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Steve's Real Food uses only 100% natural, human quality ingredients and you
may find that natural colors, smells and textures may vary as abnormal
weather and seasonal changes can affect fruit and vegetable harvests.
Please be assured that all products are made under strict quality control and
although the products may look slightly different the benefits to feeding a
whole natural diet along with our quality throughout manufacturing will always
be consistent.
Please handle Steve's Real Food as you would
any raw meat product. Wash your hands, bowls and all utensils in hot soapy
water. Please keep all raw meat products away from small children.
What about
E-coli, salmonella
and other microbes? Is raw meat safe?
This is a very legitimate concern, and is often
the first question pet owners have. It is an easy question to answer. Properly
prepared raw meat-based diets are very safe for dogs and cats, and appear
to have a better safety record than processed grain-based foods.
Dogs are scavengers and can eat foods humans can
never eat.
For hundreds of thousands of years, dogs ate only
raw foods; often old, rotten raw foods. For 99.99% of the history of dogs,
nobody ever cooked for them. And they ate very little grain. Dogs are scavengers.
Picture giving your dog a bone with some meat on it. She buries it in the
backyard, digging it up weeks later. Or the dog drinking from a duck pond.
They can thrive in the presence of microbes that would kill humans.
Cats are natural
carnivores that have evolved while eating their prey raw.
Cats were originally
domesticated to protect granaries because cats would not eat grain.
Dogs and cats have short, highly
acidic digestive systems.
Dogs' and cats' highly acidic digestive juices
and their shorter digestive time does not allow harmful bacteria an opportunity
to establish themselves.
Steve's high quality preparation and ingredients
minimize any risk of bacterial problems.
Steve's is produced at a human-edible meat processor
that meets the highest quality standards in the country. For example, we produce
the food in a refrigerated room (42° F), and we never allow the food to get
over 27° F, and freeze all the ingredients for more than 72 hours to kill
any latent trematodes, worms, and parasites.
In addition, we add Fructooligosaccharide (FOS,
labeled as extract of chicory) which is a prebiotic compound that selectively
stimulates growth of beneficial bacteria, including Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus,
and Bacteroides species. Establishment of these beneficial genera in the colon
reduces the numbers of harmful bacteria.
Properly prepared raw meat-based diets have proven
to be very safe.
The rapidly increasing
popularity of raw meat based foods alone is nearly proof that raw meat-based
diets are safe. Much of the growth is through word-of-mouth and Internet chat
groups. If there were problems, word would spread very quickly. At Steve's
Real Food, we know all the leading companies that sell raw meat-based diets.
Together, the companies have fed hundreds of thousands of dogs for many decades
without a single documented death due to a bacterial problem. We know most
of the leading retailers nationally who sell raw meat diets, have exhibited
at veterinarian conferences, and have met many thousands of consumers. If
there were a safety problem with proper raw diets, we would know. We've heard
of no documented cases of death due to bacterial problems from eating raw
meat-based diets.
On the other hand,
many grain-based foods have had major problems. Remember the vomitoxin problem
many premium brands had a few years ago? Many dogs died. Vomitoxin is a by-product
from the bacteria that infects the corn. In addition, pet foods that include
peanut hulls are susceptible to aflatoxin poisonings.
My dog likes to lick
my child’s face. Is this OK? Can’t my child get sick from the bacteria in
the dog’s mouth?
Face licking and kissing is definitely not
OK from both a behavioral and microbiological standpoint, regardless
of whether the dog’s diet is raw or cooked. Behaviorally, face licking begins
in puppyhood as a food begging mechanism between the puppy and his/her mother.
Reinforcing this mechanism by allowing licking among humans invites behavioral
problems in adulthood.
Furthermore, from a purely medical standpoint,
doctors and veterinarians have recommended for years that animal-child contact
be limited and/or strictly supervised and controlled. A literature review
from 1978 reports that up to 30% of domestic dogs shed salmonella varieties
in their feces; this predates the popularity of raw diets by about 15 years.
Canine predilections towards coprophagy and oral-rectal contact make licking
behavior dangerous even if the dog is being fed a traditional cooked ration.
Again, this represents a long-standing opinion of the veterinary/pediatric
community that predates the advent of raw feeding.
What about toxoplasmosis? Can cats contract it from eating
raw meat?
All Steve's Real Food for Pets products are frozen & kept frozen in a manner that eliminates
any latent Toxoplasma gondii in our raw ingredients.
What about mad cow and
foot-and-mouth diseases? What has Steve's done to counter the risk from feeding
beef products?
When we say "Select beef" is used for our Steve's Real Food Beef dinner for
dogs it is 100% natural, free range, grass fed, 100% hormone free & 100%
antibiotic free. We purchase our beef from local farms and
slaughterhouses. Cattle from this region have never shown symptoms of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (e.g. mad cow disease) and are not currently suffering
foot-and-mouth disease. Note that foot-and-mouth disease is not transmissible
to dogs or cats. Furthermore, we do not use at-risk meat or organs from
the cattle such as brains, spinal tissues, or eyes, which harbor transmissible
spongiform encephalopathy in infected cattle. We use beef bonemeal in our
beef dog food and in our cat food as a calcium supplement. Our supplier
makes it using bones from domestic cattle (who have never shown mad cow
symptoms) and does not use at-risk bones such as the skull or spine.
What is
the shelf life of both frozen and freeze-dried products?
The fresher any food
is, the better tasting and more nutritious it is. Individual quick
freezing (flash freezing) and keeping the food frozen is the best way to
preserve nutrition and taste. Steve's Real Food frozen varieties, as
long as it remains frozen, can remain in your freezer for a year.
(Please check our best if used by date). Once the raw food has
defrosted in the refrigerator it will last for about 3 - 4 days and given in
a bowl at feeding time, it should be fed within four hours.
Our freeze-dried products are packaged in a high-barrier foil bags with an
oxygen absorbing package. If kept in a cool, dry location and
unopened, the shelf life is eighteen months. Once the freeze-dried bag
has been opened, if the products are sealed and kept in the pantry or cabinet
they will be good for about 14 days, in the refrigerator 21 days and in the
freezer for about 30 days.
What is
this freezer burn and how to prevent it?
Freezer burn (frost) is a
dehydration of the outer layer of a food product after it has been exposed
to cold conditions. It's often accompanied by frost over the affected
region of the food. It has no effect on the nutritional quality of a
product, but often diminishes the appearance of a food to the point where it
is not appealing to the consumer.
Frost is caused by poor air circulation, and often, by the periodic
thawing and freezing of frost-free freezers, when they are opened and closed
during the day. Ensuring proper air flow and rotating your bags in the
freezer will help decrease the amount of frost to accumulate in each bag.
Frost is not completely unavoidable when
putting fresh or frozen foods in the freezer, but we
are always looking to improve our products. April of 2005 we
introduced new 2.5lb zip lock, heavy poly packaging already in stores now,
to reduce frost and help ensure freshness.
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