"This website is not the official Web site of Flint
River Ranch Company. This site is owned and operated by FRR Independent Distributor
JNR3. The pricing and policies, including discounts, shipping claims and return
policies are not necessarily those of Flint River Ranch company and are only
supported by the distributor who owns and operates this site. If you are already
a customer of Flint River Ranch and this is not your original distributor,
your distributor may not receive credit for an order placed on this site."
Find out why Flint River Ranch is not being recalled, like other National Brands.
Consider the Diet for Your Pet's Optimum Health!
by Donna L. Watkins
Have you noticed our pets are developing the
same diseases that we humans are? Not too many years ago many
of the chronic diseases were rarely mentioned among pets. It
seems that with increased disease, the costs of veterinary
care has also skyrocketed.
Keeping a pet healthy and well cared for has
become a very expensive part of the household budget. That
means that many animals will not get the care they really need
because family budgets just don't stretch far enough.
You have heard the phrase, "you are what
you eat" and that applies to animals too. You can't take
a package of "dead" pet food and keep "life" in
an animal.
Are You Getting What You Think You're Buying?
Read a bag of a well-advertised brand of pet food and it makes
you want to serve it for the family dinner: "Choice cuts
of beef, plump whole chickens, fresh liver and grains, and all
the wholesome nutrition your dog or cat will ever need."
These images are promoted with big advertising dollars by the
$11 billion per year U.S. pet food industry:
Nestle makes Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston
Purina.
Heinz makes 9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits, and
... surprise! .... Nature's Recipe.
Colgate-Palmolive makes Science Diet.
Procter & Gamble, one of the major companies attacked for
their repetitive animal testing, makes Eukanuba and Iams.
Mars makes Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba and Waltham's.
Price is often an indicator of quality.
It's impossible to sell a 40# bag of dog food for $11.95
when quality protein and grain would cost more than that
not even considering profit margins.
From a business standpoint, these companies have increased
purchasing power and for those making people food products, they
have a captive market to dump their waste products, and the pet
food divisions have a more stable capital base and a convenient
source of waste products that become ingredients in pet food.
These pet foods provide a market for grains considered unfit
for human consumption and bones, blood, intestines, lungs, ligaments,
and almost all the other parts not generally consumed by humans.
These other parts are known as "by-products" or "meat-and-bone-meal" or
similar names on pet food labels.
The term "meal" means the materials used are not
fresh, but have been rendered. Rendering (defined by Webster's
Dictionary) is "to process as for industrial use: to render
livestock carcasses and to extract oil from fat, blubber, etc.
by melting." Meat and poultry by-products, while not rendered,
vary widely in composition and quality.
The only exception is if a company specifically
describes what meal in their food is made up
of. Flint River makes that distinction in this
quoted text.
| "Our Chicken
Meal and other meat sources do not contain
poultry by-products or other by-products
likc chicken feet, chicken heads, duck
heads, beaks, feathers, fish heads, hides,
hoofs and intestines. There are no breakfast
food by-products, corn, cottonseed, corn
cobs, citrus pulp, soy beans, fillers and
no screenings or other foreign materials
such as noxious weeds, straw, hulls or chaff
in our product." Go here to find
out more about the Flint
River Difference. |
Have you noticed that pungent smell when
you first
open a bag of pet food?
It's the fat in the food. It is most often rendered animal fat
or restaurant grease. Restaurant grease is now a major component
of feed grade animal fat. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon
drums, may be kept outside for weeks, exposed to extreme temperatures
with no regard for its future use. Rendering companies pick up
this grease and mix it all together, stabilize these fats with
powerful antioxidants to retard further spoilage, and then sell
the blended product to pet food companies and other end users
(one of which is to make lipstick --- but that's another story
:-)
The pet food industry sprays this fat onto extruded kibbles
to make a bland or distasteful product palatable to the animal.
The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add
other flavor enhancers. Pet food scientists have discovered that
animals love the taste of these sprayed fats. Pet manufacturers
are masters at getting a dogs and cats to eat something they
would normally be repelled by.
The amount of grains used in pet food has
risen
as protein has decreased.
Once a filler for pet foods, cereal and grain products now replace
a considerable percentage of the meat that was used in initial
pet foods. The digestibility of the grain determines the availability
of nutrients to the pet. Rice is handled well, but the availability
of nutrients from wheat, beans, and oats is poor. Some ingredients
are used for fiber or filler, such as peanut hulls, and have
no significant nutritional value at all.
The top three ingredients are what the formula mostly contains
and are listed in the order of largest amount first and so on.
Cats are true carnivores and need meat to fulfill nutritional
requirements, so why are so many grains included in cat pet foods?
Because it's cheaper than meat.
Soy is also a common ingredient used as a protein source and
to add bulk so the animal will feel fuller. Vegetarian dog foods
use soy as the main protein source. Although it's been linked
to gas in some dogs, others do well on it.
Additives and preservatives are a slow danger zone in pet foods.
Chemicals are added to improve appearance, taste, or stability
of the food. The list of reasons for additives includes 27 uses
in pet foods. Preservatives have always been used to maintain
the safety of food, but it's only been during the last 50 years
that they've been toxic rather than plant-based. Preservatives
are necessary to keep a commercial pet food safe and fresh. Some
pet food manufacturers are now using "natural" preservatives
such as Vitamin C and E, rosemary, cloves, and other spices to
preserve the fat in their pet foods.
Potentially cancer-causing synthetic preservatives include
butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT),
propyl gallate, propylene glycol, and ethoxyquin. There is not
much documentation on the safety of these especially when being
fed on a daily basis to an animal. In July 1997, the FDA's Center
for Veterinary Medicine requested manufacturers to voluntarily
reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by half from 150 parts
per million.
While some pet food critics and veterinarians believe that ethoxyquin
is a major cause of disease, skin problems, and infertility
in dogs, others claim it is the safest, strongest, most
stable preservative available for pet food.
What does "extruded kibbles" mean?
Most dry food is made with a machine called an extruder. Ingredients
of a recipe are blended and then fed into the extruder where
steam, pressure and high temperatures force the food through
various shaped dies to determine the shape and they come through
puffed like popcorn to produce more volume. The food is dried
and then sprayed with the fat process mentioned above. Although
the heating process is designed to kill bacteria in the food,
it can lose it's sterility during the drying, fat spraying, or
packaging process.
A few foods are oven-baked rather than extruded, such as Flint
River Ranch. This produces a dense, crunchy kibble
that tastes good without the fatty flavor enhancers. Animals
need about 25% less of a baked food than an extruded food.
What does feeding of these products do to
your companion animal?
The problems associated with diet of these dead foods are continually
seen every day at veterinary offices. The list begins with chronic
vomiting, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease being among
the most frequent illnesses treated, more often the result of
an allergy/intolerance to the pet food ingredients.
Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse wastes
to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative
diseases. The cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers
do not necessarily destroy the hormones used to fatten livestock
or increase milk production, nor does it destroy drug residues
such as antibiotics or the barbiturates used to euthanize animals.
It has been in some news articles that euthanized cats and dogs
may be one of the rendered ingredients for pet foods.
Urinary tract disease is directly related to diet in cats and
dogs. Crystals and stones are often triggered or aggravated by
commercial pet foods.
Pet foods with less protein have less taurine, an aminno acid,
and if it is not supplemented, problems do occur. An often-fatal
heart disease in cats and some dogs is caused by a deficiency
of taurine. Blindness is another symptom.
Inadequate potassium in some feline diets has caused kidney
failure in young cats; potassium is now added in greater amounts
to all cat foods.
Rapid growth in large breed puppies has been shown to contribute
to bone and joint disease. Excess calories and calcium in some
manufactured puppy foods promoted rapid growth. There are now
special puppy foods for large breed dogs. But this recent change
will not help the countless dogs who lived and died with hip
and elbow disease.
There is evidence that the now common hyperthyroidism in cats
may be from excess iodine in commercial pet food diets. This
disease began making its appearance in the 1970s when canned
food products appeared on the market.
Other problems may result from reactions to additives or bacteria,
drug, or mold contamination.
The bottom line is that pet foods made of
primarily
low quality cereals and rendered meat are NOT
the nutrition you need for your dog or cat.
In 1995, Nature's Recipe lost $20 million having to pull
thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained
their dogs were vomiting and losing appetites. There was a fungus
that produced vomitoxin contaminating the wheat. In 1999, another
fungus caused the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care
who manufacturers for 54 brands including Ol' Roy (sold by Wal-Mart). The
toxin killed 25 dogs.
Some recommendations say to feed once daily. Feeding only one
meal per day can cause irritation of the esophagus by stomach
acid backing up. Feeding two smaller meals is better. Feeding
instructions on the package are sometimes inflated so the consumer
will purchase more food.
Procter & Gamble took the opposite approach with Iams and
Eukanuba lines by reducing the feeding amounts in order to claim
its foods were less expensive to feed. Independent studies commissioned
by a competing manufacturer suggested these reduced levels were
inadequate to maintain health. Procter & Gamble has since
sued and been countersued by that competing manufacturer and
a consumer also filed seeking class-action status for harm caused
to dogs by these feeding instructions.
The idea of one pet food providing all the nutrition a companion
animal will ever need for its entire life is a myth. The diets
of cats and dogs are a far cry from the primarily protein diets
that their ancestors ate with much variety. Some pet owners are
preparing their own meals and some of those diets are raw meat
diets.
Is
Raw Food Best for Pets? - Some say 'Yes,' but many vets
say 'No.'
Homemade meals take a lot of dedication. Many people don't
feel like they know enough to prepare a completely balanced meal
that meets the required needs for a dog or cat. A very detailed
and excellent book to invest in if you can be dedicated enough
to prepare foods at home is Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets:
The Healthful Alternative by Donald R. Strombeck
Considering vegetarian diets for your pets?
For
your dog? - Be sure you follow the guidelines
For
cats? - Don't do it! They won't survive
Most pet owners simply want to find a pet food
that is nutritious and complete without long-term use health
issues. Deciding on what brand to use has hopefully been made
easier having read this article. Adding raw veggies to your pet's
food bowl is an excellent dietary choice. Just as with people,
vegetables have so many good nutrients and antioxidants and health-giving
substances we haven't even discovered yet. They provide a mineral-rich
food alive with enzymes.
Begin slowly so they can adjust to the flavor.
Grated vegetables do best. It doesn't take but a few weeks for
the animal to adjust to the dietary change. You will also notice
a change in the skin and coat and sometimes the eyes look brighter.
Generally when we begin adding veggies to our pet's food bowl,
we add them to our own plate as well.
If you're not going to add vegetables, be
sure your
pet food has vegetables in it.
Vegetable choices to add can include these and
others: carrots, broccoli, cabbage, sweet potatoes (yams), greens
(kale, lettuce, turnip), seaweeds like kelp and nori, a little
bit of garlic is known to help repel fleas .... and don't forget
fruits: apple, pears, kiwi, strawberries. One to avoid is citrus
since it's not appealing to dogs or cats.
Adding herbs and supplements to a pet's diet helps
to build and maintain health, especially if you know there is
a genetic weakness with a particular breed. Herbs are rich in
trace minerals which are the foundation of life.
Since many minerals are no longer in the soils
of mass-produced & chemical-laden farming, it's hard to get
them into your diet without supplementation.
Essential fatty acids is an important item that
is missing in pet foods and can easily be added in with a little
bit of natural oils (such as olive, sunflower, sesame, etc.)
You will be amazed at how much their coat can shine and how soft
it can be! Essential fatty acids are important for many functions
of the body.
Think about what you feed your pet and research
the topic. It will not only educate you, but will save you and
your pet much heartache down the road. We have had cats since
1977 and they have lived to 18 and 20 years old without the need
for vet bills and the agonies of all the now common health problems.
The kind of food you feed your pets is going to
determine your pet's health problems more than anything else
other than abuse. Bodies run on nutrients and whether we have
them in a form that can be assimilated to the cellular level.
We are what we eat, and animals are not healthy on diseased and
decayed meat and dead grains.
We personally use two natural pet food brands,
both providing hormone and antibiotic-free meats as the first
ingredient. As much as I'd like to be able to be faithful making
a home-made food, I've tried, and just can't do it.
Our pets love these choices:
Flint
River Ranch is an excellent quality and is oven-baked.
Flint River Ranch offers quite a variety of choices.
Life's
Abundance natural food and supplements are formulated
by Dr. Jane Bicks.
Dr. Barry Sears is also involved with a Zone
Diet for Overweight Dogs.
We've saved lots of money using natural whole-food
formulas for our pets. They stay healthy, don't need visits with
the vet, and their skin, coat and eyes shine. I think they smile
bigger too with nutrition-filled food in their tummies.
It truly makes a difference! Please give your
pet the best - it does save money!
If you'd like to make money helping others choose
good food for their pets, consider becoming a distributor of
either of these quality pet foods. Help others choose the best
food for their pets. Healthy
Pet Net (Life's Abundance) or Flint
River Ranch.
If you haven't read enough .... view a video at Healthy Pet Net about
what's in pet foods.
| 
Categories
Your cart
Authentication