The Noble Quest for Kinder and Gentler "Nutrition" Postings

ORIGINAL: willowchow

If I'm misreading Billy then I do apologize.

 
No problem at all, Lori.  It isn't your inability to understand, it is my inability to communicate.

It's nice to see that in this sandbox we can have difference and work it out and apologize although, NAME CALLING will get you a spot in the time out chair if you keep it up

I think it's an excellent version of the study you posted, written in common english so that the layman can understand and it certainly backs up what we tend to think, anecdotally, that dogs do better on a meat-based diet. I have nothing against Eukanuba and I'm sure they make some foods that are appropriate for some dogs. But I do fear that many here will disregard it because it came from Eukanuba.
 
If I had a 14 year old Great Dane that started to develope kidney problems after a lifetime of eating Eukanuba, I wouldn't blame the food. BTW, kidney problems in geriatric animals often result from a diminished ability to filter out nitrogen, which is a byproduct of comsuming animal protein, not vegetable or grain protein. That would more likely point to receiving as much or more than enough protein as it would typically need during it's lifetime. I would consider more likely the fact that a 14 year old Great Dane is ancient since the breed lifespan is 8 to 10 years. That is, if my dog lived to a geriatric age on the food being fed, the dog has lived long enough to develope problems from simply being old, just as humans do.
 
My father-in-law has eaten all kinds of food, healthy and otherwise. Fried, sometimes in lard, all kinds of starches, donuts, etc., you name it. He's 82 and still mowing lawns pushing a mower. Men 30 years younger than him will use a riding mower. It's partly genetics. People in my wife's family live to be older than dirt.

Gosh darn it Jaime...I've been trying to go through stuff and sort and pack this morning with three GSD's so far up my butt that I couldn't step back without tripping over someone and I was gonna come HERE and call everyone a BUNCH OF IDIOTS just to vent a little.  NOW I can't do that.  Crap.  []

Lori, that was one of the most sensible posts I've ever read on a nutrition board.  Thank you! [sm=clapping%20hands%20smiley.gif]

Joyce & Max

Hey! Lets not crap on ALL accountants....some of us are ethical!!

LOL Glenda,what i meant by that comment was that it doesnt seem actual nutritionists determine what goes into their foods,the main goal for companies like pedigree is PROFIT,hence why i said accountants develop their foods and figure out the cheapest ingredients to make them the most profit!How can a qualified nutrtionist who actually knows what dogs and cats need develop such crap foods?? [&:] Hope this makes it clearer .

PS I am honestly unaware of any ethical or unethical reputations accountants have,so my point contained NO malice whatsoever.

Here is one that says the best thing you can probably do is feed your dog less food.
 
Eating less results in longer lives, a 14-year CU dog-diet study confirms
By Lissa Harris
Seventy years after a classic Cornell nutritional study showed that cutting rations dramatically prolongs rats' lives, nutrition scientists have come up with even more evidence of the benefit of slender diets: A recently completed 14-year study found that dogs forced to eat 25 percent less than their littermates of the same balanced diet lived significantly longer and suffered fewer canine diseases.
In an age of increasing incidence of obesity among Americans, "maybe it's time we watched what the rats and the dogs are eating," advises George Lust, a Cornell professor of veterinary medicine and a collaborator in the experiment with dogs, sponsored by the Nestlé Purina Pet Care Co.
A specialist in bone and joint diseases in animals, Lust saw the underfed dogs incurring much less canine hip dysplasia (CHD) and subsequent osteoarthritis, compared with dogs that were fed the portions indicated on the pet food packages. The dogs on reduced rations also lived nearly two years longer.
In animal nutritionist Clive McCay's 1930s' demonstration of the power of portion control on health, rats on an experimentally reduced diet lived half again as long as rats on "normal" diets. His findings with rats are well known to every nutritionist, but determining the implications for human health has remained a challenge. The dog study comes closer, providing the strongest evidence yet that diet restriction confers benefits of health and longevity on larger mammals.
While the benefits of diet reduction have been demonstrated in animals from chickens to single-celled organisms, dogs are our closest evolutionary relatives in which a reduced diet definitively has been shown to enhance health and lengthen life.
The ambitious dog study was led by researchers at Nestlé Purina, and included scientists at Cornell, the University of Illinois, Michigan State University and the University of Pennsylvania. Results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in May. The study also was the focus of a September symposium in St. Louis, sponsored by Nestlé Purina, called "Advancing Life Through Diet Restriction."
In the study, 24 pairs of Labrador retriever siblings between 6 and 8 weeks of age -- matched by sex and weight-- were selected, with one of each pair assigned to eat 25 percent less food than its sibling. The dogs were a part of the study from the time they were weaned until they died, and their health was closely monitored throughout their lives.
The median age of dogs in the reduced-diet group, the researchers found, was 13 years -- 1.8 years longer than the median age of dogs fed a normal diet.
As a result of genetic factors, Labradors are predisposed to develop CHD and osteoarthritis. Lust, a professor of physiological chemistry at the James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell, followed the development of the disease in the 48 dogs in the study. He found striking effects of diet on the progression of the disease, even in young animals.
"It was dramatic. In the control group of 24 dogs -- the well-fed dogs -- 16 had CHD at 2 years of age, and eight were normal," Lust said. "Of the 24 dogs in the restricted diet group, only eight had CHD and 16 were normal."
The reduced diet also was found to reduce the risk of developing osteoarthritis, which generally results from CHD and is one of the most common sources of chronic pain treated by veterinarians. It is also the most common form of arthritis in humans, affecting over 20 million people in the United States. Only six dogs on the reduced diet developed osteoarthritis of the hip by age 10, while 19 of the dogs in the control group developed the condition. And for dogs with CHD and on reduced rations, the diet decreased the odds of developing osteoarthritis by 57 percent.
Similar studies involving primates are under way at the University of Wisconsin. Because of the long life span of monkeys, however, it will be years before the results of those studies are known.
 
Here is the link.
 
[linkhttp://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/02/12.12.02/dog-diet.html]http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/02/12.12.02/dog-diet.html[/link]

Christine, actually I laughed my butt off when I read that....then my sterner self made me point out that SOME accountants are ethical.....[]

In my view, any company has to make a profit, from Innova to Ol Roy.

ORIGINAL: ron2

In my view, any company has to make a profit, from Innova to Ol Roy.

I am with ya there, Ron. 

I have worked for a number of different companies over my, nearly, 49 years.  Even ran a few of them.  A primary objective, if not THE primary objective, of every single one was to produce a profit, have a strong balance sheet and a positive cash flow.  If you are a manager of a company, you better have this as your primary objective too.  Owners/stockholders pretty much insist on it, in my experience.

There is nothing dirty about producing profit.  Controlling expenses and reducing COGS is a HUGE part of that. I always chuckle whenever someone says all a company cares about is making money.  Like, DUH!

I agree, but some companies like Euk. (P&G) and Science Diet (Colgate) are overcharging for the quality of ingredients they use. 

ORIGINAL: papillon806

I agree, but some companies like Euk. (P&G) and Science Diet (Colgate) are overcharging for the quality of ingredients they use. 

 
Doesn't the market determine whether or not they are overcharging?

The market does control cost. Example, Harley-Davidson. For 10 years, yuppies were willing to spend $30k for a motorcycle and H-D was obliging them. Now that people aren't as willing to spend more on a motorcycle than they would on a car, the price is coming down.
 
The market is also controlling the output of companies. Since "holistic" is such a popular thing, long establish companies, such as Purina are coming out with holistic blends to meet that market demand. A company that doesn't make a profit can't pay its employees.
 

Even when I was into motorcycles, and even if I had the money, there is no way I would spend $30k on a production motorcycle. 
 
OTOH, I think it is Ferrari, has a car that they sell for $1 million, and you have to be INVITED to buy one.  To be invited, if I recall, you have to have owned 3 Ferraris previously.  Wonder what kind of trade in they would allow me for my 1999 Jeep Wrangler?  []
 
Some marketing types are brilliant.

Many of the people who were spending that much were doing so just to prove that they could, for status. They end up putting no more than 3,000 miles on it and then want to sell it for what they paid. Hardcore bikers called them JACs. Just Add Cash. In it soley for the image and not the true spirit of motorcycle riding. Honda is still king because they provide performance and comfort at a price the working man can afford. Most money, whether it is motorcycles or dog food, is spent by the working man on a tight budget.
 
The advantage of a larger, more established dog food company is that they have more resources to fund research. The downside is that many people assume that the company is able to influence the outcome of a scientific investigation and this is linked to the belief that food companies are conspiring to feed your dog grain seconds and roadkill, as if it were cheaper than facing monstrous class action lawsuits for wrongful death through negligence or fraud. Of course, if my dog was free-hunting, he'd probably love roadkill, with a side of field mouse, followed by a mouthful of grass.
 
Some of the x-rays I've seen of dogs requiring emergency surgery to remove a bone obstruction or perforation were due to the dog escaping to the woods and eating a small animal, as opposed to only a case of owner-fed RMB. That's a case of a dog free-hunting as wolf does, killing its prey and eating it, including bones and suffering from bone obstruction. It does happen once in a while, obviously without supervision.