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Is Organic Dog Food Healthier?
Most people are aware of the benefits of organic food, which is food grown without chemical fertilisers or pesticides. Nutrient content is much richer. Although supermarket food looks good, generally, its nutrient content is very poor.
If organic food is good for people, is it also good for dogs?
A resounding YES, is the answer to that...
But!
There's always a but isn't there?
You need to look at the whole picture.
If you are buying the commercial organic dog food, then you really aren't getting what you're paying for.
Why not?
If you look at what goes into commercial dog food, the benefits that the organic origins give to the food are swamped by all the other chemicals.
Let's look at the meat content of dog food first. The source for the bulk of commercial pet food comes from rendering plants. These take the waste from slaughter houses (heads, hooves, intestines, etc), road kill, euthanised pets from vets and zoos and dead animals from farms. If the slaughter house rejects come from some organic farms, that's helpful. But the overall mix is far from organic.
Even if the protein comes from organic waste meat, is that meat certified organic, or has the supplier just put an organic label on the packet to lure in unsuspecting buyers?
So the end product should be certified organic dog food. Not just one ingredient.
Now lets look at the dried food. Meat (or more likely meat by-products, the end product from rendering plants) is kept indefinitely at room temperature. The only way you can do this is by adding a strong preservative.
As there are no laws governing the quality of dog food in most countries, any preservative can be used. Even those considered unfit for consumption. Such as ethoxyquin. And formaldehyde.
Both these preservatives cause huge health problems simply by being in contact with them. Imagine what it does to your dog's health if he consumes them, and on a regular basis.
That alone makes the idea of organic dog food of little importance.
Even when the label on the packet proudly proclaims that no preservatives have been added, they are simply stating that they haven't added preservatives. The rendering plant may have done it for them.
Logic tells you that meat cannot be kept indefinitely at room temperature any other way.
Because the rendering plants boil the 'food' for long periods at high pressures, there is little nutrient content left.
To address this shortfall, isolated and synthetic nutrients are added. Neither humans nor dogs can utilise isolated and synthetic nutrients. These should come from the food, in a complex and balanced form.
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