Free Pet Food Recipes
Homemade Pet Food
Nutritious pet food from your own kitchen
Preparing food and treats for your pet can take time but well worth it if you are concerned about the preservatives and artificial flavorings and other ingredients that are in commercially made food.
Note: It is important to consult your pet’s veterinarian before you make changes to your pet’s regular fare.
Store bought pet food is what many people rely on as standard fare for their cats and dogs. In this generation, we buy people for us and we buy pet food for our furry friends. But there was a time before canned and prepared foods for pets when cats and dogs ate what was available. Actually, the food pellets we feed to our animals today really only gained popularity in the 1950s.
Most dogs and cats lived on table scraps, grains and food made by their owners. In the mid-1800s an electrician from the U.S. named James Spratt came up with a formula for dog food. Spratt had been watching the dogs that relied on scraps in the ship yard where he worked in London. As he watched the hungry dogs pick up scraps of biscuits and anything else they could find, he came up with the idea of making dog food from wheat meal, vegetables and meat. His products sold well and the company grew and around 1890 Spratt sold his company to a large manufacturer and prepared dog food was for sale in England and in the U.S.
By the early 1900s the idea of buying pre made dog food appealed to a lot of people. But it wasn’t until the early 1900’s that pet food really caught on. After the First World War, manufacturers used horse meat sold under the brand name Ken-L-Ration. It was one way of disposing of dead horses.
The Gaines Food Company introduced canned cat food and dry meat-meal dog food in the 1930s. The pet food market took a dip during World War II when the use of metal was diverted for the war effort. At about the time the war ended manufactured pet food rebounded and became a $200 million enterprise. The big companies like General Foods, Quaker Oats and Nabisco saw a chance to turn people food by-products into money making products for pet food. In the late 40s and early 50s the economy rebounded and sales of prepared pet food skyrocketed. After all, it was convenient and more people could now afford to buy it. In the beginning, canned food was what was available on store shelves. 1956 was the year that dry pet food became readily available. The process of forming the dry kibble was called extrusion. The pellets are formed and then liberally doused with synthetic nutrients because the extrusion process leaches most of the nutritional value of the pellets.
The industry enjoyed tremendous growth in the 60s and 70s as new flavors became available and improvements were made in the extrusion process. By the following decade, specialty foods were introduced to help treat some medical conditions, like sensitive digestive tracks and weight reduction in pets.
While the pet food business is worth billions of dollars to the companies who make it, there is a twist in pet owners thinking and buying habits. With so many pets experiencing health problems related to food, we are at a place in time when people are looking for natural, holistic and homemade foodstuffs for their pets - sort of like the types of food pets of yore were fed.
