Steve’s Real Food recently made a major re-formulation to our raw dog food. We removed all our synthetic vitamins and added some really exciting ingredients such as coconut oil. We love coconut oil for its multitudes of health benefits.

A while back a friend and I were having a healthy argument about salt and sea salt. My friend is the nutritionally versed but not neurotic type of person. He believes that there is a lot of hype out there and people are getting duped into spending more money on products because they are “Natural”. I do not disagree with this. The term natural is not regulated and can is now being put on just about every product. I even saw an “All Natural” raw chicken breast at the grocery store that was clearly a cage raised bird dripping with hormones and antibiotics, but because they did not add any synthetic chemicals to it, it was “All Natural”.

FDA regulations do not allow the presence of salmonella in cooked pet foods (canned, kibble, freeze dried or dehydrated). Even though we produce and distribute raw meat products, we must abide by the same standards as a cooked product. It is in our best interest to comply with the FDA and “voluntarily” recall our products even though there are no reported cases of sickness in pets or humans.

Natural, whole raw foods contain numerous enzymes and phytochemicals that modern science has discovered are important for proper nutrition in humans and laboratory animals. This holds true for dogs and cats as well.
Enzymes are specialized protein substances that are involved in all the dog’s activities. Even thinking requires enzymes. Enzymes are found abundantly in fresh, minimally processed natural foods.

In November of this year we started national distribution of our new compostable packaging, furthering our environmental commitment. The new bag is made with a film called NVIRO® (sounds like enviro) which is comprised of renewable and compostable materials and printed with low VOC water-based inks and adhesives. This is a new breed of flexible packaging and we are excited to be making waves in both the pet food and packaging industry.

Saturday May 21st we will be joining thousands of other mutt stutters in order to raise money for No More Homeless Pets In Utah. We are teaming up with the PawsZow dog pack and looking forward to the festivities. If you want to strut with us, join the team by going to our Donner page here. If you are already registerd be sure to come by the booth and buy some food or treats. We will be donating the proceeds from all sales to No More Homeless Pets.

When you cook any food you are changing its molecular structure. You see it happen in your frying pan A piece of meat becomes more firm, a carrot gets soft, a potato gels and a tomato turns into a sauce. What’s happening is the cellular structure is breaking down and forming different bonds. This means the nutrient value is changing, and in most cases the its is decreasing.

The raw pet food industry is regulated by the FDA. This is because pet food is considered to be a ready-to-serve product where the chicken you buy from your butcher is not. Recently the FDA feels that regulations on the raw pet food industry needs to be changed and that “certain criteria should be considered in recommending enforcement action against animal feed”. In other words they want to do more testing on pet food and determine if they should reject food with very minute amounts of bacteria.