October 24, 2007

More on Sojos Home Made Style Dog Food

What do you really know about the dangers of processed foods? We hear a lot about the dangers of junk food for humans, and yet many pet owners continue to feed their pets a steady diet of junk – read: processed commercial pet foods.  What dogs really need is natural dog food, and you won't find it on your supermarket shelves.

Here's a really interesting article which has been written by one of my readers, Bob Willhite, who also had a website about holistic health – for both humans and companion animals, although he seems to have discontinued the site currently.  He's another advocate of natural dog food (like me!), and particularly likes Sojos dog food (also like me).

Here's the article:

Processed Foods Are Poisoning Our Pets

by Bob Willhite, A.M.P. 2004

Holistic veterinarians are stating that America's pets are increasingly becoming diseased and are needlessly dying for the same reason as humans: processed and preserved foods.

Veterinarian Don Hamilton clarifies that most commercial pet foods contain large quantities of rancid animal products. The meat used is usually from animals that died before reaching the processing plant and may have been diseased. The animals used are ground up with added preservatives, artificial colors, and "fillers" before the blend is processed into nuggets or cans. "These pet foods provide physical nutrients, but do not nourish the life force of the body & Rancid products lead to gastrointestinal illness in dogs and cats." (Homeopathic Care for Cats and Dogs, 1999). Also it's likely that hydrogenated or other low quality and unhealthy oils are used. Like humans, pets may be tempted to go for artificial taste instead of wholesome nutrition. Or, Dr. Hamilton notes they may submit out of hunger and eat foods that are not good for them.

Another veterinarian, Randy Wysong, notes that, "A pet's body is very adaptable and for a time can survive on whatever food is provided. But with typical processed and rancid foods, the body will ultimately be stressed beyond its limits. Loss of vitality will eventually result, followed by degeneration and ultimately disease. The consequences are so far removed from the earlier years of inappropriate foods that few make the connection in understanding the problem" (The Truth About Pet Foods, 2002). High-heat cooking and food preserving have sadly misled us down a path of illness.

This is not newly-found wisdom. Dr. Francis Pottenger's nutrition studies in the 1930's using cats had groups receive the same basic diet: meat, milk and fish oil. One group received raw meat and raw milk, while others received cooked meat and pasteurized (high heat) milk. Cats feeding on all raw ingredients flourished, while those offered a cooked diet became weak and malnourished. Also, diseases with the cooked groups intensified with each generation, thus revealing a genetic effect. Skeletal, metabolic, reproductive, behavioral and dental problems escalated over time in the processed food groups, but were absent in the animals fed raw, whole foods (Dr. Francis Pottenger's).

Dr. Wysong says, "Most pet nutritionists ignore the perfect model, which is nature itself. You simply must supplement raw, fresh, natural foods to the diet of your pet if you are hoping to achieve its optimal health." Try a dry, ready-mix called Sojos (by Sojourner Farms) for dogs or cats to which you simply add fresh, raw meat, raw bones and ideally some raw veggies. It takes only a couple of minutes a day. Working with your local butcher, you can add chicken necks and wings, animal organs and meat scraps; or buy meats as they're discounted to sell before the expiration date on the package. Organic meats are best, for you and your pets.

If you do not want to use raw foods, at least use Wysong's canned food that's as close to the natural diet as modern processing can mimic. It contains only the freshest of meats and organ ingredients with cold or low heat processing to maintain the food's vitality. Only natural and beneficial compounds are used for preservatives. Dr. Wysong says, "Take control by being informed- and seek advice from those who have grown in their understanding of nutritional prevention." Health begins with knowledge. Order from InBliss the Sojos, or Wysong products at a discount, which can be shipped to your home.

Note: Bob Willhite is an Alternative Medical Practitioner that is Board Certified through the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. In his interaction with his wife's business, InBliss, they facilitate wellness through education and holistic products (Idaho Statute, Title 54-2104 [f]).
==================================

Well, what do you know, … Bob recommends Sojos as well!

As you know, I've been talking about Sojos for a while as one of the very best alternatives for healthy petfood. It's on my list of the best dog foods ranked.

For more info, don't forget you can check it out at http://www.HealthyHappyDogs.com/Sojos – it's well worth it!

You can order it directly online. Now that's convenience for you!

Bob also mentions Wysongs dog food in his article – this is another very good dog food product – it's not on my best dog foods ranked list, but that's mainly because I personally don't favor canned dog food. But Wysongs is certainly one of the better canned dog food varieties.


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Filed under Dog Food by Brigitte Smith.
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Comments

August 10, 2008

Liz Tufte said:

Brigitte,

I really appreciate the great info you share, and your perspective on dog health. I'm glad you're getting this out there — more people need to understand this stuff.

A suggestion: when you publish a guest article on your blog, please include a link to their site. There is no reason to protect yourself from people leaving your site to learn more about a subject or another person's work. You would be providing a much-needed service to your readers. I find it frustrating that you bring it all back to you at the end of the article — with your affiliate links, etc. This isn't about you. It's about the dogs and your readers.

You introduce Bob Wilhite as "one of your readers," and mention that he has a website, but don't provide a link. This is just plain irritating and doesn't fit in with the values of the Web 2.0 content-sharing community. If you would easily let us visit his site, it would lend credibility to the article, and to your relationship with him.

I'm trying to find Bob online, but he isn't popping up in the searches. Could you please provide a link to his site?

Thanks.

Liz

Brigitte Smith said:

Hi Liz,

Thanks for your comments.

I actually always provide links to the sites of other authors.

There may also be some internal linking within the article if there is other related information on this site, or links out to useful products, etc.

With Bill Willhite, the above author, I have not included a link to his site, because unfortunately he does not seem to have a site any longer. He used to have a very interesting site, called InBliss, and he and I exchanged emails occasionally.

But Bill's site has been taken down, and my several attempts to contact him after I noticed this, went unanswered. I also searched for him in Google to see whether I could locate him, but I couldn't. I didn't try the American Association of Drugless Practitioners, of which he is/was a member – perhaps they would be able to give you some contact details.

Regards,
Brigitte

April 21, 2009

Gwyn said:

Just F.Y.I. I noticed in the latest Journal of American Veterinary Medicine Magazine, (JAVMA, Vol 234. No. 8 April 15, 2009) an article and case study involved SOJOS brand dog food. The study revealed clinical findings that this food is grossly nutritionally imbalanced, and induced severe metabolic, orthopedic, and neurologic abnormalities in a growing Sheltie. In layman's terms, he grew with bone deformities, which resulted in a fracture, had neck pain, collapsed, and was unable to rise, had rickets from lack of Vitamin D, and problems with his thyroid. BE VERY CAREFUL FEEDING THIS FOOD !!!
Do your homework and learn all you can about feeding naturally. This dog's diet was "imbalanced in macronutirents and macrominerals."
That's why it's called a science. Perhaps that is why Bob has discontinued his site currently……

June 25, 2009

Brigitte Smith said:

Gwyn,

I hardly think that's why Bob would have discontinued his site!?! Bob's site was not only about Sojos food!

As for the study on Sojos food, I was very surprised to see that myself, and emailed Ward Johnson, the developer of Sojos food.

Here is his response:

"Hello Brigitte

The article you mention was very confusing for us. First off, it refers to our food as a "muesli" and "organic" so it was our assumption that Monzies Organic Muesli was the product in question. Later they said that it was "Sojos European Style Dog and Cat Food Mix" which was also confusing because we don't have a food that is for cats AND dogs. We attempted to get the specific numbers of the nutritional analysis that they said in the article was independently collected. The authors responded that they never did such a test and that the numbers were given to them by us. When we expressed that the numbers in the article don't match our numbers that we would have sent out, they responded that they indeed did have an independent test done, but they would not send us a copy of the results. With all of this in mind, we were very skeptical of the article, and we submitted a letter to the editor, which was published in the following issue of the JAVMA journal:

Regarding the article ”Diffuse osteopenia and myelopathy in a puppy fed a diet composed of an organic premix and raw ground beef“, we would like the opportunity to defend our reputation, based on 25 years of exemplary results..

Our time-tested pet food pre-mixes have been around since 1985 with a track record of consistently fantastic results. We have a loyal network of vets and breeders across the country that use and recommend our foods – there are tens of thousands of dogs using our foods. In all of that time that our foods have been around, this is the first time it has been suggested a link between any of our foods and any malnutrition cases like this. While our hearts go out to the dog and owner alike, we respectfully disagree that our food was the cause of this ailment. At the same time we don't want to minimize the severity of the situation, and as a precautionary measure we have again sent our foods in for independent chemical analysis to confirm our previous results.

It should be noted that we at Sojourner Farms believe variety is an essential part of a healthy diet, and thus strongly encourage pet owners to add veggies and other healthy foods to our mixes, in addition to meat. Though we're confident in the nutritional adequacy of our mixes, we believe that using only a chemical analysis to determine a food’s nutritional adequacy ignores crucial information on the biological availability and digestibility of a food. Digestive enzymes found in fresh food enhance biological availability, whereas extreme heat (common to the preparation of commercial pet foods) leads to the depletion of enzymes and, therefore, depressed levels of digestible energy. As a result we believe that all of our foods are more than adequate nutritionally.

In addition, nutrition experts have long advised against replacing all nutritious foods in the diet with synthetic supplements because supplements do not contain all of the known and unknown nutritional benefits of nutritious foods.

Our foods have been tested for nutritional content and they are all formulated to have a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1.4:1. I am perplexed by the numbers published in this article. The only explanation that I can think of is that only a small sample was tested and not an entire bag. Our foods are not homogenous kibble. Finer ingredients, namely powders (like calcium carbonate and nutrient-rich kelp), settle toward the bottom of the bag. Thus, unless an entire bag of food was tested, the full spectrum of the ingredients would not be represented and thus the results would not be accurate.

Ward Johnson, President, Sojourner Farms "

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