How to Choose Healthy Foods For Your Pet

The overwhelming array of choices when it comes to pet food makes it difficult to determine which foods are best for your pet. In addition, many pet owners stopped trusting commercial pet foods after the massive pet food recall of 2007. Pet owners began preparing home-made diets for their pets or jumped on the raw food bandwagon. How do you know what food is best for your pet?

I am not a proponent of raw food diets. While I acknowledge that there are numerous benefits to feeding raw, unprocessed foods, I believe that the risks for animals outweigh the benefits. Unless you can be one hundred percent sure that the meat you’re feeding your pet is pathogen and parasite free, you should not be feeding raw meat. If you want to feed a homemade diet, feed your pet a cooked diet and make sure it is properly balanced. Petdiets.com provides recipes created by veterinary nutritionists for healthy pets as well as pets with special medical or dietary needs.

Most pet owners still prefer to feed a commercial diet, but they want to feed something that’s “natural” and free of preservatives. But how do you know whether the food that’s advertised as “natural” really is? Often, foods are labeled “natural”, but once you check the label, you find that the food really isn’t so natural after all. A look at the ingredients might show that the conventional brand’s “natural” food is still of pretty poor quality. Maybe the primary ingredient was changed from poultry by-products to chicken, but the food still contains corn gluten meal, soy meal, and wheat gluten meal, ingredients that are high on the list of culprits when it comes to allergies or digestive problems. This is why it’s important to not fall for the marketing hype of a “natural” label but read the ingredients.

Another common misconception is that veterinary diets are high quality, healthy foods because they come from a vet’s office. Unfortunately, when you look at the ingredient list on the veterinary brands, you often find the same things you find in the cheap grocery store brands. Most veterinarians receive very little training in nutrition. Veterinary schools typically offer only a few weeks of training in nutrition, and the instruction is often sponsored or provided by the same companies that make these veterinary diets.

Many pet owners are unsure of what makes a food natural, healthy or holistic. The best way to determine this is to disregard tags such as “all-natural”, “holistic”, “veterinarian approved”, “chosen by top breeders”. Ignore the cute photos of happy dogs and cute kittens and wholesome looking ingredients on the labels, and look at the ingredient listing instead. Manufacturers are required to list ingredients in descending order, i.e., the ingredient with the highest amount is listed first, the one with the smallest amount last.

Quality Ingredients to Look For:

Animal proteins – identified by name (e.g., chicken, beef, lamb).
Organic ingredients – meats, vegetables, grains and fruits – these are certified free of pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Check for the USDA Organic seal on the package.
Whole unrefined grains like barley, brown rice, or ground oatmeal for dogs. For cats, it is best to look for grain-free foods. Most cats can’t digest grains, and grain-free foods also help alleviate or eliminate hairballs.
Human-Grade ingredients – human grade meats tend to be better quality.
Whole vegetables and fruits – the less processed the better (for example, whole potatoes are much better than potato starch). These are important sources of natural plant-based nutrients (phyto-nutrients) and antioxidants.

I recommend the following brands: Wellness, Innova (especially the grain-free EVO line), Merrick, California Natural.