Shocked at Pets at Home Products

Today I went into the #1 UK pet store "Pets at home" to look for inspiration ready for 2012. I looked at their own brands and also a long list of the more well known designer brands of dog foods and treats.

What surprised me most though on my shopping trip was the long list of ingredients both on Pets at home products and the designer brands. The ingredients included the familiar; wheat, animal products, fats and oils but what did concern me was the lesser known E320 and E321?? I decided there and then that I would research these in more detail and report my findings to you. Here is what I found;

Firstly lets look at Artificial colours; Colours added to dogs dried foods and treats are there to make the product more appealing to the buyer of the food and not the dog. We as humans have 7 times more proportions of cone cells which in real terms means we see vibrant colours and dogs see duller and faded colours.

Lets now look at Artificial flavours; Artificial flavours are added to improve the palatability of your dogs food. This though really isn`t necessary if you are buying a premium dog food (which doesn`t need to be expensive). What makes me wonder though is what terrible flavours are they trying to hide??

Next is Artificial preservatives and Oxidants; Oxidants are added to your dogs pet food to keep them on the shelf that little bit longer as the big companies do not want them going off before they sell them. The simple explanation is that when fats come into contact with air they over time become rancid!! Companies have a choice to use "synthetic antioxidants" or natural ones. The natural ones are more time consuming and costly so companies choose to use what we now know as EC permitted antioxidants.

What are EC permitted antioxidants? Firstly we have the well known E320-BHA, E321-BHT and E324. Although extremely effective at their job they do have a serious downside too. It is a well known fact that these permitted antioxidants can cause serious illnesses including cancer. No surprise to learn then that these are regularly used by manufacturers because they are cheap!! There are though very healthy alternatives around if you look carefully-like The Doggy-Deli. We do not use any of these and yes we may not have the same shelf life (4-6 weeks) but we don`t cause Cancer either. We use a secret blend of ingredients including rosemary which is a natural antioxidant.