Weighing the Difference: Protein Slurry vs. Protein Meal

Dry kibble pet food labels can be confusing to interpret because some of the main ingredients are not what they appear. Ingredients in pet food are listed in descending order by their weight. This predominance by weight includes the water weight when the product is mixed and not the actual weight after the product has been extruded, baked or dried. For example, a dry kibble which uses an ingredient such as “beef” as the first ingredient, which is actually an emulsified slurry, will contain anywhere from 55% to 65% water pre-extrusion and drying. So if the recipe is 70% beef and 30% potato, this company could legally market its diet as containing 70% meat and 30% potato.

What About GMO’s and Protein?

Nature’s Logic frequently receives calls on whether the animals it uses for its proteins consume any GMO ingredients. The answer to this is, “does any company really know 100% for sure the answer to this question?”

First of all Nature’s Logic uses no GMO ingredients in any of its diets. Furthermore, Nature’s Logic knows that the New Zealand grass fed lamb and venison have not consumed any rations containing GMO’s. This would also be true of the sardines harvested in the North Atlantic off the coast of Norway used in the new fish diet.

A Closer Look At Cans

It was reported a few years ago that more canned pet food diets were fed in Europe than dry food. That might not be the case now with the marketing from big commodity diets chasing dollars, but it was the case for certain not long ago.

A couple months ago we published an article where we highly recommended adding moisture to dry pet food to make it more genetically proper for dogs and cats since their prey diet would be very high in moisture, not dry like kibble. Canned food is high in moisture, which makes it more genetically proper for a carnivore assuming the ingredients are proper and healthy.

Things to Consider About Cat Food

From Scott Freeman, Founder of Nature's Logic ________________________________________________ Most typical dry cat foods do not incorporate enough meat and sometimes no organ meat to be really carnivore appropriate. These insufficient diets not only must use synthetic vitamin and mineral packs, but also added synthetic taurine and other synthetic amino acids such as dl-methionine. If using a proper percentage of meat and organ meat, there would be no need to add these synthetic ingredients. Almost all of these added synthetic supplements and amino acids are made in China, and most are toxic and some lethal at high levels. Many site in their documentation the LD50 levels. LD50 is the amount, if fed, that would be fatal at that dosage to 50% or more of the test animals. Here is an example of a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) of synthetic Taurine showing the LD 50 levels and other toxicology information. (see Section 11. Toxicological Information)  Almost without exception, dry cat foods are coated with hydrolyzed poultry liver taste enhancers. This form of MSG is very addictive to cats and causes a challenge to convert cats off of MSG coated dry food to high quality, high animal protein, 100% real food. But one should not give up on converting cats over from these addictive dry diets. These palatant coatings are also undesirable because they contain an acidic chemical called sodium acid pyrophosphate. This is what gives many cat foods that acidic smell along with synthetic added dl-methonine. Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (SAP) is also very toxic and lethal at a certain level and because of this, also has a determined LD50 level. (see Section 3 and 11 for Hazard and Toxicological Information) Also, here is the ingredient label for a popular cat food hydrolyzed liver coating containing SAP and hydrolyzed liver. Don't free feed dry food; don't leave it out. Dr. Pitcairn in one of his famous books titled, “Natural Healing for Dogs and Cats” literally begs cat owners not to free feed dry food and never leave it out. Cats need moisture in their diets. Their prey in the wild would be around 70% moisture; not 10% or less moisture like dry cat food. Not only do most dry cat foods contain little moisture, most are high in carbohydrates and low in animal protein content lacking adequate muscle and organ meat. Dr. Pitcairn said, as a way to make a point to his customer, “if you want your cats to have bladder problems, feed dry food all the time and leave it out.” In other words, he recommends cats be given portion feedings to restrict calories to only what they need daily, and to incorporate wet food into a cat's diet. So what about Nature's Logic? From the dry, to wet, to raw frozen, it is high in animal protein, and all diets incorporate organ meat. Because of our formulations, not a one of them needs to be supplemented with synthetic vitamins, minerals or amino acids. For example, you will never see Taurine as an ingredient because all Nature's Logic Feline diets contain more than adequate natural taurine, just like they get it in the wild. During feeding trails of our feline dry diets, the Queens at the end of lactation had over 50% more blood taurine than was required to pass an all life stage feeding trial. The kittens, after 12 weeks of growth, had over 90% more blood taurine than was required to pass an all life stage feeding trial. Similar indicators of superior nutrition were in the Queens' and Kitten's blood levels of hemoglobin, albumin and red blood cells. Here is some data from those trials and below is a picture of one of the kittens born during the trials and then adopted out at the end of the trial along with all other Queens and kittens in our feeding trials. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Other features of Nature's Logic cat foods are: We never use hydrolyzed liver palatants; a hidden form of MSG  We never use Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate  They contain NO ingredients from China  We always use enough meat, organ meat and concentrates of other whole foods and natural ingredients so we never have to add any synthetic supplements or amino acids  If you have not tried Nature's Logic cat foods, we encourage you do so, and help your cat be healthier by allowing them to eat diets free of all the hidden things sited above that have nothing to do with health and nutrition.