Is it natural to offer 100% vegetable food to dogs and cats?

The natural definition applied to food has multiple meanings, but they are inconsistent.

A natural food can be understood as a food that has not been processed, as well as a food that does not contain hormones, antibiotics, dyes, preservatives or flavorings that were not originally in the food. But when you ask the general population the most common is to understand it as a food that does not contain artificial substances. The most important of these surveys on "natural" foods in the population was that they had preference when buying towards those that contain this word.

"The natural is fashionable" and based on this many companies use it as a marketing strategy, either in their strategy of communication with customers or in the packaging of products.
There is a law, which is also constantly updated, to control the labelling of food for dogs and cats, but if we check label by label, we would realize that petfood companies in general do not take it too seriously and the labels do not comply with the regulations. Fortunately, more and more attention is being paid from the agencies that regulate it.
In addition, it is booming that everything carries stamps, stamps that in many cases are obtained simply by paying a fee.

But what’s natural about giving one food or another then?

We decide on many areas of life of our companions since they are domestic animals and depend on us to have the life they deserve. Among all those decisions there is nothing natural, we decided that they live in houses instead of forests, because forests are no longer their habitat; we decided what schedules they will have, like we have them; we decided whether they play with scrapers or balls, they do not have trees or chase wild animals; our companions have lives conditioned by our decisions and it is no different in terms of their diet.

The diet of our colleagues should be as healthy as possible, complete, contain all the nutrients they need and should not contain substances that pose a risk to their health. In this sense our commitment to the natural, combine vegetable ingredients, containing all the nutrients needed by the body of our colleagues depending on their species and their individual needs, and add all those ingredients that can bring an extra to your health, health of your skin, your urinary system, your digestive system or your joints. In the vegetable world there are a lot of ingredients capable of fulfilling all those functions. And yes, there are nutrients that are either not in the vegetable world or not in sufficient quantities and are added during food production.

But then a 100% vegetable feed carries things that are not natural and it is not natural to use it?

Actually, feeding dogs and cats without these supplements is the least dangerous, in humans we put iodine in salt because we need it, now B12 or vitamin D make way in terms of nutritional needs in humans not covered, and we find them in many foods considered healthy, for example, in cereals.

Why do we think that our colleagues do not deserve to complete their diet, as we do ours and that it is done in non-vegetable feed? It is common to relate this supply of nutrients with deficient foods, but we must understand that it is the opposite.

A properly formulated and supplemented feed is the best food we can offer our colleagues, and that it is 100% vegetable is as natural as offering them any other type of food, since the wild species from which they descend feed on other animals, corpses or fruits and plants that we cannot currently offer them as domestic animals that they are.

María González Sola.
Co-founder of the Refugio la vida color Frambuesa and responsible for veterinary consultations VeggieAnimals.