Did you know... Dry Kibble is Not Ideal or Necessary?

Dry kibble food is NOT ideal or necessary to have a “complete and balanced” diet for a dog or cat...

If a General Mills rep at the grocery store told you that Total Cereal was the only thing you ever needed to eat because it is “complete and balanced,” with all the vitamins and minerals you need to survive, would you forego salad, raw fruits, veggies and all home-cooked meals? No, because you know that even if it really is a great product it is still cooked, processed and absolutely not enough for you to thrive on.

AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) allows any company, no matter their ingredients, to label their products “complete and balanced” if they add AAFCO’s vitamin/mineral pre-mix (which is literally labeled with skulls and crossbones). This is unsafe because if a food already has 2 times the RDA of a vitamin or mineral and they add AAFCO’s pack it can go up to 15+ times the RDA of that ingredient and no one tests it because they are just “abiding by the standards”.

However, the AAFCO endorsement usually leaves consumers trusting that their pet food is healthy, safe, complete and regulated. AAFCO, though, is not a regulatory agency. They actually only have a list of recommendations that they openly admit are not scientifically validated. For AAFCO and the FDA to allow the label of "complete and balanced" they have to abide by the unscientific, unvalidated AAFCO “recommendations.”
You don't need to have your salads and green smoothies tested to verify that they are healthy and actually have vitamins and minerals in them. And you know you don't have to add a synthetic vitamin/mineral supplement to them to be considered healthy. For your pet to thrive, and not just survive, you must add whole, raw foods, such as those made for pets (grocery store raw foods are not safe – ask us why) or dehydrated raw. You could feed only raw or dehydrated in place of kibble and canned but at the very least supplementing is better than nothing at all.

by Chelsea Kent, co-founder of Hero's Pets: Chelsea has worked in the Pet Food Industry since 2000. During that time she has developed years of extensive nutritional research and experience in the pet industry, Chelsea has developed a diverse, comprehensive education and perspective in holistic nutrition and product integrity by working closely with the owners of 100′s of holistic pet companies and complimentary medicine practitioners