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Let's examine the currently popular argument that dried meat meals are superior to fresh meats using the logic of nature as the preeminent principle.  It is claimed that if dried meat meal is used in dry pet foods, then more actual meat can be included than if fresh meat were used, which is 70% water.  However, meat meal proponents cry foul because fresh meat users can list meat higher on the ingredient list, because ingredient order is by weight.   Thus, fresh meat users get to include the 70% water factor as meat.  Dried meat products may have more meat, but it will look like less on the label compared to foods using fresh meat.  This seems like a reasonable complaint at first glance, but one must also consider the nutrient value of meat meal.

Let's use archetypal genetic context (the logic of nature) for a second glance.

If the number one goal in pet feeding is the weight of meat, why buy dried pet foods at all?  Dried manufactured foods (except ArchetypeTM) require starches to form a nugget through extrusion processing. They are thus diluted by grains whether fresh or dried meats are used.  Purchasing fresh meats from the grocery store obviously better achieves this high meat goal.  It's 100% meat.

However, if dried foods are used because of their convenience, then should the goal be to find the food with the highest amount of meat on a weight basis, or to find a food with the highest quality and most nutrient dense form of meat?  As long as basic caloric and protein needs are met - which essentially all commercial foods do - the most important nutritional consideration becomes nutritional quality with the objective of immune system enhancement to slow aging and stave off chronic degenerative diseases. 

Put simply, meat meals are inferior to fresh meats.  Meals are made through grinding, cooking, and then drying meats into a granular powder.  This task is performed by processors, apart from the pet food plant.  The meals are then binned, stored, and trucked to the pet food manufacturer.  The pet food manufacturer then stores the ingredient in bins until added to the formula.  It is then cooked again during pet food processing, dried again and then put into its final package and stored some more. 

On the other hand, fresh meats are not precooked and stored, but only cooked once into the final pet food product.  Do we not intuitively know that a fresh steak would be much better for us than a beef patty made from precooked, powdered meat stored in a package and then cooked again?  Freshness is as fundamental to nutrition as gasoline is to an automobile. Science confirms this intuition.  Heat, exposure to air and light, and age, are all the enemies of nutritional value. Meat meals bathe in these vitiations. Fats are oxidized creating dangerous free-radicals (not entirely solved by adding preservatives), proteins combine with carbohydrates in Maillard reactions to form toxic end products, nutrients are leached and lost, amino acids are diminished (e.g. arginine, taurine) and converted to D-stereoisomers, rendering them unavailable to the body. 

This only begins the list of destruction processing can do.  The trick is to do the least possible, not process twice as occurs with the use of meat meals.  There is little merit in arguing that you own a new Mercedes if in reality it has been totaled and then rebuilt from used parts.  Using fresh meats in pet foods puts a dent in the fender of nutrition, using meat meals puts it in the junkyard.  Quality is the key, not quantity.  Coincidentally, manufacturers who criticize the use of fresh meat do not have fresh meat processing capabilities.  This capability is extremely expensive and very labor intensive.  We would not do it at Wysong if we did not believe it enhanced the nutritional value of our foods.  It would hardly be a cost-effective way of just playing games with labels.

Features of Wysong products consistent with the objective of matching animals to the diet to which they are genetically adapted:

1.         The highest level of fresh meats that permits extrusion into a formed nugget is used in Wysong dry formulas. 

2.         Meals are only used when fresh alternatives are not available, and if used, are used rapidly and stabilized with Wysong's natural OxherpholTM antioxidant. 

3.          All Meat and Organ Canned and dry ArchetypeTM are available to boost the meat portion of the diet. 

4.         Extensive educational materials are available to teach people how to achieve optimal nutrition using the compelling logic and scientifically proven methods of matching the pet's diet to its genetic expectation through the use of fresh meats and supplementation.  Wysong is the only manufacturer to encourage individual thought and control, not 100% dependence upon so-called "100% complete" processed diets.

5.         Dry Wysong foods incorporate active enzymes, pro- and pre-biotics, whole ingredients, food-form micronutrients, nutrient-sparing processing, and special light and oxygen barrier portion pack packaging.  All these features are intended to mimic, as closely as possible, features found in natural foods.

6.             Supplements are designed to add back the important features lost in processing, including enzymes, probiotics, unaltered essential fatty acids (with emphasis on omega-3's), unaltered vitamins, chelated minerals, natural trace minerals, and neutraceutical-type phytonutrients. 
  

Optimizing health involves more than feeding commercially packaged foods.  No one would feed their child a singular processed food at every meal for the rest of their lives, regardless of claims of 100% completeness.  But pet owners by the millions do this to their loved pets, having been hoodwinked into believing that all they have to do is scrutinize ingredient labels to find highest meat content. 
There has never been a better method devised for feeding pets than the Wysong Optimal Health Program.  It involves variety, selection of processed foods that use nature as the principle, scientific supplementation, and fresh food feeding.  It recreates the proper nutritional genetic context and this is the only incubator from which true health potential can emerge. Most importantly, it creates thinking consumers who will not be led by the folly of never-ending commercially motivated fads that claim to determine merit but really only create false confidence and ultimately, poor health.
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Address: 7550 Eastman Avenue, Midland, MI  48642  •  Phone: (989) 631-0009  •  Ordering: (800) 748-0188