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Freedom From Illness—Optimum Choices
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************************************************************************************************************* How to pick the healthiest pet foodBy Margaret Auld-Louie
Did you know that even some premium pet food
brands may have misleading marketing claims? When looking for the best food for your pet,
it helps to know a little bit about how meats are labeled and what the
terms really mean. Recently a customer complained to us that the chicken
in Life’s Abundance canned cat food, which we offer, is raised in cages
and not as high quality as some premium
There are a lot of terms misused for marketing
purposes when it comes to selling chickens. Did you know that
“free-range” chickens are not raised outdoors? Almost all chickens
raised for meat are raised indoors in barns, sometimes as many as 20,000
to a facility. Even organic chickens are densely packed into indoor
barns. Unfortunately, what are labeled as “free-range” chickens only
require a door to the outside, which typically is a tiny door leading to
a concrete slab. There are no requirements for how To get chickens that are raised outdoors, you must purchase what are called "pastured" or "pasture-raised" chickens. They might be raised in a dirt pen rather than a grassy pasture, but they will be raised outdoors. These are typically only available directly from farmers, as they are not mass-produced for stores. Those “natural” and “organic” chickens you see in health food stores are not pastured chickens, unless you see them specifically labeled as “pastured”. While you can now find eggs in stores from pastured chickens, we have not yet found any pastured meat chickens in stores.
In some parts of the country, such as Colorado
(where we live), pastured chickens are very expensive
To make things even more confusing, when it comes to beef, bison (buffalo) and lamb, the term "free-range" can actually mean that the animals are raised and finished on pasture. To confirm this, though, you will need to talk to the farmer or manufacturer to verify that the animals are 100% grassfed/pasture-raised, and not just raised initially on pasture and then finished on grain in a feedlot. Even "organic" and "natural" beef is typically finished in feedlots and almost all bison is grain-finished, unless labeled as 100% grassfed. Another misleading term used to market chickens is “hormone free” or “no hormones”. Since hormones are not permitted in the raising of chickens, this is also a meaningless term.
To summarize, if a pet food company is using
any of the following terms to make you think their chicken is healthy,
it doesn’t mean anything and is just fancy marketing:
So what terms do mean something? We suggest looking for the following in the chicken you eat or feed your pets:
For further
explanation about what the terms on chicken labels mean, see this
article by Consumer Reports:
So, getting back to the question about the quality of
Life’s Abundance
canned cat food, why does Optimum Choices offer it? The Life’s Abundance
line of pet foods has all been formulated by Dr. Jane When we look at the label for
Life’s Abundance Instinctive Choice canned
cat food, we see that it only contains organic chicken, chicken liver,
chicken broth, turkey, chicken meal, shrimp and fish oil. No
carbohydrates (starches), vegetables or fillers like cheaper brands. Some guar gum
is added to thicken the broth. Guar gum is one of the safest-possible
food additives used as a thickener. To see an analysis of its safety,
read: Although Life’s
Abundance is not 100% organic, the first ingredient is organic chicken
(which means the chickens are not fed GMO-containing feed, a very
important health issue). Producing a 100% organic
Next time you go shopping for pet food, keep in mind the tips in this article so you can evaluate the manufacturer's claims and sort out the marketing hype from the facts. For even more details on what to look for in a truly "wholistic" pet food, read our e-Book: Save Your Dog or Cat.
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General Information:
info@OptimumChoices.com Location (available by appointment ONLY)416 Plateau Pkwy
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brands found in stores (which is
not true, as we will explain). Actually, no meat chickens anywhere are
raised in cages. Only egg-laying chickens are raised in cages. However,
companies may use the term “cage-free” on their meat chickens for
marketing purposes, though it doesn’t indicate any difference in how
their chickens are raised vs. other chickens. One premium pet food
company boasts that their poultry is 98% cage free, though this means
nothing and is just a marketing ploy. Also, you should be aware that ALL
chicken in the USA that is not labeled as either “organic” or “No GMOs”
is fed GMO feed, because almost all corn and soy raised in the USA is
now genetically modified (GMO). This matters because
long chickens need to
be outdoors so they typically spend most, if not all, of their time
indoors in crowded conditions.
and very difficult
to come by, because of the climate (it’s difficult to raise chickens in
a harsh climate with cold, snowy winters and hot, dry summers). As you
can imagine, with such a short supply of pastured chickens, it would not
be possible for a pet food company to find a large enough supply at a
reasonable enough price to use them in their commercial pet food
production. There must be a reasonably large supply of an ingredient for
a pet food manufacturer to be able to use it in their products.
that
cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they must have meat to survive.
They do not have any requirement for carbohydrates or vegetables. But
most cat foods contain those ingredients to reduce the price or give the
illusion that the food is healthy (people think vegetables are healthy
for everyone.) Pet foods often have grains added to reduce the cost,
such as wheat, barley, corn, oats, rice or millet. Or soy may be added
to foods increase the protein percentage, though dogs and cats cannot
digest it very well (and
canned cat food would
likely make the product cost-prohibitive for most consumers. If you look
at the organic pet foods in stores, you will probably notice that they
have added starches and/or vegetables to reduce the cost since organic
meat is so pricey. Rather than adding fish to improve palatability,
Life’s Abundance adds shrimp, which is healthier for cats and full of
nutrients. Dr. Jean Hofve, the noted feline nutritionist and co-author
of
