Are Fancy Foods Better for Pets?

As Americans become ever more conscious of their own diet, the nation’s pet food companies have geared up to offer them a host of new products for their animals--”lite” foods for the overweight, “gourmet” pet foods for the finicky, and even “Yuppie style” treats featuring “natural” ingredients and no preservatives.

Pet shops and feed supply stores have long offered specialty feline and canine food--among the latest are frozen dinners that can be microwaved. But the major pet food manufacturers are now cramming grocery store shelves with the new light and gourmet products.

So great is the explosion of new products that industry specialists say upscale designer food is the fastest growing part of the almost $6-billion pet food industry.

Following the Human Lead

With the new light products, the pet food industry is merely following the human food industry, according to Virginia Lazar, editor of Pet Food Industry magazine in Mt. Morris, Ill. “People are reducing their dogs just like they are reducing themselves.”

Veterinarians contacted seemed to agree that the pet diet foods--said to contain fewer calories and more fiber--can help dogs lose weight since the fiber should dampen appetite. But they also pointed out that an owner can put a pet on a diet by cutting down on its daily intake of food and eliminating table scraps.

“If an animal is overweight and needs to be on a diet, one of the ways to go is to get one of the light foods,” veterinarian Karen Wernette said, adding that it is harder on the animal and the owner just to cut down on regular food.

But Wernette, on staff at the American Veterinarian Medical Assn. in Schaumburg, Ill., also recommends that owners of overweight animals see their vets first to make sure that there is nothing else physically or metabolically wrong. “If not, then put him on a diet either way and increase the exercise.”

“The No. 1 problem with dogs is obesity,” said veterinarian Don Lowe, associate dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. “So there’s some justification for the lower-calorie diets. (And) for many people it’s just easier to buy their dogs a prepared diet.”

Major Brand Names

Most of the major pet food companies have introduced new light or reformulated lower-calorie dry and/or canned dog foods this year. And most of the lower-calorie products cost about the same as the regular ones.

Alpo Petfoods Inc. in Allentown, Pa., for example, brought out Alpo Lite in March to provide a dog a satisfying meal with “100% of his adult nutrient requirements with 25% less calories.”

A comparison of the labels on regular and light Alpo beef dinners shows the regular dinner has “not less than 10.0% crude protein; not less than 6.0% crude fat; and a maximum of 1.5% fiber.” The light version has “not less than 7.0% crude protein; not less than 3.0% crude fat; a maximum of 2.5% fiber.” Both cost about 55 cents in supermarkets.

Quaker Oats-owned Gaines Pet Foods of Chicago, which has marketed its Cycle dog food line since 1976, has reformulated and renamed the four versions in canned and dry food.

For Weighty Dogs

New Cycle 3 Lite is advertised as having “25% fewer calories than the leading canned dog foods” and is aimed at dogs that are overweight or less active or tend to put on weight.

Ralston Purina of St. Louis, which sells the most pet food in the country, has a new marketing plan for its 12-year-old Fit ‘n Trim dry food, and says the product now has fewer calories, one-third less fat and one-third less salt. Purina also has a Light Formula of its HiPro line. And Purina’s Pro Plan food group, sold in pet and feed stores, has a new light dry line with reduced calories.

If you have a chubby cat, though, you will simply have to cut down its food intake--or ask your vet about the Hill’s brand prescription reducing diet available only from veterinarians.

No low-cal cat foods have hit the supermarkets or pet stores yet, but veterinary sources report that Hills has a new low-cal dry cat food--said to have 25% fewer calories than its regular Science Diet line--that it will be introducing in pet food stores in the next few months.

Hill’s representatives at its Topeka, Kan., headquarters refused to comment on the product.

Specialty Products Not New

Many “balanced nutrition” products for dogs and cats--such as Hill’s Science Diet and Iams of Dayton, Ohio--have been available in pet stores for several years.

But the first mass market pet food company to get an “optimum nutritional effectiveness” dry dog food to the grocery shelves was Purina, which introduced O.N.E. dry food last year. O.N.E., according to Purina, has additional protein, fiber and nutrients.

And four months ago, the St. Louis company changed its regular Chuck Wagon dry food brand to Chuck Wagon Lean. The new Lean, a Purina spokesman said, is not a light food but a food with 25% less fat, and it is not “gravy-based” anymore.

In addition to low-cal and high-nutrition pet foods, most companies are also featuring new “gourmet” brands such as Carnation’s Grand Gourmet dog food and Kal Kan’s Sheba cat food.

They and others in this elite category are referred to in the pet food industry as “superpremium” foods and are generally advertised as higher quality, whole meat products that cost the manufacturers more to produce, so they cost consumers an additional 10 cents to 20 cents a can.

Most look good enough to put on a person’s plate and are compared to the difference between giving your pet a hot dog and a steak.

But some veterinarians don’t think dogs or cats should have a steady diet of such gourmet foods.

“The light foods are a convenience for owners,” said Lon Lewis, a veterinarian and animal nutrition specialist at Mark Morris Associates, a Topeka, Kan., research and development group for pet foods.

“But the gourmet foods (for dogs and cats) as a total diet can be harmful,” Lewis said. “They have a high-protein, high-fat emphasis and a high energy content. They have extra calories, sodium and phosphorus. They’re all right as a dessert or a treat, if you feed them one or two cans a week.”

Popular With Consumers

Not only are consumers snapping up the new gourmet foods, they are rushing, say industry analysts, to buy about 15 new brands of “all-natural, no preservative” dog and cat treats that have been introduced this year.

Among the most recent to hit the market are Max’s Dog Snacks and Jackie’s Cat Snacks, both produced by Wagging Tail Ltd. in Hoboken, N.J.

“The gourmet treats are a marketing gimmick,” said Lewis. “But they’re not harmful if they’re used as treats. . . .

“As far as pet food goes, though, if people really want to know what’s in it and if it’s good for their animals, they should write to the (pet food) company and ask for the average protein, fat and fiber content and the available calories in a particular product. And they also should ask for the results of feeding studies done by the American Assn. of Feed Control Officials, the government agency that regulates the pet food industry. That gives them a basis for a comparison of products.”