Follow Your
Instincts™ TimberWolf Organics Pet Foods the Way Nature Intended™
Myths &
Misconceptions about Dog Food
By Mark
Heyward, Founder, President and Owner of TimberWolf Organics, Inc.
Some of you
have probably heard numerous claims about pet foods using "human grade",
"antibiotic and hormone free" "meat based" etc. and do not know what to believe
anymore. Below I will try to address some of the claims that are really half
true and that could be construed as being misleading.
First let us
say that federal labeling law precludes pet food manufacturers from including
"misleading" statements on their bag. For example: Some say that they use only
antibiotic and hormone free chicken, lamb etc. That is not exactly true. It is
against federal law for chicken to be labeled as hormone free. That's because
growers may not use hormones on chickens. To label your chicken as hormone free
would imply that your chickens are the only ones that are hormone free when in
fact they all are! What happens with other animals used for human consumption is
that they must test free of hormones, antibiotics or pesticides before
slaughter. It usually takes three to five days to clear their systems of any
chemicals. Those animals that are earmarked for slaughter are kept free of
chemicals for several days and then butchered. When I think of "antibiotic and
hormone free" I think of an animal that has been raised chemical free, not just
for a few days. A play on words perhaps but borderlines on fraud. Ask if it is
Certified Organic, "pasture grazed only" or imported from a country that
restricts the use of chemicals if that is what you want. Of course you will pay
a lot more.
Another one is:
"Our meat comes from USDA inspected plants".
All slaughter
houses that process for human consumption must be USDA inspected.
One natural dog
food company claims: "Digest is the full guts including the manure".
Not true. It is
made from whatever it is named for (chicken digest, liver digest etc.) and is
digested by enzymatic activity and then dried. We do not use digest in our
formulas but there is nothing wrong with it.
A natural food
supplement maker that lists molasses as the second ingredient claims: "We use
molasses because it is a nutrient not a sugar.
Molasses
contains many nutrients and is technically not a sugar but it contains 60%
sugars by weight and 20% water. Maybe it is not thought of as a sugar in
The same
supplement maker also claims: "Our product contains natural enzymes and
probiotics that are naturally present in food".
Even if that
were true, because you are only adding 1 teaspoon of supplement, it would only
contain enough enzymes to assist in digesting that one teaspoon. If you ask them
what the enzyme levels are they will not tell you. That is because they are so
low they cannot be measured. If you want to replace the enzymes lost in the food
due to processing you must add enough to assist in digesting the full amount of
food you are feeding. However, this is expensive to do.
My favorite is
"Made with only 100% human grade ingredients."
One quick way
to determine if this is not true (other than cost) is if the food contains any
"meals". Guess what? There is no such thing as human grade chicken meal or lamb
meal. I don’t know of any restaurant where you can say, "Waiter, may I have some
beef meal to go with my baked potato?" Or "May I have my chicken meal on a bun
please?" The meat starts out as human grade because remember it’s from an
inspected plant, but does not receive an inspection sticker because it’s not
intended for human consumption so cannot be labeled as human grade. There are
different grades (classifications) of meals however and are graded (classified)
by protein content, ash content and price. Some are of very high quality. For
example, our lamb meal is imported from New Zealand and is a special low ash
high protein (8% ash, 70% protein) lamb meal that we have classified and most of
the bone is filtered out (all lamb, chicken, beef meals contain a lot of bone
because it’s made from what is left over from cutting away steaks or boneless
chicken breast for example). It’s the most expensive and probably the best lamb
meal in the country as it’s made from the organs and contains a lot of blood,
which gives it a very complete amino acid profile. Is it human grade? Come on
class, I'm listening? Most lamb meals are high in ash and are low (50%) in
protein. We searched six different suppliers before finding the current
suppliers for chicken meal and for lamb meal.
So you say
"Fine. What about dog foods that list meat?"
Good question!
Oh what clever readers you are! First, only a handful of mills have the
equipment to add meat. Some companies may list meat but actually use meal. Of
those that actually can add meat it’s not quite what you would expect. It’s
usually mechanically de boned and mixed with water to make a slurry that is
pumped into the extruder. The most you can use in a formula is limited to about
30% but can be as little as 3%. What starts out as chicken with 78% moisture is
now perhaps 90% moisture cooked down to 10%. That 30% you started out with is
now about 3.3% or less dry matter. To get the protein up you must now add corn
gluten meal or another protein source. Corn gluten meal is a good protein
source, it’s high in the sulfur containing amino acids, but a lot of people
(myself included) prefer an animal based protein which means you must add animal
meals which means it is not 100% human grade.
"What about the
other ingredients?" you ask.
The brown rice
I get in looks just like the brown rice on your supermarket shelf, it’s clean
and looks indistinguishable. The only difference is that it doesn’t have an FDA
tag on it. Our oats are of exceptional quality. Higher in linoleic and alpha
linoleic acid than locally grown oats because of the cold (probably grown
organically as well) and they’re the same oats that are supplied to food
processors. Growers don’t have separate fields for dogs and people. The point
I’m trying to make is that I have trouble believing that a company would pay
five times as much for the same ingredient just to get that FDA sticker. Let me
give you an example: I buy a chicken fat from a company that supplies soup
manufacturers etc. If I buy a tanker of fat it doesn’t have to have an FDA tag
and my price is $.11 per pound. If I buy less it must have an FDA tag and the
price goes to $.58 per pound. Same product. That chicken fat is apparently human
grade but I cannot call it that. A lot of my ingredients are human grade, some
even certified organic but at the end of the day I cannot make the claim 100%
human grade because it ‘s not, but neither can any other company (unless maybe
they are charging $2 - $5 per pound).
Another example
is that if a truck load (40,000 lbs) of frozen whole broilers were purchased for
$.50 per pound, and if a custom chicken meal were produced, it would be
exorbitant in cost. Chicken meal is made from chicken meat (usually mechanically
de boned) that is put into a vat and is brought to the proper temperature and pH
and then enzymes are added. The meat is broken down into a liquid and either
spray dried or roller dried into a fine powder. Now go back to the truck load of
chickens at $.50 per pound. It takes several pounds of chickens to make one
pound of chicken meal. So let us say 7 pounds times .50 equals $3.50 plus the
rendering charge. Let us assume $4.00 per pound okay? I am using about 50%
chicken meal so $4.00/2 is $2.00+ per pound of dog food my cost. Just for
ingredients. Not including herbs, oils, probiotics etc. Does any of this make
sense to some of you?
One natural dog
food company uses poultry meal but lists on their ingredient label chicken meal,
turkey meal. AAFCO allows listing animal meals by particular animal if you know
what animal was used in making it. If the meal is made from more than one animal
or a composite you may list all the animals used in making it. What they mean
however is "chicken/turkey" meal for poultry or if you know the exact
percentages than you may list them where they should appear in order of weight
on the label but not chicken meal, turkey meal as the first two ingredients.
Chicken meal and turkey meal gives the impression that the food is meat based
when in fact it is not.
One question
you can ask a dog food company to determine if it’s meat based or grain based is
"what percentage of your formula is animal meals?" or "what’s the percentage of
protein that is animal based?" or "how many pounds of animal meals are used per
ton of your formula?" They probably will not tell you or say, "That is
proprietary." We use 48 to 52% chicken, lamb or fish meals by weight or 900 to
1100 pounds per ton! Put another way 91% of our protein is animal based. That is
meal not meat. If someone tells you they use 1000 pounds of meat per ton that is
equal to only 200 pounds of chicken meal or ten percent. Another way is to look
at the calcium content. Chicken, lamb and meat meals are usually 4 - 5% calcium
(Special "classified" low ash meals with lower levels of calcium can be used but
are up to 3 times as expensive), so if a company claims to be using 50% animal
meals by weight and their calcium is only 1.2% then you know something somewhere
does not add up. Or maybe they are using "new" math. The only reason we disclose
this is that it’s VERY expensive and not many other companies will do this and
those that do will have to raise their prices. Of course someone may tell you
they use a high amount but if so the kibble should be very dark. Our Lamb,
Barley and Apples kibble is almost black.
Now that you
have read this page, at least you'll know what is in the food. If I decide to
put in goat's eyes, tongue of wren and pickled fish pan fried in roasted sesame
oil you'll know it. None of my formulas contain 4D animals, simple (read white)
carbohydrates, dextrose or other sugars for palatability enhancement, soy, BHT,
BHA or Ethoxyquin. We personally have sold and used a lot of specialty and super
premium foods and have seen more positive results and heard more positive
feedback with this food than any other. I invite you to go to testimonials page
and read some of the testimonials. I hope I have answered some of your
questions, but don't take my word. Call the FDA or AAFCO or some feed ingredient
suppliers and see what they say.
Sincerely,
Mark Heyward