Prepared pet food became popular around 70yrs ago and has really exploded in the last 30yrs or so.  Before then dogs and cats thrived on raw meat, animals they caught, foraged, or food scavenged from humans.  Their digestive systems haven’t had time to evolve to efficiently consume today’s dog food.

After WWII, in response to the tremendous increase in consumer appetites, the human food industry created vast quantities of waste from slaughterhouses, grain mills, and processing plants. Pet food manufacturers – still in their infancy — immediately understood the unlimited opportunity of human food waste to their industry. By 1960, pet food companies had figured out how to mass-produce dry pet food to meet growing consumer demand for pet “convenience” foods.

As the pet food industry grew larger and more influential, the biggest manufacturing companies have sown fear of raw and more healthy foods through their nutrition spokespeople to vets, who then pass that fear along to their clients.

To be optimally healthy, dogs and cats need whole, fresh, moisture-rich foods. They don’t need grains, fillers, artificial preservatives, colors, additives, chemicals, excessive processing, or byproducts. All of which are found in the vast majority of today’s pet foods.  Although animals can eat some processed foods, they aren’t designed to consume a lifetime of dry or canned diet.