12th Jul 2011
Raw Dog Foods and Cat Foods aren’t Made with Steamed Fish or Meat
This blog title seems too weird to be worth writing about. So why bother?
Because the competition doesn’t sleep. Perhaps they want to make sure they can’t be accused of actually breaking the law. Nevertheless, they may well be violating consumers’ trust. Oh well…why not, if you can make money hand over fist and no one’s the wiser?
For years, a pet food company that I can’t name here has promoted their pet foods (e.g., cat food and dog foods) as ‘raw,’ ‘dehydrated,’ and ‘human grade, among other things. But, they’ve also passed their products off as ‘organic’ even though none of these products have actually been certified as organic. Companies like mine work very hard to meet USDA organic standards, and we pay a heavy premium for our organic ingredients and certification fees to do so-not to mention the additional time we spend to maintain our certification. Anyone who purchases an Onesta Organics product can rest assured that they’re getting truly organic pet foods of the very highest quality. Anyone who purchases from the competitor I mention here can’t be sure what they’re getting; they can’t verify this competitor’s claims, and sadly, they probably don’t know any better.
Recently, this company posted updated information on their website about their raw dog and cat foods. They now admit that their “…fresh raw meats and white fish undergo gentle steaming at 140°F to 165°F.” You’ve gotta love the use of the terms, ‘fresh,’ ‘raw,’ and ‘gentle’ in this sentence - could it be that these words are meant to take the ‘heat’ out of the term, ‘steaming,’ which they also use in the same update?
Steaming at 140°F to 165°F may appear to be ‘gentle’ to many folks. But the reality is that steaming any food achieves the same end result as actually cooking that food, i.e., steamed fish and meat are indeed cooked. And curiously, as the company states in one of their own press releases, the products in question are ‘essentially cooked.‘
The revealing information discussed above isn’t easy to find on this company’s SEO-friendly, but somewhat confusingly organized, website without the use of key words such as ‘gentle,’ ‘steaming,’ ‘fish,’ ‘meat,’ ‘dehydration,’ and ‘pet food’ (as a matter of fact, after reading this, you should go ahead and google these very terms to see what listings come up; it’ll be very educational-I guarantee it!). This company’s site is so chock full of detailed information that one could easily overlook the fact that steamed (read ‘cooked’) ingredients are actually being used in products marketed as ‘raw’ and ‘gently dehydrated.’
No sour grapes here-just an impassioned plea to the consumer to educate themselves…and beware.
It’s sad that dishonesty of a few casts a bad light on all members of an industry.
Anyway. Just another hot topic to share.
