FREE REPORT ALERT:
Petfood Ingredients That Can Harm Your Dog


ETHOXYQUIN

Ethoxyquin is used in most commercial petfoods as a preservative. Would you believe it was ititially
developed as an herbicide (that means it kills plants), and also as a stabilizer in rubber production?

Ethoxyquin is believed by many veterinarians to be implicated, if not the primary cause, in the following:

a) kidney damage

b) liver damage

c) cancerous skin lesions

d) loss of hair

e) blindness

f) leukemia

g) spleen and stomach cancer

h) immune deficiency syndrome

i) liver cancer

j) chronic diarrhea



Would you wish these problems on anyone? Yet the rise in animal cancer and several other serious
diseases is perfectly correlated with the rise in use of chemical preservatives in petfood the past 25 years.
Unless you go out of your way to find naturally preserved foods, made by a company committed from its
creation to producing natural petfood (i.e., they didn’ t just recently jump on the natural food bandwagon),
you will be feeding your dog ethoxyquin if you feed her/him commercial petfood.



One reason for this is that products shipped to the petfood manufacturers may have some ethoxyquin in
them already. Renderers that supply meat and fat are not legally required to provide an ethoxyquin ppm
(parts per million) statistic, yet many do add ethoxyquin to their products. Only the most benign and well
educated petfood makers take the trouble and expense to obtain high-quality meat and fat.



So you must select these few, caring petfood manufacturers that are highly motivated to create safe
products for your dog.



For specific safe foods see 10 Ways to Add Years & Wags to Your Dog’s Life.



BHA/BHT

BHA stands for butylated-hydroxyanisole. Does this sound appetizing or nourishing? Or does this:
butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)? These preservatives are also in virtually all commercial petfoods (except
the few truly natural ones), even though their use in petfoods has not even been thoroughly tested over
time They have been shown, however, to be carcinogenic to humans, and their usage in processed foods
for humans extremely limited.



Again, in order to protect your dog friend from these dangerous substances you must choose high-
integrity petfood manufacturers.



PROPYLENE GLYCOL

This is used to obtain a sale-able moisture content and texture in petfood, as well as to prevent bacteria
growth. As a humectant, it “sucks up” moisture, so to speak. Unfortunately, it keeps doing this after it is
eaten, as well, preventing the reproduction of necessary intestinal bacteria that help digest food, and also
decreasing the normal moisture content of the intestines.



The effects of these action can be intestinal blockage and major digestive tract problems like malignant
lesions of the intestinal walls.



In addition to these effects, there may also be toxicity inherent in this chemical. It is to be avoided.




POLLUTED MEAT WITH MISLEADING LABELS

This is probably the most difficult ingredient when it comes to knowing what you are getting and finding a
safe product, since most petfood companies obtain their meat from the same source: rendering plants.



Here are some little-known facts about rendering plants:



1) They obtain dead animal bodies from slaughterhouses (rejected for human consumption because of
disease or damage), including parts that people won’ t eat (just fine for many body parts, not fine for
others); city and county road departments (road kill); grocery stores (bad meat); and veterinarian clinics
(deceased animals, from snakes to dogs). This conglomeration is called

“raw product.”



2) Contaminated bodies must be “denatured,” which entails soaking them in carbolic acid, creosote,
kerosene, fuel oil, or the like. Once the meat is soaked with this, it is considered ready to go to the
rendering plant.



3) The rendering plants put all their carcasses together: livestock, sick animals, deceased pets, bad meat,
etc.



4) They don’ t remove plastic bags, flea collars, pesticide ear tags, collars and ID tags, styrofoam
packaging, etc.



5) A “batch” is what fits into a 10-foot-deep stainless steel pit with a grinding augur at the bottom.
Whatever is the dominant portion of carcasses in the batch (cattle, pork, chicken, beef, or lamb), that is
what the whole batch is labeled. I.e., if hogs comprise the largest percentage (maybe 25%), the whole
batch is labeled pork, and this is what will be listed on your petfood label, even though any number of
other kinds of “meat” and objects went into the production.



6) The products sold from the rendering process are lableled: “chicken,” “beef,” “beef fat,” “fish meal,” “fish
oil,” “lamb,” “meat meal,” “meat by-products,” “poultry meal,” “chicken fat,” etc. Do you recognize these
ingredients from your dogfood bag? And although the processing destroys “germs,” it does not get rid of
the physical items from the solid matter (metal tags, collars, styrofoam and plastic) or, much worse, the
chemical contaminants (denaturing compounds, sodium phenobarbital from euthanizing animals, by-
products of heating plastic and styrofoam), nor the lethal byproducts of bacteria (e.g., botox), the altered
cells of cancerous tissues, suspected to have an effect on living organs, and other unnatural and
unhealthy substances that are present in the “animal fat” ground into or sprayed onto your pet’ s food to
make him or her eat it.



The only ways to avoid feeding this horrendous substitute for meat and fat are:

a) Share your food with your animal friends or cook up recipes designed to be nutritious for them; and/or



b) When you find a petfood you hope is all-natural, call its manufacturer and get a straight answer on their
source of meat and fat products.



c) Read 10 Ways to Add Years & Wags to Your Dog’s Life (available at www.youragelessdog.com)
and get specific about pet food labels.



PEANUT HULLS

These are added as a filler, though labeled as a source of fiber. And although they are actually fiber, they
are an unnatural source, and may be harsh on the intestinal walls of dogs.



There are two even larger problems with peanut hulls, however. One is that they

commonly are affected with mold, being especially susceptible to one called aflotoxin. Molds can cause a
myriad of problems in pets, affecting their immune systems in ways that can result in anything from minor
illness to death. There are standards of mold content allowed in petfood, and it is a common practice to
mix grains or hulls containing a higher mold content with those of lower contents to reach just under the
allowed content, thus saving money.




The other problem is that peanuts are heavily sprayed with pesticides, and the hulls tend to carry the
major portion of those toxic residues. Then those hulls are sold to petfood companies (like Science Diet,
for instance, which is now owned by Colgate Palmolive).



SWEETENERS

All sweeteners are unnatural to a dog’ s diet. Like the fats, they are added to make very unnaturally
produced food that a dog would otherwise disdain, more palatable. Also, dogs like people can become
addicted to sugar in any form. The problem, besides the empty calories, is setting your dog up for
diabetes. This has become a real problem for our animal friends in modern times, thanks to the petfood
companies. (Catfood tends to be worse than dogfood in this way.)



The sugar stimulates insulin production beyond normal, taxing the pancreas. Did you know that the
pancreases of American pets averages twice the size of pets of other countries? This is due to the extra
work required to digest processed petfoods devoid of natural enzymes, as well as sweeteners being
added. We also boast a much higher rate of pancreatic cancer.



Sweeteners used in petfood include corn syrup (also added as a plasticizer), beet pulp sugar, and
sucrose. Hills’ Science Diet blatantly puts “sugar” on their label. This should not be on a label of a food
you choose. If it is, make sure it’ s very near the end of the list.



OTHER ADDITIVES

Curing Agents Anti-caking Agents

Lubricants Artificial Color (these chemicals are virtually unregulated in

Flavoring (barely regulated) petfood)

Surface Finishing Agents Solvents

Anti-microbial Agents Emulsifiers

Texturizers Processing Aids

Oxidizing & Reducing AgentsFirming Agents



The list is actually twice this long. The question here is, “Do you really want to put all these questionable
non-food items into your poor dog’ s mouth?” The more you can get away from all this unnatural unfood,
the healthier your dog friend will be -- the better he/she will feel, the lower your vet bill will be, the longer
she/he will live. In a new book by Ian Billinghurst DVM, he states that dogs fed ordinary food tend to live
approximately 5 years longer than those given only commercial pet food.



For further reading and references, order 10 Ways to Add Years & Wags to the Life
of Your Dog, available at www.youragelessdog.com