Many low-quality dog food manufacturers have replaced meat in dry dog food with cheap and potentially dangerous grains and grain derivatives. Nutritionally, each dog’s digestion of these goods’ nutrients relies on how easily digested the grains are.
This is dependent on the amount and type of filler in the brand you feed your dog. Some grains, like white rice, can be digested by dogs, but others, like peanut shells, cannot.
Other grains including oats, legumes, and wheat might lose up to 20% of their nutritious content. Corn and potatoes likewise have less nutritional value than rice. In addition, some components used as fillers in dry dog food have little nutritional value and are employed merely to hold the dry dog food pieces together or make your dog feel full! These fillers can hurt your dog, but many manufacturers use them regardless.
Cereals are required to hold dry dog food lumps together, thus they must account for 50% of the total components. If you feed your dog these meals every day, you can offer him 100% more grain than he needs or eats in the wild.
On cheap dry food bags, two of the top three ingredients are frequently cereal products… pulverised corn, corn gluten flour, brewery, beet pulp, feathers, and cotton shells. Why? These are cheaper ingredients than meat.
In 1995, Nature’s Recipe lost almost $20 million after recalling thousands of tonnes of dry dog food. Consumers reported their dogs were vomiting and unable to eat. There was a fungus that created vomitoxin (a poisonous chemical produced by mould) in the wheat in that brand.
Vomitoxin is gentler than most toxins, causing vomiting, nausea, and diarrhoea. Weight loss, liver disease, lameness and even death have been linked to the more hazardous pollutants. What transpired next should make all dog handlers worry what happens to our state’s “watch dogs.”
In 1999, another fungus poison killed 25 dogs. Doane Pet Care (maker of O’l Roy, the Walmart brand, and 53 other brands) was forced to recall dry dog food.
The FDA was concerned about the Nature’s Recipe incident, but not about the over 250 sick pets. The detection of vomitoxin in Nature’s Recipe did not pose a hazard to “human” health since “the grain used in pet food is not of good quality”. What! So, producers can now harm our dogs with low-quality or tainted ingredients?
Soy is used in dog food as an energy source and to bulk up the food, making a dog feel fuller longer. Some dogs enjoy soy while others get flatulence. The protein source in vegetarian dog food is soy.
Did you aware that corn kills dogs? Most store dry markings contain corn, a cheap filler. It’s not the same corn you eat; it’s feed grade maize or cheap feed corn residues. Corn flour dust swept up from the production floor counts as “corn” for our dog’s meal. The same corn may have been banned for human consumption, but pesticide contamination in our pets’ food knows no bounds.
Not enough, corn (which gives us corn syrup and high fructose corn oil) is a fertiliser. Is it because corn is used as a filler in so much dry dog food that so many dogs are overweight and diabetic?
Many humectants, such as corn syrup and corn gluten flour, bind water to avoid oxidation, but they also bind water in such a way that the food gets trapped in the colon and causes blockage. A colon blockage increases the risk of colon or rectum cancer.
Corn gluten meal is a concentrated protein source that can replace more expensive animal protein. In many low-cost brands, maize gluten meal delivers more protein than more digestible sources like meat.
Then wheat Many dry dog meals contain wheat. The wheat utilised in these dog foods is not the same wheat used in our bread, cakes, cereals, etc. Wheat germ meal is referred to as “middlings and shorts” (same thing as “tail of the mill” simply another way of putting it).
So, let’s see what we know so far about what goes into those cutely titled bags on store shelves. First, the diseased and hazardous meats are rendered (processed) so they can be lawfully utilised in our dog diets. Let’s see what else is dirt cheap.
Yes, there’s livestock-grade grain (the one the FDA didn’t worry about when it came to dog food contamination), which is generally the main ingredient used not because dogs require it in huge amounts, but because it’s cheap and can add bulk. But even cheaper components like waste dust, floor sweepings, husks, rejects from flour screening, straw, sand, soil, etc. are employed. How ideal for our dog’s diet! Yuckkk!
Since no one wants to buy scraps, they call it “middlings” (isn’t that a nice word!). Lastly, there’s “poultry meal” and “fish meal” – doesn’t that sound better than “scraps”?
Also, “livestock grade” implies producers don’t have to worry about pesticide residues in the grains used to make our dog’s food. These “waste grains” are legal in our dog’s food because of this loophole.
So, let’s see what other beautiful items can be utilised as dog food fillers:
Beet pulp is the dry sugar beet waste. This has been known to block the intestinal villus.
Soybean meal is prepared by grinding the flakes left after extracting the oil from soybeans. Soy allergies can induce sneezing, swelling, itching, anaphylactic shock, and death.
Sawdust is powdered cellulose created by manufacturing a pulp from fibrous plant material.
Sugar foods, by-products from grinding and mixing inedible sweets, dry packaged drinks, dried gelatin mixtures, etc.
The fibre in almond and peanut shells has little nutritional value.
Some other additives include pulverised corncobs, feathers, lemon pulp, weeds.
Many dog food manufacturers include non-nutritional fillers to reduce production costs, balance growing manufacturing, marketing, shipping, and other expenditures, and keep the selling price low.
That needless filler components can become dangerous and cause enormous recalls and ultimately massive expenditures for firms is ironic. In 2007, melamine in wheat gluten and rice gluten fillers led the Menu Foods Pet Food Recall (which includes Hill’s, Royal Canin, Natural Balance, Iams, Eukanuba, Purina, Nutro Brands, etc.).
Sadly, even after all these recalls, fillers are still used in low-quality commercial dog food. Aside from educating pet owners, recalls raised awareness of the dangers these cheap fillers cause to our beloved canines. It’s also encouraging to see how many pet parents are now taking the time to learn about and read dog food labels.
However, many cheap “fillers” are not labelled, and their prospective use must be acknowledged. Foods like cereal by-products, cottonseed hulls and citrus pulp can be fed to dogs together with low-grade foods like soy and sawdust.
Many of these cheap fillers are used in place of good quality fillers like rice. These have been shown to hurt a dog’s intestines.
Fillers have also been linked to major health issues in pups, senior dogs, and dogs with compromised immune systems. Despite this, producers will continue to add harmful additives to our pets’ food to offset rising production costs.
Hazardous chemicals are utilised on cheap grain fillers during the growing and storage process, putting them at risk of contamination. This can make your dog very ill. Also, several veterinarians have warned that soy components, which are commonly used as fillers, might trigger dangerous allergic responses in dogs. These range from slight sneezing or hives to serious symptoms including shortness of breath or shock.