What is the difference between Bargain Brand and Premium Pet Foods?
September 15, 2014
by Kelly Eerenberg
This is a choice every pet own is faced with when they get their very first pet. What brand of pet food to feed their dog or cat. They walk down the pet food isle, and are greeted with so many choices. Bags of food can range from $10-50 for a 20lb bag. Some will look and go for the bag that advertises the best, “Chicken and Tuna Flavor”, “Real Gravy”, “Made with Beef” regardless of the price. When choosing a food for your pet it is best to educate yourself about what goes into your pet’s stomach.
You can go home and bring up any search engine and find out what parts of each animal is used in making pet food. This isn’t exactly a well-kept secret of the pet food industry. Some people may find this appalling, and downright disgusting. But the main thing to remember is if left on their own dogs and cats would consume the entire animal they caught or found. It wouldn’t matter to them if it had just been hit by a car, or was left by a bigger predator. Dinner is dinner, and they would consume the most nutritional parts they could first starting with the internal organs. Most of the time this would include fur, bones, feet, tails, and any other part of the animal, and this includes parts that make your stomach turn to think of eating.
There are two main differences in high quality “premium” pet foods, and low quality “cheap” pet foods. How the protein content of your animal’s food is reached and the amount of ash that is in it. Ash is a byproduct of cooking dog and cat food that is made with chicken, lamb, beef, and pork meal. Chicken Meal or any type of meal is really another way to say ground up bone. When this is baked in an oven a good portion of it turns into ash, and stays in the dog and cat food. Then this is then consumed by your pet. Most lower quality pet foods use meal as the advertised beef, chicken, or lamb ingredient in their foods. Higher quality pet foods will often use cuts of meat, with meal unfit for human consumption in their dog and cat food rendered down into a liquid form. When this is baked it doesn’t form much ash at all.
Consumption of ash isn’t very good at all for your pet’s digestive system. It can lead to several problems later on in life. Feeding your pet a higher quality pet food can prevent problems with their thyroid, liver, urinary tract, intestines, and stomach. While some ash content in pet food cannot be prevented as it is caused by cooking, you want to avoid extreme amount of this. While not everyone can afford the expensive foods such as Royal Canine, and Purina Pro Plan there are acceptable lower midrange choices. I recommend Iams, and Purina One as two excellent choice good midrange priced pet foods. Remember if you are noticing your pets coat improving, stools getting firmer and less runny this is a good thing. The quality of their food is increasing and therefore is being digested easier. Remember the whole process of making pet food isn’t a nice process, and if you research it you won’t be happy so just stick to buying the higher quality foods.