus) doesn’t protect against all causes and hepatitis isn't prevalent.

Leptospirosis is rare. There are hundreds of strains. The vaccine includes
only a few strains and is protective (of those strains) for only 3–6 months. The Leptospirosis vaccine is also prone to side effects.

The Parainfluenza vaccine doesn’t protect against all causes, the flu virus mutates and the flu rarely is significantly debilitating.

Bordatella vaccine is for kennel cough. Kennel cough is not serious and not likely at all if your dog isn’t in close contact with other dogs such as would be the case in a kennel.

Corona results in mild diarrhea. The vaccine isn’t fully protective.

The risk of Lyme disease is location and lifestyle dependent. If you don’t live in an area where Lyme disease is prevalent your dog is not at risk.

Vaccine schedule

Maternal antibodies are protective for 16–22 weeks. So the earliest you want to start vaccinating is 16 weeks.

A conservative approach is reflected in Dr Pitcairn’s recommendations.
 – First Distemper shot at 16 weeks
 – First Parvovirus shot at 20 weeks
 – Second Distemper shot at 24 weeks
 – Second Parvovirus shot at 28 weeks
 – Rabies shot a month later

If your municipality requires a rabies shot sooner than 8 months, he recommends you start with the rabies shot and then begin the rest of the schedule 4 weeks later.

It’s best to get a single vaccination at a time.

You can for rabies; however, most of the other vaccines come as a combination. It’s more cost effective for manufacturers.

For dogs you’ll likely get DH – Distemper and Hepatitis. At least limit the vaccine schedule to one shot at a time.

Additional recommendations:

  • Never vaccinate when the pet is sick or immune compromised.
  • Never vaccinate when the pet is receiving pharmaceuticals, especially steroids.
  • Never vaccinate near or at the same time as surgery such as spaying/neutering.
  • If there’s any adverse reaction at all stop or at least slow down the schedule.
  • Minimize stress as much as possible.
  • Maintain a good diet.




Natural Dog and Cat Care 101 explains the history of vaccination for cats and dogs, the risks, the current science and recommendations from leading Vets. Get the best information to make the wisest care choices.