Is the Pet Food Industry in the Business of Population Control?

Celiac.com 02/20/2021 - Does that question seem like a totally absurd notion? Is it possible that the manufacturers of pet foods are so out of touch with animals' nutritional requirements that their formulary blunders are accidental? After studying the effects of gluten, dairy, soy, and corn on human and pet health for the past seven years and reading what researchers have known for years, I have come to the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong in Mudville.
 
After the incredible pet food recall story of the past year, any pet owner with a functional brain has to be questioning why we feed dogs and cats the way we do.  Notice that I did not include veterinarians in that last sentence.  I am afraid that we have been too thoroughly programmed to look at this situation with innocent eyes.  Once again, I cannot throw stones here but simply wish to make a point.  When asked what to feed, I used to parrot what we have all been led to believe: "Just stick with a good, name brand of pet food and stay away from the generic brands, especially those that spell it ‘Dog Fude'.  Haha.  And, do not add table food to your pet's commercial diets because that will simply unbalance the formula that the pet food manufacturers have worked so hard to get right over their years and years of research and manufacturing." 

Oh, how I hang my head in shame now that I know differently.  
 
I have had this discussion with countless clients over the past 28 years of practice.  It has only been in the last seven years that I have been awake to the reality of just how unscientifically these foods are formulated and produced.  All one has to do is look at the ingredient list and compare it to what we know these pets would consume in the wild.  It also helps to know the history of what man has done to the grains and other ingredients that make them even more unnatural and harmful.  
 
All of the grains are human-made, human-raised crops that we have cultivated for human consumption starting very early in our agricultural history.  People love to point out that man ate wheat and drank milk in Biblical times so these things must be good and healthy.  Even well-intentioned, Scripture-oriented books make this claim.  But they leave out two key points: The wheat we consume now is no longer "God's wheat" and the milk we drink is no longer "God's milk".  The original wheat was "pure in its generations" (no hybrids) and contained 1-2% gluten.  This was changed forever by our Northern Germanic ancestors in the mid 400's A.D.  when they blended two other plants to "God's wheat", creating a hybrid and one that contained much more gluten...so much more that they were stricken with "coeliac disease" (gluten intolerance).  It is this new hybrid wheat, which we term ‘common wheat,' that became the ancestor of today's wheat, which now contains as much as 55% gluten, a far cry from the 1-2% found in original wheat.  Our wheat is no longer pure in its generations, as it has become a mutant blend of multiple plants that man has continued to manipulate, especially in the recent past.
 
The parallel to the wheat story is "the tale of two milks".  The milk they drank in Biblical days was goat's milk.  Remember, they were tending their flocks by night, not their herds.  Cattle (oxen) were used for doing work and providing meat.  It was not until the middle of the second millennium that man went into the dairy industry utilizing cow's milk.  Goat milk...the universal foster milk...has 0-2% casein, gluten's evil twin and a troublesome glycoprotein that has also been tied to numerous immune-mediated disorders.  Cow milk contains a whopping 80-86% casein, the protein that Borden uses to make Elmer's glue.  Lactose is not the culprit in milk.  It is the various proteins in cow milk- including alpha s-1 casein, alpha lactalbumin and beta lactalbumin- that do the harm to cells and stimulate the (appropriate) immune responses.  I will leave it to the reader to decide who may have started the lactose myth.  Understand that goat milk has plenty of lactose and all mammals can be successfully raised on goat milk provided they have not already developed a serious intolerance to the myriad of proteins in cow's milk.
 
Corn has a very interesting story too.  Did you know that corn is the only grain that is not self-propagating? Wheat, for example, produces seeds that will fall and produce more wheat.  Corn must be planted by man in order to grow.  If left alone, it would cease to exist.  It was cultivated in Mesoamerica in the millennia B.C.  and went through many changes during its domestication.  In other words, man had his hands in the making of corn right from the start.  The interesting thing is that wherever this new grain was introduced, pellagra (niacin deficiency) broke out.  Many texts will say that it is because the niacin was "locked" inside the corn making this essential vitamin unavailable for absorption, which appears to be true.  But, the common characteristic of the "big 4"...gluten (wheat, barley, rye), casein, soy and corn...is their ability to damage the villi of the intestine (duodenum) where many essential nutrients including niacin are absorbed.  So, was the pellagra due to the unavailable niacin in the corn or due to the fact that the corn blocked the absorption of niacin from the remainder of their diet? Just how much of this new corn were they eating? Was there no other source of dietary niacin? The fact is that corn proteins can block the absorption of calcium, iron, iodine, B complex (including niacin), C, and numerous trace minerals (e.g.  zinc, boron, magnesium, manganese) in the same fashion that gluten, casein, and soy can block absorption in susceptible individuals.
 
Soy was Asia's mistake.  After examining the serious ill effects of soy on human health, I can say that with all confidence.  Wheat was the Northern Germanic's blunder, cow milk consumption was the Anglo-Saxon's error, corn was the Mesoamerican's faulty creation, and soy was the Asian's serious mistake.  They should never have removed soy from the ground, where it was used in crop rotation as a way to fix nitrogen in the soil.  I suspect that one fine day, someone asked why this crop could not be eaten.  They quickly learned that it had to be processed to be consumed safely, including soaking and fermentation, the latter being the key.  If one were to read the rigorous process that soy must undergo to render it safe for human consumption, I dare say that the majority would ask "What is the point?" Even after that complex process is completed, the finished product contains more potentially harmful proteins and estrogens than all others.  It is fully capable of inducing villous atrophy of the duodenum and is known to be a powerful factor in the development of thyroid disease and estrogen-related disorders.  Soy milk has 16-22, 000 times more phytoestrogens than mothers' milk.  The effect on the developing child is both potentially devastating and well-documented.  All of the "big 4" are used to make industrial adhesives, but soy is used to make super glue.  Yes, they put your car together with soy-based super glues.
 
Now, I must ask the reader- Is a little ol' veterinarian from Alabama really the only one who understands all of this stuff or do the research and development departments of the pet and human food giants know most of what I just wrote? Are the people responsible for making decisions concerning your pet's nutrition blissfully ignorant about how unnatural these man-made, man-raised crops are for your dog and cat or are they making bad decisions in the face of what they know to be true and good? To be honest, I sometimes wrestle with which is actually worse...ignorance or greed.  I suspect that greed is worse because, after all, it is the "root of all evil".  But the ignorance in the face of available knowledge is really frightening.  It implies that all of the other undesirable human traits are in play- laziness, apathy, deception, self-centeredness, etc.  At least the greedy are motivated.  If they could be motivated for good, we would really have something.  So, we can easily see that it is the combination of these two...ignorance and greed...that reduce the world to something very short of ideal.
 
After all is said and done, we are left with questions like "Why do we feed carnivores all of these grains?"; "Why are cats fed dry foods when they are so unlike what they would eat in nature?"; and "Why are the average ages of dogs only 12 years and cats only 13 years in the USA when they have been known to live 30 and 40 years respectively?"  "Don't the pet food makers know better than to make these diets with such harmful ingredients?"  "Are they ignorant or greedy...or something else?" I've even been asked by thinking clients "Could these food companies be in cahoots with veterinarians so that the pets stay sick and the vets who are pushing these foods make more money?"  Or: "Are the pet food makers and the pharmaceutical companies working hand-in-hand to keep each other in business?" Others, including veterinarians, realize that the pet food companies (and pharmaceutical companies) are often responsible for the continuing education of vets and ask how that figures into the grand scheme of things.  These are ALL great questions.
 
Some related questions I often hear are: "Why don't more people know what you just told me?" and "Why doesn't my doctor talk to me this way?" Of course, I can write for hours offering answers to these and many other questions, but I would like to leave them with you to think about for a while.  
 
How will the public find the answers to these questions and our initial query found in the title of this piece? Quite simply, they will find them on the Internet and by talking with others.  Thank God (literally) for the Internet.  Sure, the World Wide Web is a mixed blessing.  It is a home for the spider and trap for the unsuspecting victim.  But the vast majority of what I have written on my ever-expanding Website can be confirmed by doing creative Internet searches.  I am constantly amazed at what can be quickly found using a simple search.  All we need is an idea and it can be turned into an afternoon, a week, or a lifelong quest.  My mission has been to discover truth and make it available to those who need it.  I certainly believe that I have had divine guidance in much of my journey, something else that is available to anyone who desires It.  But the first step is to wake up and see the startling fact that there is something seriously wrong in Mudville.  
 
This awakening can be quite unsettling but well worth the process.  We must put our minds in gear and apply our common sense.  When we do this, the first thing that happens is the flooding of our thoughts with questions.  (That is a good thing.) Then the answers follow.  They are out there, but the deeper we go down the rabbit hole the harder the questions become...  and frequently, the more disturbing the answers.  It can be a painful process.  A solid spiritual base is an invaluable asset because the ultimate answer to why things have gone so wrong lies in what is in the hearts of men.
 
Where are the hearts of those who produce the foods that we and our pets consume?

Celiac.com Sponsor (A12):
Reference:
1. Cellier C, Green P.  Review Article: Medical Progress—Celiac Disease.  N Engl J Med 2007;357:1731-43.