THE CORN USED IN KUMPI DOG FOOD IS NON-GMO
My journey through the last nine years of owning a pet food company has been eye-opening to say the least. I understand the scrutiny every company is under right now and appreciate the people who are aware of how expansive the wet food recall was; and that dry food is under deep suspicion as well.
There are many times my dog food is passed over for having corn in it and even worse in the mind of the consumer, it is the first ingredient. Give me a bit to explain this to you, because it makes total sense to me.
A dog needs carbs - that is just a fact. Rice, potatoes, oatmeal, rye, millet, wheat, sorghum - these are just some of the sources to get that starch from. The 'grain free diets' are still using some form of starch for carbs.
Digestibility seems to be one of the problems folks have with corn. If you go to the faq part of my website, you will see the results from a scientific study that shows corn grain is 89.3% digestible. That is exactly what corn meal is - the whole grain that is fine ground. It has been potentially confusing since raw corn comes to mind when seeing corn meal on an ingredient label; even then, what is visible in even our own stool doesn't mean that the corn hasn't done it's job in servicing the body. It merely indicates that the fat and carbs have been squeezed out during digestion and you're looking at the hull that the body didn't need.
Allergic reactions to corn is another thing that draws suspicion for some (wheat and soy are more likely allergens. Less than 10% of allergic reactions in pets are due to diet. I strongly advocate having blood work performed on a pet if they are displaying allergic symptoms. Right at a time when their body is needing nutritional stability the most, people are sometimes advised to do 'process of elimination' diets. They buy a food without corn and see if the symptoms persist. They buy a food without chicken and see if the symptoms persist. On and on, while the poor pet is needing stable nourishment. One thing that makes this process very inefficient is that when you buy a food, you have no knowledge on what grade of different ingredients have been used. If your dog has problems with a grade five corn product - corn was potentially not the issue - the low grade of the ingredient was the harm. And I can write about this with confidence, since so many people have given me feedback about wanting to try Kumpi dog food, since their friend's dog did so well on it; they were concerned because process of elimination led them to believe corn was the culprit. They borrowed some of their friend's food and started blending it slowly with their current dog food, only to find their dog did wonderfully!!! Biggest moral of the story for this paragraph - if your pet displays allergic symptoms, have blood work done to find out what the allergy is. If it is seasonal or environmental you can keep the nutrition stable (whatever you choose to feed) and get on with helping their body out per your veterinarians protocol and your pet's test results.
The first ingredient. I'd like to draw from a quote by Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins who was on the initial senatorial panel for the pet food hearings. She posted an incredible rebuttal to the comments made by The Pet Food Industry representative. Here is part of her comments.
"An example of ingredients splitting: Pet food companies who wish to disguise the amount of cereals in their products will list several different cereals instead of using just one (not top quality cereals either) so that what meat IS in their products will legally be listed as the one of the first ingredients. In many, if not most of these foods, cereal actually makes up the majority of the food, but consumers see 'chicken' as one of the top 2-3 ingredients and think that chicken is a predominant component of the food. This is 'smoke and mirrors.' "
When Kumpi dog food was first formulated, my nutritionist said I had two choices; to look like the best food (regarding the ingredient label) or be the best food. That's a no-brainer for me since this was first pursued for my own dog; then for my student's dogs. What the label read like didn't make any difference to me. The irony is that having a grain as a first ingredient gave him the ability to put in that much more meat. Huh???? Ok, look at it this way - if you were formulating one ton of food (2000 lbs):
First Ingredient is MEAT - 301 lbs.
Second Ingredient is GRAIN - 300 lbs.
Third Ingredient is GRAIN - 300 lbs.
Fourth Ingredient is GRAIN - 300 lbs.
(fat, fiber, etc. rest of the formula) - 5799 lbs.
We've got our one ton recipe ready to go. Meat is the first ingredient. But there is far more grain in the food when you add things up. This is part of the smoke and mirrors that Dr. Hodgkins is referring to. Also on my website is the startling difference between "chicken" and "chicken meal" - but I digress.
Corn has to be the first ingredient to get as much meat as we can into the dog food!! It is not a cheap filler. (I know - I pay the bills.)
The beauty of corn meal? Over 60% of the naturally occurring fat in corn is Omega 6 aka Linoleic Acid, a powerful anti-oxidant. The Omega 6 factor is also part of what helps create a healthy hair follicle.
Plus, there's more to a pet food than base ingredients; there is the supplementation factor as well. But that's another blog :)
