Meta-analysis of pet nutrition finds no evidence that standard additives are harmful or that human-grade ingredients are superior, while showing that processing food actually tends to improve nutrient digestibility for dogs and cats

Literally from the study itself:

*”The human-grade versus feed-grade ingredient analysis suffered from critical methodological constraints. Only six studies met inclusion criteria, and all nutritional comparison studies exhibited high risk of bias due to industry funding, lack of blinding protocols, and selective outcome reporting. More importantly, the compared diets were not formulated with identical ingredient profiles, nutrient compositions, or processing methods, confounding the attribution of observed differences to ingredient grade alone. The lack of standardized definitions for human-grade and feed-grade ingredients across studies further complicated comparisons and limited the generalizability of findings.”*

I find it extremely odd how modern vet standards would essentially suggest that before Fancy Feast or Dr Hills Vet Prescribed Kibble existed, cats simply could not exist, they were all dead or severely malnourished since “real food” is just so hard to get nutrition from without “proper processing”.

I find it especially funny when these people come out with claims like “grain free is actually harmful to cats according to our studies!! kibble is good because it has fiber and minerals” when once again, cats never ate grains or any plant food except meat throughout all of history until about midway through the 1900s when corporate produced cat food become common.

These industry claims seem completely farsical when you actually put them in context. Is it true that an improper natural diet can lead to deficiencies, sure, hypothetically it’s true. Clearly most of the time this doesn’t happen, otherwise how did domestic cats or dogs survive and indeed thrive as work animals before the invention of kibble?

“improved digestibility” is that a good thing, though? Why should digestion be made easier?

This makes sense to me. Similar to baby formula. A formula created in a controlled environment can be just as good if not consistently better than breast milk.

Probably should listen to your veterinarian for food recommendations but no matter what people think their google searches are better than the education veterinarians receive. The same thing happens in human medicine.

Tell my cat that additives improve digestibility and feed him anything with thickeners. He’ll respond gratefully by eating whatever you give him then having horrible diarrhea.