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Originally Posted by capt_noonie How come some of the higher grade foods advertise no corn, wheat or soy on their bags? Surely they must think these ingredients are not as quality as the ones they use?
I used to use RC for Uni's trick training too.  |
First of all, who's saying that they are higher grade foods, vets? Or forum posters who've had no training in nutrition? It's really hard for new companies to compete with old companies. They have to supply the market with something new and better. What if they can't think of anything better? They help create a "buzz" about something being better. True, some dogs are allergic to grains and do better on alternative foods; however the mass majority of dogs are eating corn and lots of it. People read something on a forum and 10 more people repeat what they've read. Soon, nearly everyone thinks it’s true. I'm only had one class in nutrition and it's not as cut and dry as so many websites make it out to be. When studying diets for various organisms, scientists really don’t find that there is that much difference between an A Diet and a C diet. There is a lot of difference between the F diet and the C diet though, but the number one contributor to health defined as free from disease and longevity is if the organism is not overweight. So keeping our pets at a healthy weight and not feeding them junk human foods, is probably way more important than what brand we buy.
This statement come from RC, but that doesn't mean it isn't true, I pretty much learned the same thing in my nutrition class, and no it was taught by Royal Canine.
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| However, it is important to understand that either rejecting or accepting a pet food based on the ingredient list is an oversimplification at best, and more likely evidence of lack of nutritional understanding. There is no single protein or carbohydrate source that is ideal. Each ingredient has its advantages, and so combinations of ingredients allow us to construct formulas with very specific features. Some manufacturers would have our customers believe that using certain ingredients is an attempt to cut costs, and that using those ingredients is choosing profit over quality. Not only is this incorrect, it demonstrates a lack of understanding of dog and cat physiology. Corn in Pet Food |
Big companies can not only afford to hire veterinarians trained in nutrition, but specialist’s trained in canine physiology, this is a real advantage in designing a food. Future studies may show that there are real advantages to not using foods that contain corn, but I know of no known studies that have shown this. Lots of the smaller companies don't even test their foods on dogs. Then of course some forum posters say they won't buy from companies that test the foods on dogs, and this makes no sense to me.