Dear Editor:

The recent Burnaby NOW column on pet food stated that all the evidence about raw food is anecdotal. I see and hear from my customers on a daily basis about the changes they have seen in their own animals. After spending thousands of dollar at the veterinarian's office, the problems went away within two weeks of being on raw food.

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Here's some more fun facts you didn't know about pet food!

Veterinarians are given two weeks of nutritional instruction by a major pet food manufacturer's sales representative. This same manufacturer uses starch as its primary ingredient in its hypo-allergenic food. They call it prescription formula and charge a fortune for it. Starch, according to the U.S. nutritional database, has zero nutritional value. My customers tell me they've tried it and it doesn't work!

Kibble manufacturers label their products as natural. You can call anything natural, it is a marketing gimmick. It is common practice for kibble manufacturers to use meat that is 4D: dead, diseased, dying or disabled. Scrap meat, not fit for human consumption, that's how the whole kibble industry started! The mystery meat is cooked at high temperature, mixed with wheat, corn and soy (the three biggest allergens for animals), processed beyond recognition then sprayed with fat for flavour and synthetic preservatives for shelf life.

People quite often tell me that they feed "high quality kibble." When I ask them how they know that, they point to the label and the price. I turn the bag over and point at the ingredient list. So many words I can't pronounce. A bag full of synthetic ingredients. My favourite is synthetic taurine, we use real hearts from clean animals!

How do you compare kibble to raw? You can't. We use human-grade meats free of antibiotics, growth hormones and steroids. We add fresh vegetables, extra virgin olive oil and kelp. We preserve by dehydrating or freezing. You see it in our products and the results in the animals.

Veterinarians are concerned about the business they lose. Ask any veterinarian or Canadian Veterinary Medical Association associate if they would feed "high-quality kibble" to their two-legged children. My guess is they'd rather eat my dog's food.

M. Barbara Fellnermayr, President, AmorÃ© Pet Foods