Pet ownership has surged in recent years, and with it, the demand for high-quality pet food has increased. One trend that has gained significant traction is human-grade pet food manufacturing. But what exactly is human-grade pet food manufacturing? Let’s delve into this increasingly popular concept.
Human-grade pet food manufacturing refers to the process of producing pet food following the same strict standards applied to food intended for human consumption. This means it includes ingredients that are not only safe but also nutritious for humans and is produced in facilities that meet human food production standards.
Regulations for Pet Food Manufacturing
In the United States, human-grade pet food manufacturing is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO).
According to AAFCO guidelines, for a product to be labeled as ‘human grade,’ every ingredient, and the final product itself, must be stored, handled, processed, and transported in a manner that is compliant with the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) for human edible foods, set by the FDA.
Importance of Human-Grade Pet Food Manufacturing
The importance of human-grade pet food manufacturing lies in its superior quality compared to traditional pet food. Human-grade pet food is typically free of byproducts, fillers, artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives often found in conventional pet food.
Human-grade pet food manufacturing follows the same strict standards as for food intended for human consumption.
Human Grade Certifications
The inclusion of wholesome, nutritious, and recognizable ingredients ensures pets receive a balanced diet, promoting their overall health and well-being. More and more pet owners are certainly taking notice of what their pets are eating.
In Conclusion
Human-grade pet food manufacturing is an emerging standard in pet care, promising superior quality and enhanced pet health. Despite the higher cost compared to traditional pet food, more pet owners recognize the long-term benefits and opt for this choice.
With increased scrutiny on pet food quality, we can expect further growth in the human-grade pet food manufacturing industry. As pet owners, we all strive for our pets’ optimal health, and this innovative approach to pet food production offers a new pathway to achieving this goal.
For thousands of years, humans have bred dogs to meet human needs and preferences. Whether it’s for hunting, herding, or guarding villages, humans have chosen specific dogs to breed together. These efforts have brought us to the variety of dog breeds we have today. Although we don’t necessarily use our Poodles for retrieving ducks or our Cocker spaniels for hunting, as our ancestors did, we still prize particular dog breeds. When you feed your dog, a breed-specific diet may just be secondary; the quality of the dog food is just as essential. Read on below to understand the different factors for providing your dog with a suitable diet.
Do Dog Breeds Have Unique Health Conditions?
Because there are physical traits, temperaments, and agility chosen for each breed, it’s not surprising that specific health conditions also manifest themselves in particular breeds. Below are a few examples of health conditions that are more prevalent in certain breeds.
Chihuahuas frequently have dental issues due to their small jaws.
Each breed has different genetic traits that can impact their health, and a breed-specific diet aims to prevent or manage those health issues. Breed-specific diets are formulated with extra nutrients to address the needs of particular breeds.
For example, a breed-specific dog food meant for Dachshunds — who are prone to back and spinal disorders from obesity — may contain low-fat ingredients, keeping a Dachshund’s weight within a healthy range. Though that reasoning may sound logical, health differences between breeds don’t necessarily translate into the need for a breed-specific diet. According to the Veterinary Medical Center at Tufts University, there’s more to keeping a dog healthy than a breed-specific diet.
Why a Breed-Specific Diet is Fine, but Not Necessary
Feeding a dog a breed-specific food may make owners complacent with their dog’s health, putting all their hopes on the breed-specific dog food rather than taking an individualized approach. It’s important to understand that there are no guarantees and that illnesses may occur even if you feed your dog a breed-specific diet.
Each dog is unique. An owner may find themselves with a Dachshund that could benefit from more calories rather than less. Every dog has a mix of internal and environmental factors that make up its health. In short, dogs are much more than their breed.
What Matters is the Quality of the Food
Currently, there are no guidelines for what should be in breed-specific dog food. The formulation for a German Shepherd’s dog food from one company may differ greatly from another company’s dog food for the same breed. All dog food — including breed-specific — must still meet the requirements dictated by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). When it comes to “breed-specific,” however, it’s up to each company to decide what ingredients to include to make the food work for a breed. More importantly, there are no current studies that indicate whether or not breed-specific dog food is effective at preventing breed-associated health conditions.
The quality and quantity of food you feed your dog are more important than sticking to a breed-specific diet.
All-Breed Dog Food
While breed-specific dog food isn’t better than a universal “all-breed” type of dog food, it’s probably not harmful either. What’s vital is that owners pay attention to their dog’s health and follow their veterinarian’s directions. By changing dog food to align with your dog’s current needs, you can address the health issues head-on as they occur.
Human-Grade Dog Food: Quality Matters
To sum up, you do not need to feed your dog a breed-specific diet; what matters more than breed-specificity in dog food is the actual quality of the food. Dog food may meet the AAFCO nutritional guidelines, but it might not have quality ingredients. Feeding a dog quality food helps to ensure their longevity and promote good health, regardless of their breed. For example, human-grade dog food is made from higher-quality meats, vegetables, and grains than typical dog food. Human-grade dog food is cooked in the same type of kitchens meant for cooking human food and the same guidelines and requirements for human food.
Human-grade dog food is of a higher quality than regular pet food. Despite the general quality control for pet foods, the level still doesn’t come near the quality control used for human food. Human-grade dog food undergoes the same quality controls as human food, ensuring that dogs get the essential nutrients they need. Regardless of dog breed, what matters most is the quality of the food you feed to your pet.
Although pets can have food allergies just like people do, they can’t tell us if they feel itchy or unwell. Pet owners need to be on the lookout for allergic reactions to food and prevent them from happening. Pet foods are often prone to induce allergic reactions as the food production is sub-par to human nutrition and may include ingredients not specified on the label. Thankfully, the Human Grade pet food label can help pet owners identify foods that are made to the highest standards. Owners will know exactly what their pet will be eating, reducing the risk of causing any food allergy.
Why Do Food Allergies Occur?
Although the terms “food intolerance” and “food allergies” are often confused, they stand for two different reactions a digestive system may have to food.
Food intolerance is caused by the inability of the body to digest a particular food. For example, some dogs can’t digest dairy items because of their lack of milk digesting enzyme, called lactase, making them lactose intolerant.
Food allergies are the response of the immune system to a protein from a specific food. Instead of identifying the food as a harmless source of nutrition, an animal’s immune system recognizes the protein as a foreign invader. It initiates an immune response to fight against it. This immune response can range from minor (itchy skin, sneezing, etc.) to anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction that can be fatal.
Although some food allergies may appear on the first exposure to a food, most allergies occur after repeatedly consuming a particular food. Each time a pet eats the food item, its body builds an immune response. At some point, the immune response becomes so strong that an allergic reaction develops. However, with pet food, it may be a challenge to isolate what caused the allergy because of the mixed ingredients in regular pet food.
Common Food Allergy Symptoms in Cats and Dogs
Because animals can’t articulate when they’re not feeling well, it’s important to be aware of food allergies’ signs and symptoms. The three most common allergy reactions are:
1. Skin Reactions
Human skin tends to show food allergy reactions more readily than other parts of the body, and the same is true for animals. A food allergy can manifest itself as allergic dermatitis, a common type of allergic reaction in pets. Hives, which are itchy and red raised areas on the skin, typically occur 6–24 hours after a pet consumes the food they are allergic to.
Pets who show food allergy symptoms on their skin will likely scratch, lick, or bite the areas that are bothering them — sometimes to the point of breaking the skin and causing an infection. Allergies can also cause hair loss and bald patches. On short-haired cats or dogs, skin reactions are easy to spot. However, on long-haired animals, owners may have to feel for hives and look closely through their animal’s fur.
2. Digestive Problems
Food allergies in pets are often exhibited through changes in an animal’s digestive system. Cats and dogs may have excessive bowel movements, about three or more a day. These bowel movements may be soft stools or diarrhea. Along with excessive stools, the pets may also vomit or have excessive gas after eating the food they’re allergic to.
3. Swelling
Because food allergies are an immune response, inflammation is a major sign of an allergy. Swelling and redness in an animal’s eyelids, ear flaps, or lips are easy-to-spot signs of an allergy.
Know how to recognize food allergies in your pet and minimize the cause of such symptoms by sticking to human-grade certified pet food.
What Can You Do to Help Your Pet Fight Allergies?
Unfortunately, there are no treatments for pet food allergies. Avoidance of the food causing the allergy is the only way to keep a food allergy from recurring. Prevention can start with changing the food a pet consumes and paying close attention to the quality thereof.
Human-Grade Pet Food
The more ingredients and additives are in pet foods, the higher the chances for an allergy to develop. Typical pet food products, though generally safe for pets, aren’t regulated for purity or freshness. They are often cooked in huge batches and contain varied ingredients from discarded food parts not appropriate for human consumption.
Controlling pet food for allergic proteins is a challenge because many different ingredients are used, which vary in each new food batch.
Human Grade, high-quality pet food certification
Although quality control exists for pet foods, quality isn’t on par with the level used for humans. The mixed content and quality of regular pet foods can produce food allergies in some animals, leading to itching, digestive problems, and overall poor health.
Human-grade pet food allows for improved control over what a pet consumes. With human-grade pet food, a pet owner can rest assured that their pet’s food is made with ingredients of the same quality as for human consumption. Certified human-grade pet food is minimally processed in facilities that meet the standard for human food production.
Human-grade pet food is formulated nutritionally for pets but made as it would be for humans.
Human Grade, high-quality pet food certification
By feeding your animal human-grade pet food, the chances of your pet developing a food allergy are significantly reduced. Pet food that undergoes the same processing, manufacturing, and USDA inspection guidelines that human food does is less prone to contain products that could cause an allergic reaction. By choosing human-grade pet food, owners know what their pets are eating is human-quality. Pets can have food allergies, too, and human-grade pet food is an excellent option to reduce food allergy-related issues.
Pet lovers are much more willing to pay top dollar for quality pet food. The longevity of our pets may depend on the food we offer them. Because there are so many pet food options, decisions on the purchase are made more critically and informed. But, the dizzying array of pet foods and labeling can leave the average pet owner feeling overwhelmed. Pet food with a human-grade certification can satisfy even the most discerning pet owners and pets alike.
Pet Food Decisions
To help you make the appropriate food decisions for your pet, animal foods are certified for quality and content. Because we all want the best for our pets, becoming familiar with the main types of pet food grading can help us choose the best food options for our animals.
To help you, we’ll be using the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) definitions to clarify each pet food grading and certification. The AAFCO is an association of federal and state agencies that regulate the manufacturing and distribution of animal feed — which includes pet foods. The AAFCO provides definitions for regulatory laws and establishes regulations to ensure that animal feed is nutritionally adequate and safe.
Organic Certification
According to the AAFCO, organic pet food meets the processing standard of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA’s National Organic Program states that organic products are “produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used.”
Organic products undergo stringent audits and investigations. As of yet, the are no organic regulations that pertain specifically to pet food. Currently, pet food certified as organic must meet the USDA National Organic Program definition as it pertains to organic human food regulations. To qualify as “certified organic,” pet food must be made of at least 95% organic ingredients.
Natural Certification
In the past, the term “natural” had ambiguous meanings and didn’t have a solid definition. These days, natural is a definite certification. According to AAFCO definition of natural is:
“A feed or feed ingredient derived solely from plant, animal or mined sources, either in its unprocessed state or having been subject to physical processing, heat processing, rendering, purification, extraction, hydrolysis, enzymolysis or fermentation, but not having been produced by or subject to a chemically synthetic process and not containing any additives or processing aids that are chemically synthetic except in amounts as might occur in good manufacturing practices.”
Beware of misleading “certified natural” labels. Many pet foods can be “natural,” but all-natural and 100% natural certifications are very specific. For a pet food product to be 100% natural, it must with every aspect of the AAFCO definition. Products that advertise an item as 100% can’t also have “added vitamins and minerals.”
Human-Grade Certification
The term “human-grade” isn’t currently defined by AAFCO, efforts are being made to establish a guideline to certify pet producers with. A human-grade certification would require unique and specific standards because there are no human-grade guidelines to compare animal feed with. The USDA, however, does define what items are “edible.” For an animal feed to meet human-grade certification, it would have to be fit for human consumption, thus meet the USDA definitions for edible food products.
Human-grade certification ensures that the food made for your pet was made as it would be for humans. Obtaining a human-grade certification for a pet food product would mean passing the same processing, manufacturing, and inspection hurdles that human food does. The USDA guidelines are so stringent and that very few pet food products would be able to make this claim at this time.
Silver and Gold Certification
As the desire for healthier pet food grows, so does the need to develop new certifications for higher grades of pet food. Silver certification is a new designation that combines the edible human-grade definition with other existing pet food regulations for pet safety. Free of artificial flavorings, colors, or preservatives, silver certification contains no rendered meat or by-products.
Gold certification, another new designation, meets all of the silver certification elements and is also minimally processed at a facility that meets the standard for human food production. Not only is it edible for humans, but gold certification is also made with human food processing standards in mind.
Human-grade certification differs from natural and organic grading by focusing on the ingredients and food production that is fit for human consumption, offering your pets grade A food.
Certification Considerations
You may think that your furry friend can consume the same foods you do. After all, what’s good for you should be suitable for man’s best friend, right? Well, the answer isn’t black and white. In general, all pet foods come from animals and plants that humans would consume. For example, humans and animals both eat chicken. The parts of the chicken fed to humans would be the breast and thighs. The organs and back, however, are what may end up in pet food. In theory, the same chicken parts could be consumed by humans, but we typically prefer the more traditional chicken parts! The plants we consume are also the same plants that end up in pet food.
Nutrients are also not a factor when it comes to the term human-grade, natural, or organic. AAFCO uses the same standards for nutrients, regardless of whether the pet food is your typical run-of-the-mill pet food or if it’s the higher-priced organic variety. When it comes to nutrients, human-grade or organic pet food may not be all that different from regular pet food. What is different is how the food was grown, processed, and packaged. Organic dog food, for example, may not have genetically engineered plant ingredients. And human-grade cat food receives the same factory processing as human food does. In the end, the nutritional value may be the same, but pet owners may find other aspects more beneficial than others. It’s up to the preference of the pet owners and the guidance of a veterinarian.
The Truth About Pet Food
What’s important is that pets aren’t routinely fed the same foods that we eat — like table food. Just because a food product is fit for human consumption doesn’t mean that it’s safe for a pet to eat. Chocolate, for example, is a delicious treat for humans. For dogs, however, it can be toxic. Researchers and manufacturers formulate pet foods to have the right amount of carbohydrates, proteins, and nutrients for the animal it’s made for. Although dogs may enjoy — and perhaps beg for — the same food we have at the dinner table, the food we eat for ourselves may not be what’s best for them in the long run.
An animal’s digestive and nutritional needs are very different from our own, and finding the right formulation requires attention to detail and knowledge of animal health. It’s best to leave it to the professionals! Whether you choose traditional, human-grade, or organic pet food, know that the ingredients and nutrients may not be all that different. The decision always comes down to what’s best for you and safe for your pet.
