[Drew M]

Thanks Aimee for your reasonable opinions here!

After reading the article from Tufts, I don’t necessarily see that they are asserting that any particular ingredient caused the problem. From their use of the term “boutique” as well as mentioning home-prepared diets, it seems to me they’re more concerned about the general ability of many of these companies to ensure the right balance of nutrients is maintained in the food throughout processing.

Remember that when we were seeing taurine deficiency, it wasn’t about diets being too low in meat. The taurine was lost during processing; it didn’t stand up well to heat or storage. Many companies now add taurine in towards the end of processing to prevent this issue.

While there may be an issue with the ingredients themselves, I think it has more to do with the explosion of new pet food companies that people trust due to marketing claims, packaging, and the errant belief that you can assess the quality of a food from looking at the ingredient label. These companies may not have done enough research, hired the appropriate experts, or invested enough money into testing and quality control to ensure that the healthy-sounding ingredients they put in result in a nutritious diet in the bag.