Last week, I saw a new client who was proud to be feeding his dog an expensive, “holistic” brand of kibble. It was hard to tell him that his chosen brand was not much better than most dry dog foods—and most of them are bad! Even big-name and veterinarian-recommended brands suffer from the same two huge problems as the bargain-basement lines: first, the ingredients; and second, the processing.
Kibble ingredients are a mishmash of pieces, parts, and rejects from livestock, poultry, and agriculture. While many ingredients are technically illegal under federal law, policies allow them to be used for animals.
But you’d never know it by looking at the label. Those enticing pictures of grilled chicken and red chunks of beef? Nope! That meat or poultry “meal” contains mostly slaughterhouse trimmings and wastes that either aren’t wanted, or aren’t suitable, for human consumption.
Even worse are “by-product meals” and “meat and bone meals,” which include parts like heads, feet, organs, guts, and even whole, rotting carcasses. It all goes right into the grinder, and from there into the rendering vat.
Even the grains, vegetables, and fruits used in kibble are typically old or damaged leftovers that people won’t buy, or that are too contaminated with pesticides or herbicides to be safe for people to eat.
It’s easy to hide disgusting ingredients when they’re ground up, boiled, and pressure-cooked into crunchy brown kibbles. But even a dog wouldn’t eat them if they weren’t sprayed with fat and flavorings to make the food more appealing.
Processing is the other issue I have with kibble. The main ingredients in dry pet foods have gone through four different cooking steps before you bring it home: rendering, mixing, extruding, and drying. Heat processing kills bacteria—which is important when dealing with the massive contamination of the U.S. meat supply—but it also destroys enzymes and vitamins; denatures (distorts) proteins into potentially allergenic forms; and creates toxic reaction products and carcinogens such as acrylamide.
So, what did I tell my new client? Fortunately, there are alternatives to dry pet food! His schedule didn’t allow for home-cooking his dog’s meals from grocery-store fixings. But he can easily avoid the questionable quality and excessive processing of dry food by choosing a dog food made from 100% human quality, gently dehydrated, edible whole foods like Humankind. After all, if it's not safe enough for people, why would you feed it to your dog?
Veterinarian Dr. Jean Hofve consults with Humankind and has researched pet food and nutrition for more than 12 years. During two years as a full-time animal advocate for the Animal Protection Institute, she was a liaison to AAFCO. Having also served as a practicing veterinarian and four-term President of the Rocky Mountain Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, Dr. Hofve has a unique perspective on the pet food industry.
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