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The power of the industry The Raw Meaty Bone lobby talk of unhealthy alliances between the petfood industry and 'the establishment'. My only direct experience of this relates to a complaint I made against Iams, for their advert about their dry catfood which stated "we formulate our products to include protein that is 100% animal based and unlike many others, we do not supplement it with vegetable protein. We have everything cats need and nothing they don't to help them stay healthy and happy for life". Along with another complainant, I pointed out that cats don't need carbohydrates, and therefore their advert was misleading. In their infinite wisdom, the Advertising Standards Authority came to the conclusion that: "We recognised that, while not an essential nutritional requirement, carbohydrates and dietary fibres could have beneficial effects on the health of the digestive tract and provided a useful source of metabolic energy. We understood that there was no scientific evidence that specifically mentioned that carbohydrates were harmful to cats. We considered that carbohydrates made an important contribution to the nutritional needs of cats, and concluded that the claim "we have everything cats need and nothing they don't" was not misleading." Perhaps my understanding of the English language is poor, but in my book, if something is not essential, it is not needed!! My evidence of harm resulting from carbohydrates was not accepted, so let me now quote from the latest clinical update on Diabetes Mellitus by the highly respected Cat Charity, the Feline Advisory Bureau. "cats have a
high dietary protein requirement and use amino acids and fats for energy rather
than carbohydrates.
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