The New York Times published an article in the Spring that, thankfully, has gotten a lot of traction: grain free diets potentially linked to fatal heart disease in dogs. It is something that was suspected for awhile but the veterinary cardiology community lacked the data to make an official report until recently. The FDA reviewed this data and decided to make an official report including the brands of food suspected.
So, what is the link between a lack of grains and heart disease? Honestly, it’s likely just a coincidence. Like a lot of things in the pet food field, marketing trends tend to follow the latest health craze on the human side, in this case: Gluten is Evil. For some humans, this is absolutely true. To date, we have not made a solid correlation between grain and health concerns in dogs. The problem does seem to stem from poor diet design and quality control.
The food companies listed as potentially connected to the heart disease scare are almost all smaller, boutique style companies. Many have their hearts in the right place and are trying to focus on sustainability and locally-sourced ingredients, but others seem to just be following those marketing trends on the human side and tossing out diets that sound chic. The common denominator amongst these companies seems to be a lack of education in the folks designing diets and a lack of testing of the foods for their nutritional quality. In following the unfortunate and common trend of “feed you dog things that you would feed yourself”, these companies avoid using things like organ meat (Liver, spleen, etc.) in their foods. The problem is that those organs are exactly what dogs would eat in the wild, not the nice steak cuts. Within that organ meat is an amino acid called taurine that is responsible for keeping the heart healthy. Humans make this amino acid naturally, but dogs do not. So, when they are fed food that is not correctly balanced with this amino acid, they can get irreversible heart damage.
So how can this be happening? From a regulatory standpoint, dog and cat food is not handled much differently from livestock feed. So long as basic nutritional requirements are met, they are A-Okay to sell. As a result, a voluntary animal food review board was established comprised of veterinary nutritionists, field experts, and officials. The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), looks at all of the other nitty-gritty nutritional items that should be balanced in different animals’ food and creates regulations that companies can choose to follow to ensure their diets are safe. The problem is that many companies don’t choose to follow them, nor do they do any feeding trials to ensure their diets are safe. Some manufacturers even go so far as to trash AAFCO on their websites, saying the members are incompetent or on the Dime of the big corporate food companies.
So what can you do? The first thing is to talk to your vet and discuss the diet you are using. They will tell you if it is a “red flag” food and counsel you on their choices. In addition, you should always check the sides of the bag or cans for the big two AAFCO statements: 1) That they were FORMULATED following AAFCO standards, and 2) That the diet underwent FEEDING TRIALS to substantiate that the diets are balanced and complete. Some diets will only have one of these statements, the best foods will have both