24th Jun 2011
Is Your Dog or Cat Food Really Raw?
Not all raw pet foods are created raw.
Some dehydrated pet foods contain cooked meats, eggs, and fish but are marketed as ‘raw.’
It is unbelievable to me that such deceptive marketing is allowed. But then, one of these ‘dehydrated raw’ pet food manufacturers also markets their conventional (non-organic) pet foods very successfully as organic although their products aren’t organic at all.
It is sad but true that customers have to do a lot of leg work (or, nowadays, reading work) to find out the truth. Honesty isn’t everybody’s strength even if a suggestive name would leave you with this impression.
What makes it harder to find out the truth about one particular raw pet food scam is that a prominent raw feeder group (based in San Francisco) is selling such ‘dehydrated raw’ pet foods knowing that the company uses cooked animal-derived ingredients. Other retailers may either simply not know this little secret, or, for the sake of sales, they decide just as the raw feeder group, to keep these products on the shelf without explaining to customers that the main ingredients aren’t raw but cooked.
As always, buyer beware. Not every marketing claim can be believed, and in the case of the largely unregulated pet food industry, such intentional deceptions are more frequent than one would expect from the beautiful ads companies share with the world.
This is a good time to remind everybody that organic certification is the best assurance that marketing claims are really true. So far, certified organic pet foods are the most regulated ones,* which means that an unbiased party can verify a company’s claims. Until other regulations catch up with deceptive marketing, your best bet is to choose USDA organic pet foods to get what you are paying for
* Certified organic pet food companies are also expected at least once a year, while even human food processing plants are often inspected less than once in a decade (!)
