Expert: Jana Connell RVT, CVT - 9/29/2011

Question
Hi Jana,

I've been on Yahoo Answers (a questions site) quite a lot and have noticed some people condemning others because of what they fed their pets.

All sorts of horrible names are called because one person feeds their cat Purina, and apparently Purina is a disgusting brand of cat food full of by-products and corn meal etc.

I'm not all that knowledgeable on bad ingredients and so I was wondering if what they said were true, and that such publicly trusted brands such as Optimum, Purina and Eukanuba are actually bad for pets?


I currently feed my cat solely Hill's Prescription Diet T/D (Dry feed for dental health) on recommendations by my Vet after I had her teeth cleaned.
Is this product trusted?
I saw a few people on Yahoo Answers also bad mouth this brand, but why then would my Vet recommend it and sell it at the clinic? (Only the brands "Hills" and "Advance").
I've added the ingredients below in case you'd like to look.

Kindest regards,
Chantelle


Here are the ingredients:
Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Whole Grain Corn, Powdered Cellulose 10% (source of fiber), Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Chicken Liver Flavor, Calcium Sulfate, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, DL-Methionine, vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Calcium Carbonate, Iodized Salt, Taurine, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract

Answer
Well Chantelle,
Yahoo answers is like going into the locker room at school and asking your fellow high school students for expert advice. I have yet to find an answer in there that wasn't glib or incredibly wrong, especially when it comes to pet and pet food questions. I have answered some in there myself just to right some terribly wrong answers that I felt were dangerous to leave as if they were correct.

Having said that, I would never feed any pet any Purina product unless it was the last food on earth.  Why? Because Purina, as well as most of the other commercial and fad diets out there for pets are made the same way- by using whatever was cheapest on the docks that day. Most all pet food companies use what we call an "open formulation," which means that they will band together with other companies (think purina and dick van patten foods) and will buy the biggest raw materials in bulk on the docks of the shipping companies from other countries. That is how all of that melamine got into the pet foods that killed so many pets a few years back. A company shipped a bunch of grain from China and the parent companies, such as Mars foods, who own many pet food brands, bought the grains and made their food with it.

It's the same whether or not it's frozen chickens, sheep, wheat, or whatever.
So in that respect, I never feed or recommend Purina, Iams, Dick Van Patten, or any food you can buy in a grocery store.

The food you are feeding is not only one of the best nutritionally for your cat but it has over 50 yrs of veterinary research and feeding trials behind it.
T/D has been proven to keep your cat's teeth healthier and cleaner than regular food alone. But on top of that, it provides optimal nutrition for your cat. All Hill's and Science Diet foods (Hill's makes SD) have been proven with feeding trials to provide this optimal nutrition for each life stage and to ensure a long and healthy life for your pet.

My pets live much longer and are never sick. I have had cats live to be 19 and one dog live to be 16 on Hills foods. They never lived that long or were as healthy before I started feeding Science Diet and Prescription diets. My dog is on W/D and my cat is on Science Diet Sensitive Skin formula. Her fur is soft and down and silky. My 14 yr old dog is as healthy as a 6 yr old.

So don't listen to those with no training Chantelle. They don't have 6 certificates in Small Animal Nutrition like I do nor have the recommended the food or watched hundreds of clients pets live long, healthy lives on this food as I have.

The proof is in the feeding. Those people mostly are repeating what they have heard other uneducated people say about things they have no proof of.

Corn meal, for example, if it is the proper kind of corn and cooked correctly, is a high quality, low allergen source of protein. Dogs are not pure carnivores nor are they vegetarians. They are omnivores such as we are and need both types of nutrients in their diets. So a grain free diet is not necessarily the best one for a dog- but you will hear people spouting off about that all over the internet.

Thanks for asking me about this Chantelle. I hope that my answer has helped you somewhat. Please let me know if you have any other questions about nutrition and pets.