Dog Health Food - Are You Poisoning Your Best Friend?

We all want the best for our dogs, and dog health food is becoming an important component of giving them the best. Most of us have looked at the ingredients list on our dog food, but what does it really mean? There are so many terms that are confusing or downright misleading. And how are the labelling laws different to laws governing pet food different to human laws?

What is animal meal exactly? Meal is made by processing meat or fish. Cooking it, blending it into a puree and baking it. This sounds like it?s not going to affect the content of the meat. However it?s one of those cases where they can get away with putting preservatives and other things into the meal, but then it doesn?t appear on the ingredients list because it was?t added as part of the final processing of the food.

Fish meal is the worst offender as far as toxic preservatives go. The meal is made on the fishing boat while they are at sea and the law says that it has to be preserved with a chemical called ethoxyquin. This is due to the fact that unpreserved fish meal can become extremely explosive. On the surface it seems ok, but ethoxyquin is unfit for human consumption because it's so toxic.

In dogs it has caused problems from skin problems to cancer. Because this preservative is added before the fish meal arrives at the manufacturing plant, it doesn?t need to be listed on the list of ingredients. However, unless there is a specific statement that the fish meal does not contain ethoxyquin, you can assume that it does, like the overwhelming majority of fish meal.

Other types of animal meal are not always going to be as bad but you won?t know just by reading the label. A good guide is to avoid 'animal' meal - would you buy animal meat for dinner? Using the term animal is an easy way to disguise the true origins of the meat. You want to see beef, lamb, chicken etc. listed on the ingredients to be sure.

There is still some discussion about whether meal or plain meat is a better option. This is because even though meal is processed and may contain some chemical nasties, it is more concentrated because it?s been dried and so has more protein per gram than meat which has a higher water content.

Another tactic that is often used, is to list some sort of meat protein as the first ingredient and the next few being cereals so that it looks like there?s plenty of protein when in reality, there?s a whole lot of filler and not much meat.

By using too many grains to bulk out the food, your dog is just getting empty carbohydrates. While some grains are part of an ideal diet it?s in a quite small proportion to the amount of protein. This can contribute to dogs suffering from allergies and them not really being satisfied by their food. It?s a bit like expecting white bread for dinner to keep you full and healthy. Unfortunately our pooches can?t tell us if they like it or not.

Dog health food can get around all of these problems, by making it yourself you can make sure that only the best goes into your dogs dinner. It?s simple and will often save you money. Best of all though, you?ll be adding years of life to your dog, giving them more energy and doing the best thing for your best friend.