Grain Free Dog Food - The Deception

Grain Free Dog Food - The Deception

Let's begin with two incontrovertible facts –

1. All conventionally produced dry dog foods – even grain free dog foods – contain starches, which are long chains of sugars (polysugars).

2. Starches, or more importantly the sugars which the body breaks starch down into, are not a natural component of the canine diet in the quantities consumed in modern foods.

These facts are avoided, ignored, or are even unknown by manufacturers, as well as hidden from consumers by clever marketing. Rather than make fundamental changes in manufacturing and actually remove starches from the diets, slogans are used to distract consumers. "Grain free" is such a slogan.

All dry grain free dog foods (to date) contain starches in one form or another – rice, oats, barley, corn, potato, tapioca, etc. Such ingredients are used to decrease costs (starches are cheaper than meats), and to enable the final kibble to stick together (to form a binding starch matrix). (See article: Why are grains and starches in dog foods at all?)

The point is, regardless of the starch ingredient used, starch-based pet foods are all equally foreign and unnatural to companion animals who are genetically designed for a diet high in meat and fat, and low in starches/carbohydrates. Grain free dog foods that contain starch do not meet this genetic expectation any more than other dry dog foods.

Above is an unfolded starch molecule such as found in all modern extruded dry pet foods. Starch is starch whether it is from potato, rice, corn, or any other plant source. Notice that the molecule is nothing more than a chain of sugars. High doses of sugars in the diets of dogs and cats create metabolic havoc and disease.