Natural, holistic pet foods are those that shun the use of artificial colors, flavors and preservatives, and which attempt to provide your pet with all six of the basic food groups found in the US Department of Agriculture’s famous pyramid. This may sound odd, since both the gray wolf and the wildcat, ancestors of the domestic dog and cat respectively, are carnivores in the wild. But while wolves’ and wildcats’ bodies are designed to obtain all the nutrients they need from meat, as opportunistic feeders, their fortunes are very much tied to the availability of nutritious prey. Pet owners would no more accept their pets having the same rates of illness and mortality as wild animals than they would want a return to an Iron Age lifestyle for themselves.
With this in mind, pet food manufacturers have long added fruits, vegetables, whey and grains to pet foods, though meat remains the dominant ingredient in most of them. More recently, many brands of natural, holistic pet foods have appeared that try to provide a perfectly balanced diet for your dog or cat, ensuring that they get the right amount of each food group in their daily diet.
Ingredients in Natural, Holistic Pet Foods
The food pyramid promoted by the US Department of Agriculture divides foods into seven basic groups, and recommends that a balanced diet should contain all these food groups. The groups are: grains, vegetables, fruits, oils, milk and meat/beans. We will look at each of these food groups in turn and see how they appear in natural, holistic pet foods.
Meat is at the bottom of the pyramid for humans but, naturally, at the top for dogs and cats. The main ingredient in any natural, holistic pet food should be a named meat such as beef, chicken etc., and use only skeletal muscle tissue (no eyeballs, hooves or other such horrors).
Popular vegetables in natural, holistic pet foods include carrots, which are a good source of vitamin A and dietary fiber; peas, which provide protein and carbohydrates; and garlic, which is rich in antioxidants and adds flavor, as well as repelling fleas and ticks. Biting insects dislike blood which has garlic in it – possibly the origin of legends about vampires being repelled by it? Dark green, leafy vegetables such as spinach contain Vitamin E, which is also an essential nutrient.
Tomato is the most commonly used fruit in pet foods. Though commonly thought of as a vegetable, the tomato is actually a berry, a member of the nightshade family. Nutritionally, they add little, but dogs in particular like the flavor. Some pet foods include apples, which have rather more health benefits. Apples are a source of quercitin, which has all sorts of health benefits and is thought to be the source of the phrase “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”.
Oils are mainly represented by fish oils, particularly in cat foods. These promote joint health, just as they do in humans.
Whilst most pet foods that include dairy products use dried whey, natural, holistic pet foods tend to use small quantities of cottage cheese. This is rich in proteins, calcium and other nutrients.
Last but not least, the most common grain in natural, holistic pet foods is organic brown rice, which is full of B vitamins and magnesium as well as fatty acids that are essential for good health.
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