June 5, 2008
When selecting a high-quality commercial pet food, by-products can often be a source of confusion for both dog and cat owners. I’ve heard from many sources that, “The better brands of pet food do not use by-products.”
This may or may not be true. The fact is–the concept is used mainly by manufacturers to market their “no by-product” foods. I’ll admit that some by-products don’t belong in pet food. However, many by-products are a superior source of nutrition for our pets.
Keep in mind that just because something is “unfit for human consumption” it isn’t always unhealthy. Last I checked there wasn’t a huge demand in the human food industry for chicken hearts, pork livers, sheep lungs, or beef spleen. But these are all ingredients that offer our pets excellent nutrition.
Many by-products like liver offer superior nutrition over muscle meats when used in commercial pet foods. In fact, advocates of raw food diets don’t think twice about feeding certain “by-products” to their pets.
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Posted in Cat Nutrition, Dog Nutrition, Pet Food Labels 
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January 13, 2008
You might have noticed that this blog looks a little different than most. When first setting it up, I contemplated whether or not to allow Adsense ads on my site. I could earn a few dollars here and there, and it would help support the cost of hosting, etc.
If you don’t know about Adsense, what happens is Google reads the content of a website and then spits out ads it thinks readers might find useful based upon the content it finds on the page. People click on the ads and for each click the website owner earns a few pennies.
In the end I decided to have an Adsense-less blog. Why? Because I don’t want to send mixed messages to my readers like so many other blogs and websites do. For instance, I could be writing about how to select the perfect puppy, and some ad for a backyard breeder I don’t know anything about or some corporate pet store could pop up. I don’t want to support those kinds of websites even though I might make a few cents from people clicking on them.
I know of one veterinarian who writes about the pitfalls of commercial pet food, flea products, and prescription medications on his website. He believes they’re all evil and giving our pets cancer. This may or may not be the case. Either way, he has ads splattered all over his website for online pet pharmacies and pet food. It just doesn’t make sense to me!
So–you won’t find any Google ads here. That way I can write about whatever I want and I won’t have to worry about sending you off in the wrong direction . 
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In a 
My goal is to combine my passion for writing and knowledge of veterinary medicine to help dog and cat owners make educated choices on behalf of their pets.
