I was helping one of my friends with selecting a dry dog food for her very large St. Bernard puppy, and we were reading the labels of organic dry dog foods:
organic free-range turkey (great to have an organic pure meat as the first ingredient)
organic turkey meal (uh-oh, that contains all kinds of things, but at least it is still organic)
organic kamut (good)
organic flaxseed meal (good)
organic red beets (good – no sugar beets)
organic carrots
broccoli (why isn’t it organic?)
soy (UH OH – not organic and GMO)
That’s when I stop and put it in the reject pile.
Soy is creeping into everything. Nothing distresses me more when you see a mix of good, organic products and then all of the sudden you get whomped with soy, not organic and genetically modified.
This is not to mention many of the non-organic products out there that are having GMO soy creep in as well. It is creeping into dried food, canned food and even treats.
Soy on it’s own has seen a huge rise in popularity of people food. But there is reason to pause. Soy contains naturally occuring estrogen, which you don’t want to add into you or your pet’s diet in huge amounts. But then there is the GMO factor. Soy is one of the big four GMO corps grown: soy, maize, rapeseed (canola) and cotton.
Robyn O’ Brien, Author of The Unhealthy Truth states that nearly 75% of processed foods contain genetically modified organisms. Studies have shown that genetically-manipulated foods can, when fed to animals in reasonable amounts, cause very gradual organ damage and immune system damage.
Another study conducted at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences that says that GM soy does in fact pose a public health risk. Flour from a genetically modified soya bean, (created by the brand Monsanto to be resistant to its pesticide) was added to the food of female rats two weeks before they conceived, throughout pregnancy term and after. They found that 55.6 percent of the young of those born to the mothers fed the diet with GM soya died within three weeks of being born, compared to the only nine percent of young who were fed normal soya and the 6.8 percent who were not fed soya at all.
If you do want to include soy in your pet’s diet, make sure it is organic. If you can’t find organic, at least non-gmo.
For more information:
GMO Compass
Say No to GMO
Rodale
