Pet Food Trends: History of Pet Foods

While dogs and humans have been coevolving for more than 15,000 years, commercial pet food has only been around for about 100 years. So what did dogs eat for the other 14,900 years?

A little bit of ancient history

Dogs in the distant past probably ate a mixture of human food scraps and whatever they could scrounge for themselves. Obviously dogs in different parts of the world ate what was local to that area.

Different lifestyles would lead to different diets. When most dog owners were herders, dogs probably ate more meat and other related products like milk and cheese. Once agriculture took off, dogs were eating the same cereal grains, vegetables and carbohydrates as their human owners.

Unless the owner was quite wealthy, it is unlikely that most dogs were regularly given prime cuts of meat. Most humans ate meat only rarely themselves. A cherished dog would probably get an occasional, thoroughly stewed soup bone, or scraps left over from butchering an animal.

Remember, internal organs were highly valued as a food source!

These would not have been wasted as dog food, since they were too important to the human’s diet.

We tend to look back and see the past as an idyllic time, but there is no question in my mind that dogs and cats have never lived as well as they do today. With advances in veterinary medicine, nutrition, vaccines and our changing attitude of the role pets play in our lives, pets today are pampered in ways that would mystify many historic pet owners.

Before the advent of spay/neuter surgeries in the 1930’s, there would have been fairly unchecked reproduction.

So why was the ancient world not overrun by dogs? For the same reason that humans often had eight or 10 or even more pregnancies: high mortality. The dogs who survived puppyhood still died earlier than they do today, from disease, malnutrition/starvation, and injury.

If there ever was a time in history that I would like to live the life of a dog, it is today!

So put aside your mental image of the past. Few dogs had the Lord of the Manor tossing venison steaks into their kennels. Most dogs were lucky to get some crusts of stale bread or other grain, whatever vegetables were left and maybe a scrap of meat on occasion. Whole and balanced is not a description that can be used to describe these diets!

Dogs are not wolves; Cats are not domesticated.

This 15,000 years of coevolution means that dogs are different from wolves. Some breeds are dramatically different (think chihuahua and mastiff). Dogs have the ability to digest carbohydrates, which wolves generally lack. Modern canines have a longer digestive tract than wolves as well. Dogs are omnivores, just as we are.

House cats, on the other hand, have evolved in their own way. We don’t fully understand the evolutionary history of Felis catus. There are even theories that cats have domesticated themselves.

However, scientists do not consider cats to be fully domesticated. We all know that many cats can and will revert to the feral state, if left without human care. So cats have not changed as much as dogs have, through their association with us.

Cats are also obligate carnivores, meaning that they require a diet made of animal flesh and even blood and bones.

The ideal diet for a cat is the mouse.

But, studies show that domestic cats do, in fact, have a limited ability to digest carbohydrates. Which makes sense. All those millennia cats have been eating rodents in the grain silos and in the fields. It is not surprising that they have evolved a way to get something nutritionally out of the contents of the rodent’s stomach.

Nutritionally, cats and dogs have very different needs. And while dogs are closer to humans, they still have unique needs.

Commercial Pet Foods enter the market.

The first commercial pet food was a dog biscuit, what we would call a treat today. Made in England in 1860’s, it started a trend. In the 1920’s, canned pet foods entered the market, usually made of horse meat. By the 1950’s commercial kibble and canned foods were on store shelves across the U.S.

It was still common for dogs to get table scraps. The concept of an indoor-only cat was about 20-30 years away, so most cats were probably supplementing their diet with the local fauna.

My own grandmother, born in 1923, thought buying pet food was a waste of money. Her pets were fed table scraps and a specially prepared meatloaf with added vitamins. She only started using commercial pet food in the 90’s, when she was no longer able to prepare it herself.

To this day, I think of dog food when I see meatloaf!

By the 1990’s the pet food industry was worth $7.85 million U.S.

Most pets in the U.S. and Europe were now eating mainly a commercial diet bought in a store. It was no longer the norm to scrape your leftovers into the dog bowl, although we still liked to give our pets human food as a treat.

More manufacturers joined the game, and we started to see an interesting effect in the pet food industry. Whatever food trend was popular with humans within a few short years became popular with pet owners, especially dog owners. Low fat, high protein, wheat free, grain free, low carb, high fiber, all natural and more…the trend in pet foods followed the same trend in human diets.

Is it any surprise that we feel more comfortable when our dogs eat the same diet we do? 15k years of coevolution….nope, it isn’t a surprise!

These commercial foods have evolved into the many diets we have available today.

The pet food industry is expected to be valued at $27 billion U.S. in 2018. The market for these foods is growing rapidly. And these companies are fighting over your pet food dollars like never before! I will talk more about this in a future post, but have no doubt that advertisers are targeting you in their pet food ads!

Yes, pet foods are processed foods.

The process of making pet food hasn’t changed that much over the last 50 years, while the ingredients have shifted a bit. Only a bit, as you will see in a future post.

All pet foods are processed, and most are highly processed. Not all processing is bad, though it has a negative association to us today. We process foods so they will not spoil when being stored. Processing grain allows us to make flour, for instance, which can then be stored for much longer than the grain itself could.

Another reason to process a food is to make it more digestible. Notice that if you eat corn on the cob, you will see the remnants in your, ahem, stool. When you eat corn tortillas, however, you don’t see the evidence the next day. The process of making the tortillas makes the corn more digestible by removing the indigestible portions, grinding it up and cooking it.

Tortillas are a processed food. So are the pre-cut bags of salad greens and “baby carrots” that are so popular in grocery stores today!

You process food every time you cook a meal in your kitchen, as well.

The act of processing foods, however, can change their nutritional make-up. Cooking and heating foods can destroy certain components, which in a commercial product may require that a company add things back into the food to balance it.

The unintended side-effects of processing have caused problems for pet foods, particularly canned foods. The heat necessary to manufacture both dry and canned pet foods causes some loss of these nutrients and amino acids, taurine in particular (an amino acid that cats require in their diet). It is worse in canned foods due to the high heat requirements of the canning process.

This discovery was made in the late 1980’s when many cats eating both dry and canned diets suffered from symptoms of taurine deficiency, even though the amount of taurine added to the foods was considered adequate. Nowadays, canned pet foods contain a higher proportion of taurine than dry to offset this loss.

So the fact that commercial pet food is a processed food doesn’t make it evil or dangerous.

All pet food is processed, whether in your kitchen or in a factory.

This also doesn’t mean that raw or unprocessed foods are necessarily healthier. If the food contains a nutrient your pet needs, but can’t digest in a raw form, then it isn’t really doing them any good to eat it raw. See the corn example above. Some things will pass right through the digestive system unless they are in the correct form (commonly referred to as bioavailable).

What do pets need in their diet? We are still learning…

All dogs require protein, carbohydrates and fats in their diet. The relative amounts recommended will differ between dogs based on breed, age, health and lifestyle. High protein dog foods are enjoying marked popularity right now, even though there are no studies showing any advantage to this kind of diet in the average pet dog.

Cats require animal protein and fats in their diet, while their carbohydrate needs are either small (1-3%) or none, depending on which expert you believe. The problem here is that no one has done the long term studies we need, on a large enough scale, to really determine whether carbohydrates in cat foods are safe or not.

We are still learning about pet nutrition (and human nutrition too)!

This can feel frustrating to pet owners.

When something goes awry in a commercial pet food product, we want to blame the company for being greedy or for not knowing something was wrong.

Sometimes this is fair! The company should have known, or taken action sooner (see information on the major pet food recalls of 2007). But sometimes we just didn’t know the information until we discover it, after pets have suffered the health consequences of a deficient diet.

We did not know that cats required additional taurine in their diets until researchers showed it in the 1970’s. And they only began to study the question after several cats eating commercial dog food diets went blind!

Pet nutrition is a field that is still in its learning phase. While some things have been well studied (like taurine deficiency in dogs and cats), others have not. This is because the type of studies that are potentially the most useful are also the most expensive and sometimes do not yield useful results for many years.

Science builds on itself, one study at a time.

Ideally, we would want to study pet nutrition over the lifespan of a pet. To do long term feeding trials requires a researcher to acquire as many closely related animals as possible, and to have them live their natural lifespan in a completely controlled environment.

This is pretty easy to do with fruit flies and mice, two species used heavily in scientific research. This is not so easy to do using dogs and cats, and the ethics involved are more complex.

Another option for researchers is to work with veterinarians and pet owners to self-report information, and then draw conclusions from the results of the surveys. These kind of studies are useful but limited. Self reported information is often biased and inaccurate, and it can be hard to draw conclusions from studies based entirely on these kinds of surveys.

True lifespan studies on pet nutrition are rare.

Researchers working on a lifespan study might have to wait 10+ years before they have results if they are using cats or dogs as their model, instead of the aforementioned flies or mice.

And the results may or may not be generalized to all pets. Just because a study says something about the nutritional needs of a German Shepherd does not mean it will be the same for a teacup yorkie.

So most feeding studies are done on a small number of pets for a limited amount of time, and are usually focused on measuring something specific. A study might look at blood plasma levels of taurine in British shorthair cats fed different controlled diets. Or researchers might examine how stool formation and gut fermentation changes with increased dietary protein in dogs.

Most pet foods have never been subjected to any kind of scientific feeding trials.

This includes the diets produced by small, boutique brands, raw food diets and the ever trendy “grain free” diets. Even short term feeding trials are very expensive. Most companies simply can’t afford the cost of doing them. Nor do these companies see any value in doing them.

Pet owners often don’t trust the data produced by those companies who make pet foods, and even when they do, this kind research doesn’t make us more likely to buy that food.

Science-minded folk like myself are skeptical of these studies if we can’t see the entire research behind the conclusions. Just saying “7 out of 10 dogs…” had a certain result is not convincing.

The informed consumer often doesn’t trust the research done by the big pet food manufacturers, because they assume it is biased since the company is trying to sell their product.

And yes, the pet food companies doing this kind of research are the big companies, who have scientists working in house and who can invest millions into the study design.

Here’s the thing: Every single pet food company is trying to sell you their product.

Whether it is your local pet boutique that makes its own raw diet or one of the big guys…they want you to buy their product and not the other guy’s product. That vet who markets a book on homemade diets is trying to sell you their product too.

A small or even medium sized company can’t invest millions of dollars (assuming they have it) and years of research in a product unless this gives them a marketing advantage. For most pet food companies, the cost of doing this is far more than any benefit they might get out of it. Even if they wanted to do this kind of research, they can’t until the company itself is large enough to handle the expense.

This is why almost all of the research on pet nutrition is done by universities, veterinary institutes and the major pet food manufacturers.

I think it is smart to be skeptical about the claims made by any pet food company. At the same time, I think it is worth reading any research the claims are based on. I try not to throw the science out the door just because I don’t like the company it came from.

The irony is that the most thoroughly tested pet foods are the therapeutic diets you find at the vet office! Pet food skeptics are usually the first to dismiss these diets as inferior and low quality.

Since these foods are designed to manage specific health problems, they undergo far more testing during development, and far more testing during routine manufacture, than any other kind of pet food!

For myself, I trust the science behind pet food research when I can read and evaluate the study myself.

I trust in the advice and opinions of veterinary nutritionists (people with a degree in vet medicine, a PhD in pet nutrition and further accreditation in pet nutrition).

I am skeptical of many of the claims made by big pet food companies, while allowing that some of their research may be valid. I’m not convinced by clever marketing that uses buzzwords like “all natural,” “made with real meat” or “super premium.” I am very skeptical of the owner-anecdotes that fill many blogs and internet sites.

You will have to decide which information you trust, through your own experiences and research.

Your best resource for information on what your pet’s dietary needs are is your vet!

Find a vet that shares your values, who is continually educating themself in the science of nutrition. Share your research with your vet! Work together to make the best decision for your pet.

I personally do not believe that there is one diet that is best for all pets. Every choice has consequences and trade-offs. I am wary of folks who insist that anyone who does not follow their regime is poisoning their pet.

Most of our pets will do just fine with the diet we choose to feed them. And our choices will change as their age, health and lifestyles change.

I believe there are good choices to be made in almost every category of pet diet. Whatever you decide, pet parent, just make it an informed decision! Never be afraid to talk to your vet about your concerns.

Next in this series, I will go over common and not-so-common pet food ingredients and also how pet foods are made. Further posts will cover how pet foods are marketed, specifically targeting our personal values and emotions. Subscribe today to never miss a post!

You can find the first post in this series PetFood Trends: Should you Trust Your Vet’s Advice? Here.