Oh Good Lord--Vegan Pet Food

[DeeDee]

This is the most idiotic idea I've heard of including the Halo vegan food. Their spiel about the damage to our earth from feeding carnivores the meat they're intended to get is the worst ever. Is this a PETA sponsored company?

1- While we recognize the product as vegan, it is much more than this. We have an in-house staff of professionals doing research and development exclusively for us, and focused on a healthy diet based on vegetable ingredients.

2- Nutritionally, it is a fact that we can meet dog’s nutritional needs with nutrients extracted exclusively from vegetable and mineral sources.

3- As in the human diet, a vegan diet only requires certain adjustments to replace some sources to achieve the same excellent results.

4- Given the significant growth of the global culture of healthy and natural foods, we understood that an opportunity was there standing before us and that we had the means and the ability to formulate a healthy product to fill that gap.

http://ketunpetusa.com/product/adult/

Maize (cooked by extrusion), Soybean expeller; peanut expeller; oil and vegetable fat (soybean oil); mixture of natural flavors; vitamin-mineral premix containing, among other ingredients: sugar beet pulp, brewers dried yeast, chicory root, yucca mohave, chia seeds and quinoa seeds.

Hypoallergenic my butt. If your dog is so full of food allergies that it can't eat anything else, then maybe, but peanuts? Peanuts are one of the worst human food allergens around.

And let's talk about soy. More and more research finds that soy products aren't good for anyone or anything b/c they mimic hormones. Many women use soy-based supplements for menopause to "naturally" replace estrogen. You could literally screw up your dog's endocrine system with soy--especially with continued, long-term use.

I guess that proper hormone function isn't really a big deal when a majority of dogs these days have had theirs removed already because people didn't get partial hysterectomies or vasectomies for them. Huh?

 

[Pookie]

I didn't read the link, to preserve my sanity.  That said:

2- Nutritionally, it is a fact that we can meet dog’s nutritional needs with nutrients extracted exclusively from vegetable and mineral sources.

I would love to know what "facts" they are referring to.  Because as I've said before, many times, there are certain nutrients that can ONLY be obtained from animal proteins.  B12 is one of them.  Some amino acids need to come from animal protein.  Human vegan diets have to be very carefully balanced to ensure they are getting everything they need in the meal (and they're still not getting B12).  Other B vitamins are also more bio-available if obtained from animals.  Just because the plants may contain some B vitamins doesn't mean there's enough to meet the pet's requirements, or that the dog will be able to use what's in the plant matter.

Heck, you want to feed your dog or cat a "vegan" diet?  Go back to feeding kibble, because there's not much bio-available animal protein in it.  Whatever might be in it has been processed to death.  And look how healthy our pets are because of it.  Diabetes, cancer, ibd . . . If you're that offended about animals dying to feed other animals, then don't have carnivores for pets.

Nature knows what she's doing.  If we just follow her laws about diet, for us and our pets, we'd all be a lot better off.

(Side note about Nature knowing what she's doing:  Look at Yellowstone.  After the wolves were brought back, the elk population was better controlled and healthier, the tree population recovered which brought back birds and beavers, the latter of which created lakes for fish, which brought back more birds of prey . . . and the tree growth also helped erosion.  All because a CARNIVORE was brought back to fill the niche Nature had always intended it to fill.)

Sorry if I'm ranting.  It just REALLY offends me that some people want to "save" the planet by fighting nature and messing up our pets.  And they'll profit from it if they can.