Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a commercial can or package of dog food and wondered, "What does all this mean? How can it be healthy when I can't even pronounce it?" Unfortunately, if your dog eats ordinary, processed dog food, your dog probably eats things a lot worse than anything he could dig out of the neighbors garbage can. Without being aware of it, you have been feeding your dog poisoned dog food. The ingredients in commercial dog food are not fit for animal consumption.

Cheap ingredients, unhealthy fillers, chemical preservatives and poisonous chemicals are just some of the ingredients found in most commercial dog food. Many dog foods advertised as "preservative-free" do, in fact, contain preservatives. Manufacturers don't have to list preservatives that they themselves did not add.

Many preservatives make their way into our dog food at rendering plants before the meat is even sent to the manufacturer. An analysis by the New York State Food Laboratory in 2007, of several dog foods labeled "chemical free" or "all natural ingredients", were found to contain synthetic antioxidants in all samples.

Although you won't see it on the label, since it is most often added at the rendering plant and not by the manufacturer, ethoxyquin (EQ) is used to preserve most dry dog food. EQ is the most powerful of all preservatives and may be the most toxic. Rendering plant workers that have been exposed to it denoted side effects similar to the same symptoms of Agent Orange:

* A dramatic rise in liver or kidney damage

* Cancerous skin lesions

* Hair loss

* Blindness

* Leukemia

* Fetal abnormalities

* Chronic diarrhea

In animals, EQ has been linked to:

* Immune deficiency syndrome

* Spleen, stomach, and liver cancers

* And a host of allergies

The New York State Food Laboratory reported that it found aminopterin in food from the palatability studies. Director Daniel Rice has stated that aminopterin was a cancer drug that was used about 50 years ago in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency later banned use of the toxin as a rodenticide in this country.

The "animal by-products" or "meat by-products", that are often the first or second ingredient listed on your packages of commercia,l processed, dog food are biodegradable wastes that we would never want to eat ourselves.

These are parts that Americans rarely consume as they are not intended for human consumption. These parts come from animal carcasses, and include, but are not limited to, animal heads, organs, lungs, bones, muscle, tendons, blood, skin, hoofs, hair, fish scales, feathers, beaks, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, stomachs, intestines and feces! These parts are what is called "animal digest" on your processed dog food packaging labels.

The origins of these "animal" and so called "meat" by-products include catering waste (all waste food from restaurants, catering facilities, central kitchens, slaughterhouses and household kitchens) and parts from sick or dying animals that can come from slaughterhouses, or euthanized animals from animal shelters. Isn't that a lovely thought. Our dogs may be eating other dogs and cats from animal shelters. In the city of Los Angeles alone, for example, some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs are send to a dog food rendering plant every month.

The worst is that dog food companies don't stop with pets. Your dog is also eating animals that have been euthanized from zoos and animal control shelters. Putrid, decaying road kill has also been known to be thrown in the mix , "for good measure". When dead animals are picked up, they may not be rendered until up to a week after they have died. It is estimated that E. coli bacteria contaminates more than 50 percent of meat prior to entering the rendering plants. The high heat of the rendering process destroys the bacteria, but it does not eliminate the endotoxin bacteria that is released by the animal at death. Pet food manufacturers do not test for these endotoxins, which can cause sickness and disease.

Before these dead animals and animal parts are shipped to the rendering plant, to become the by-products, they "denatured." This means that crude carbolic acid, cresylic disinfectant, or citronella, is sprayed on the product, to prevent the spread of diseases. The true horror is the drug used to kill these stray and abandoned animals, Sodium Pentobarbital, is not broken down by the manufacturing process and is still present in active form in your dog's food!!

Once these poisoned animal parts have been denatured, they are then taken to the rendering plants to be processed. At the rendering plants, before your poisoned dog food gets made by the manufactures, these poisoned animal parts are put into huge vats and shredded. Then it's cooked at 220 to 270 degrees for 20 to 60 minutes. Once this mass of goop has cooled, the grease is skimmed off the top. This is the "animal fat" that you see on your dog food packaging labels. The rest is pressed and dried. This is "meat and bone meal" which eventually gets ground into the meat by-products that are then shipped as meal to dog food processors.

Dogs wouldn't eat this stuff in the wild, so why will they eat it out of their bowls? Their noses are tricked by the smell of it. The smell of animal fats for dogs and fish oil for cats is sprayed on the dry, bland kibble bits to make them more appetizing. These flavors usually come from rendered restaurant grease, animal fat, or other oils unfit for human consumption.

To make wet food, this grotesque glop is then heated in a pressure cooker and canned or sealed in a pouch.

For dry pellets, all of these dead animals, and other ghastly materials, are then processed until the portion left over for dog food production is a brown powder, which consists of 25% fecal matter! The stuff is then heated, cut into tiny pieces, dried, and then wrapped for shipment.

Huge conglomerates use pet food companies as a cheap, and even profitable, way of disposing of the waste from their human food companies. Three of the five major pet food companies are owned by these huge corporations. Proctor and Gable, owners of Iams and Eukanuba, are one.

Once this stuff is shipped to the manufacturers, the manufactures combine the meal with carbohydrates, which is most often corn, thickeners like guar gum, vitamins, minerals, food coloring and preservatives. By the way, dogs are color blind and don't care what color their dog food is. The food coloring that is also added to their food, is there to appeal to the human eye, not the dogs. Corn is used most often, not because it is good for the dogs (it's not), but because it is the cheapest to use. Most manufactures are not interested in your dog's health. They are only interested in their bottom line and showing a profit to their stock holders.

But that's not all....

Answer To "What Are The Ingredients In Dog Food?"