3: The Corn | rawdog

Chapter 3: The Corn

The main ingredient of most popular and trusted dog food is ... CORN!

Why is it there?

According to Troy Roush, Vice President of the American Corn Growers Association, the American government subsidizes corn so that manufacturers can buy corn at a cheap price. The more a corn a farmer grows, the more money the government subsidizes.

Companies add corn in dog food because it provides a cheap source of carbohydrates.

(carbohydrates = energy = food)

It's also an awesome filler for food, human, dog, and all animals.

(Corn, along with soybean, are heavily subsidized by the government. Result? It's cheaper to buy corn over real meat. Since the ignorant public prefer price over information, just give them good advertisement and they'll buy it.)

Is Feeding Corn Dangerous?

Let's start with other animals. In this case, cows.

Cows are herbivores; therefore, people thought it was fine to feed corn, a plant.They thought corn was a good substitute for grass.

Big companies wanted to cut costs so they thought of feeding corn. Result? A bacteria called E. Coli (which wasn't a big threat) evolved to E. Coli O157:H7. For the first time, people experienced THE E.Coli outbreaks.

Watch Food Inc. for more information about corn.

Click here for a list of E.Coli Outbreaks.

"All of our scholarly and peer-reviewed articles agree that corn-fed beef is higher in fat content and has a greater risk of fostering the E-coli bacterium. Our scholarly evidence also supports the argument that grass-feed is better for the environment, the animal, and the consumer (Fields 2004:A822). The authors of our articles also came to the consensus that corn-fed beef is cheaper than grass-fed beef and that corn-feed allows the cattle to gain weight faster and be qualifiable for butcher sooner "

- Study on the Impacts of Corn Fed Cattle on the Animal, Humans, and Environment

"Corn can eat away part of a cow’s stomach, says Allen Williams, a former feedlot owner and cattle specialist at Mississippi State University. Cattle can actually discharge part of their stomachs through their rectums, he said. Nearly all corn produced in the US is now genetically modified."

Dogs Naturally Magazine

Corn, and Cows and Dogs

So far we've learned that feeding corn to cows:

Has a greater risk of fostering the E-coli bacterium
Has higher fat content which makes the animal gain weight faster
Eats away a part of a cow's stomach. They discharge part of their stomachs through their rectums.

Cancer is the leading cause of death.

Bloat comes in second.

Corn is also a known allergen for dogs (meaning a cause for allergies).

The usual question is: Is it normal?

The right question is: Is it natural?

Most dog food has corn as the main ingredient. Almost all dogs are fed commercial dog food.

The Corn They Feed

Both sides agree that unless the kernel is refined into a meal or a flour, corn is not easily digestible. This means that corn is only digestible depending on HOW they were processed.

Here's a chart by Kumpi to show that the processed corn in their dog food IS digestible by checking the DM (or Dry Matter).

So, if corn is digestible once they are processed, what are the end products?

How do they appear in the dog food?

How are they processed?

Below is a table on the most common types of the corn you will see in dog foods.