Why Your Pet Needs Human-Grade Food
The Fetching Foods tagline is “Human Food Made For Pets”. You may have asked yourself, why is human-grade food important for our pets along with one or more of these questions:
- Humans aren’t eating it, dogs and cats are. Does it mean it’s formulated for humans? Cats and dogs are carnivores, humans aren’t, so it’s bad for them?
- I’ve seen my dog eat roadkill (or worse) and not get sick. Why would s/he need human food?
- My cat eats bugs and lint, why would she care if the food is human?
- When I grew up our pets ate kibble (dry food) and table scraps. Our pets lived to 15yrs old and never had to go to the vet. What’s the big deal?
- Pet food is way cheaper than human food. Why should I spend extra money feeding my pet human food?
- I’m using a good quality kibble (dry food). That’s good enough.
- They’re just animals after all. They’ll eat what-ever you give them.
When you eat healthy you feel good, even great. You have more energy, think clearer, your hair and nails are healthier, skin is clearer, your stomach doesn’t ache, smooth regular bowel movements, etc. There are obvious outward and inward signs when you’re on the right diet. It’s the same for your pet.
The FDA, USA’s main regulating body, defines what humans eat as “Food”. What animals eat is “Feed”. Animals that are eaten for Food by humans have their Feed regulated. Feed is also what we feed to our pets, according to the FDA.
Human grade Food is the highest quality standard, above Feed. Food meats come from healthy animals with strict requirements enforced through inspections by the government (state and federal). Fruits, vegetables, and grains each have their own standards and rating systems that the government ensures are followed. Organic is an even higher standard for Food meats, fruits, and vegetables.
That’s the idea behind Human Food Made For Pets. Human-grade Food is the best quality you can feed your pets. The better the food, the healthier it is.
Within human-grade foods is a spectrum of quality. On one end is SPAM, pork rinds, and Vienna Sausage. On the other is a USDA Prime Steak. Potato chips vs fresh kale or spinach. Wonder Bread vs whole grain bread. Of these examples the main difference is processing. Foods with the lowest-end, human-grade ingredients tend to be the most highly processed.
Heavy processing is needed because low-quality ingredients by themselves would be virtually inedible otherwise. What ingredients are in a high-end steak from the butcher shop? Just one: steak. What ingredients are in Vienna Sausage? Correct: a bunch of stuff, lots you can’t pronounce. How healthy can all of those chemicals be, not to mention the quality of the meat?
Foods that are whole or minimally processed tend to be much healthier. Pork rinds are bad for you, a pork chop is much healthier. Simple.
Products that don’t meet the FDA’s standards for Food find other uses. It’s capitalism in action: maximizing profits. The waste from Food manufacturing is usually turned into Feed. Companies make money on their waste. Here’s where it gets interesting.
For Feed, it’s acceptable, by the FDA’s rules, to use downed, dead, and diseased animals. In otherwords, the FDA allows animals that “have died other than by slaughter to be used as ingredients in pet food”. That’s why we’ve seen instances of pentobarbital, a euthanasia drug, appear in pet foods, triggering recalls. Because euthanized animals are put into Feed that we give our pets.
Essentially this means large commercial companies let nothing go to waste, maximizing profits. Meat that is beyond any imaginable definition of consumable by a human, and all but the most desperate dog or cat, is used to make dog and cat food. Ever wonder why there’s so much chicken in our pet’s food? The massive egg producing farms have huge die-off and ‘retirement’ of egg-laying hens. They’re turned into Feed. The same with milk cows that aren’t producing. Tuna too — it’s where the trimmings, skin, scales and rotten/spoiled fish go — into your cat’s food. There are even some more unhealthy, disgusting, and unthinkable sources of meats for our pet’s food.
All of these inferior meats are heavily processed into something edible for our pets: kibble (dry food) and/or canned food. It’s cooked at extremely high temperatures making them nutritionally void. Vitamins and minerals, made artificially in a lab, are added to the meat mixture. Carbohydrates and starches and colorings are added to give the food shape and a proper color (only to appeal to humans, since pets don’t care about the shape or color). Then chemicals that trick your pet into thinking this is something that smells and tastes delicious are added. Think Cheetos. Without palatants, the chemicals that supply taste and smell, Cheetos would have absolutely no taste or smell. Same with your pet’s food.
What all of this means is Feed from the big commercial companies sell meet the nutritional needs for your pet. But they aren’t healthy foods. There’s a difference. They’re difficult to digest, they’re the suspected cause of why 60% of all dogs will die from cancer (the highest cancer rate of ANY mammal on the planet!), pancreatitis, chronic kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, oral decay, and more. These diseases are all on the rise, picking up pace in the last few decades.
Even 20yrs ago kibble was a ‘healthier’ product before GMOs, Round-up, and all kinds of other recent un-healthy (poisonous) additions into the non-human food (Feed) supply. 50yrs ago it was even better. Made from more whole products, fewer chemicals, and better quality ingredients. Now large commercial pet food is optimized for profits: kibble and canned foods are made from the cheapest, lowest cost, highest-risk ingredients. Feeding these highly processed foods is playing Russian Roulette with your pet’s health.
Feeding quality, fresh, food that has minimal processing is the healthiest thing you can do for your pet. At Fetching Foods we have developed bio-specific and biologically appropriate pre-formulated and Custom Meals designed to meet the specific needs of your dog or cat in the healthiest way possible. Our ingredients are high-end human-grade Foods, no hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, or other unnatural ingredients. After all, eating healthy food will generate health.
When I go to a dog park I can spot kibble fed dogs from how they look and their energy level. Feeding a fresh diet really does make a big difference. Try it for your dog or cat. Focus on prevention of diseases rather than the cure by feeding correctly. shop.fetchingfoods.com
If the topic of healthy food for your pet is fairly new to you, here are a few resources to get you on the path of learning more:
- Watch the documentary PetFooled on Netflix (~1hr long)
- https://truthaboutpetfood.com/
- https://www.planetpaws.ca/