Nutrition Introduction

What do you think of when you hear the word nutrition.?

We are not born with a comprehensive knowledge of nutrition. Our knowledge
is gained from life skill classes in  school and from the media. Unfortunately
lessons learned in life skills classes are often ignored or quickly forgotten.
Most people perceive nutrition as a complex topic and difficult to understand
and thus through out our lives we rely on the media and advertising to guide
us through our diet choices.

The media has taught us that vitamins and minerals are the corner stones of
nutrition, but these are only 2 of the 45 plus nutrients in the foods that are
essential for growth and the maintenance of your pets' health. Every day your
pets' health is challenged by the air it breaths, the water it drinks and through
diets comprised of agricultural by-products stripped of nutrients both during
the initial processing and  when these ingredients are cooked, baked and
extruded during commercial production. To replace these damaged nutrients,
fat ladened with heat sensitive vitamins, amino acids and flavours is sprayed
on during the cooling process.

The pet food industry is a multi-billion dollar business with an annual growth
rate of 4 to 7 percent . Each year hundreds of new products are introduced
into the marketplace as well as new concepts in marketing pet foods ( weight
loss diets, premium diets, growth diets, life stage diets, the list goes on).  
What is amazing is that this complex industry operates using data from only
two sets of nutrient requirements for dogs and cats set out by AAFCO, one
set for growth and reproduction and one for adult maintenance.

For the majority of pet food, either canned or extruded or baked, the
ingredient lists have more similarities than differences. Where the
differences exist are in packaging, price and marketing.