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Pet owners turn to organic food

After the recent peanut butter recalls, Vince Panozzo began turning down dog treats, worried the slightest hint of contaminated food could make his Norwich terrier Cooper ill.

"They may say a treat is not on the list now, but what if it comes on the list in a month?" Panozzo said. "My friend brought a peanut butter treat for [Cooper], and I thought, well, I'm not going to take a chance."

Panozzo, 51 and an Uptown realtor, said he said he tries to eat an all-natural diet, and wouldn't feed his dog anything else.

After discovering the industrial chemical melamine in some pet food products manufactured in China in May 2007, the FDA recalled over 100 pet foods. The recalls greatly worried Panozzo.

Pet owners such as Panozzo nationwide are shifting towards feeding their pets organic and all-natural food. As more pet owners learn of the dangerous preservatives in standard pet food, natural and organic pet food have increased in popularity. Sales rose 50 percent – to $1 billion – between 2003 and 2007, according to market research firm Packaged Facts.

"People's awareness was rapidly and radically brought to attention," said Dr. Byron de la Navarre, veterinarian at the Animal House of Chicago.

In a small store next to the Rockwell stop on the Brown Line, Rich Forsythe tends Ruff Haus Pets, a quirky store selling natural and organic pet food for animals, as well as collars, toys, beds and other high-quality goods for pets. A grey cat lays in one of the beds for sale. Around mid-day, there are no customers, but Forsythe, 42, said foot traffic has increased each year since it's opening in 2002.

"[Organic pet food] is a growing market, and I think it has grown even more in the last five years," Forsythe said.

Even in the past year he said he seen a sales increase, despite the falling economy.

According to the Organic Trade Association, organic pet food is the second fastest-growing category of organic items. Only sales of organic flowers have increased more.

"Sales have been consistently strong and are growing pretty quickly," said Todd Thedinga, owner of A Dog's Life, a specialty dog food company that sells organic and natural products based in Santa Monica, Calif.

Thedinga began the company selling only a chicken and barley treat, and added more flavors as demand increased. A Dog's Life now stocks nine flavors, its most popular being steak. Products are available at the companies Web site or in retailers nationwide, including Whole Foods and Wild Oats as well as smaller pet shops.

Cultural awareness of the quality and content of the food humans eat benefits pets. As stores such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats became more popular, owners began to worry about what was in the food they fed their pets, Thedinga said.

"You can look at [trends in pet foods] basically as moving closely with human trends," he said. "A lot of that is tied into the anthromorphication of animals. People treat dogs like their kids. … What became an issue for them became an issue for their pets."

Thedinga and Forsythe said the difference between feeding an animal non-organic and organic food is enormous.

"A lot of people could go through life feeding their dog regular food, and probably do not notice a day-to-day difference. Your dog will almost certainly have a shorter lifespan," Thedinga said.

While pets that eat organically will certainly be healthier, De la Navarre said currently little evidence shows it can lengthen an animal's lifespan.

"Organic foods haven't been out there for long, only for five or so years, and dogs and cats have a lifespan of 15 to 20 years. If we see 30 year old cats, we'll see that organic food has had an effect," De la Navarre said.

Forsythe and Thedinga said they have seen the health benefits of switching a pet to an all-natural diet.

In a poor economy, Forsythe said pet owners make sacrifices to maintain their pets' fitness. When a change in diet has solved a pet's health woes, it's difficult to go back to a cheaper food.

"The time leading up to the food change and the pet bills were far more expensive than spending $10 extra for a bag of food each month," Forsythe said.

Feeding an animal organic or all-natural food has undeniable benefits, De la Navarre said. Standard, low-quality pet food has a dearth of nutrients and is filled with preservatives and additives.

"Who knows how these things add up and what effect they have on us or our body," De la Navarre said.

When Verona ReBow moved to Halcyon, Calif. from Germany, her dog was sick and her veterinarian wasn't optimistic.

"The vet said he probably would die," ReBow said.

A long-time animal rights activist and vegan for more than 20 years, ReBow said she decided a change in her pet's diet was necessary. She switched her dog to a vegetarian diet.

"He lived to be 13 and a half years old, and that was the beginning of my journey," ReBow said. She founded the site VegetarianDogs.com in 1998. After receiving requests for vegetarian and vegan pet food recipes, ReBow wrote the recipe book "Vegetarian Dogs," available on her website for $12.

However, De la Navarre said an all-vegetarian pet diet may be going too far.

"Dogs aren't obligate carnivores, but they eat meat as part of their natural diet," De la Navarre said. Feeding a dog a vegetarian or vegan diet fails to provide essential proteins or amino acids.

Forsythe agreed, and said, "It's the worst thing you could possibly do for a dog or a cat. … If people want to make choices about their own diet they can, but you can't feed a fish a steak. Different animals need different food."

For ReBow, her dogs' vegetarian diets come from ethical concerns about the treatment of animals bred for food. How could animal owners love their pets, but allow the mistreatment of cattle and other livestock?

"The main core of what I'm doing is to not participate in the industry of raising animals for food or exploiting them for food," ReBow said.

The question of whether animals need protein has been overstated for many years, she said. Protein is a building block of matter, and ReBow said animals would get sufficient amounts even if they don't eat meat. Dogs are "not carnivores, they're omnivores," so they can survive without meat, she said.

De la Navarre says he wouldn't support a vegetarian diet for dogs, but he would recommend an organic or natural diet. Other high quality pet food, such as Science Diet, has the same effect on a pet's health.

"I definitely don't recommend the cheap stuff," he said.

All-natural pet food isn't a fad: Increasingly educated consumers will continue to buy healthy food for their pets, Forsythe said. "There's quite a large movement in our country right now of understanding where our food comes from. It's not fashion, it's food."

Like ReBow, Panozzo said switching to an all-natural, organic diet has improved his dog's quality of life.

"It's my impression that they're healthier because they eat natural food. I don't know if there's any truth to it. They're very healthy dogs," Panozzo said.