30th Jul 2010
Dehydrated Raw Pet Food
Onesta Organics' Raw Dehydrated Pet Food Products
Dehydration is often used to remove water from pet food ingredients. The temperature used for dehydration determines whether the ingredients and consequently the food can still be considered as raw.
Baking is one form of dehydration, as by definition, baking removes the water from the ingredients used in the pet food. However, the temperatures used for baking destroy most nutrients.
Dehydration at temperatures which are low enough to leave most nutrients unaltered is used for truly raw dehydrated pet food products.
Some pet food companies call their dog food or cat food products dehydrated raw, although they are using ingredients, such as meats or meat meals, that have been cooked. They get away with it because they dehydrate the ingredient-water mix that contains the previously cooked ingredients, and because no unbiased third-party checks if their claims actually reflect the reality of their manufacturing processes.
In contrast, organic certification -as we at Onesta Organics understand it- requires, among many other things, the complete disclosure of processing methodsincluding disclosing the temperatures to which ingredients have been exposed to.
