Exposing Hills, Royal Canin and Nestle Purina!
Toxic elements included in the ingredients in Hills, Royal Canin and Nestle Purina dog foods
by Just Be Kind Dog Food ArielleDecember 2024
I have wanted to write this Blog post for a while but fear has always held me back. As someone who only ever wants to do the right thing and like so many of us highly sensitive people, we are acutely aware of what others may think; I really felt frightened to write this. The pet food corporates are so big and so powerful and I felt so small and my voice so insignificant….but you have changed all of that!
You support me by sending me stories of incredible changes in your dogs when they transition to plant-based and every success story that I receive makes me feel a little less intimidated by the large corporates and more and more empowered to tell the truth, so here it is……
I spoke at the London Vet Show in 2023 to educate as many vets there as I could about the huge health benefits of a plant-based diet in our dogs. Very sadly, the symbol for the London Vet Show in 2023 was a pig (as shown in the image above), and how ironic as one of the sections of my talk on the day was explaining about this published article –
Toxic element levels in ingredients and commercial pet foods
Quote from the article – “The highest toxic metals concentrations, in general, in animal-based ingredients than plant-based ingredients could be attributed to the potential for the accumulation of these elements in the animal organism. Some elements can accumulate in animal tissues, such as bone tissue, skeletal muscle, liver, kidneys, and spleen, as well as in animal products such as milk, reaching critical concentrations that may imply adverse effects on the health of human beings or pets who consumes these products.” – published in Scientific reports October 2021. Read full study here
What the published article highlights, is the process of BIOACCUMULATION that occurs where small ocean caught fish full of heavy metals are ground up and fed to chickens to encourage growth for their slaughter at 6 weeks. The chicken livers will have the accumulated fish toxins as these are the bird’s excretory organs, and these livers are then crushed up and used to feed to pigs who are omnivores and also need to grow rapidly for slaughter at an early age for their bodyparts.
Yet again, the toxins will bioaccumulate in the pork fat, and in the liver/kidneys (byproducts and excretory organs of the animal). Read more about bioaccumulation in our article about cancer and a dog’s diet in this Blog post.
The article I highlighted at the London Vet Show exposes some very worrying statistics. Here is a section from the article –
I have never heard of ‘antimony’ so I Googled it and this is the shocking information I found – “The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) considers antimony trioxide to be reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen (causing cancer in people). It is used to make batteries, paint, enamels and glass and is considered a toxin to people working in industry and facemasks need to be worn.”
– absolutely NOT an ingredient we want added to ANY of our pet foods especially the pork fat or byproducts such as liver and kidneys where the pig’s body tries to get rid of these toxins…..
Pork liver makes up the very first ingredient in Hills Oncology tinned food prescription diet, and this is a known type 1 carcinogen, and this is being fed to dogs with cancer!!!
With the Royal Canin kidney diet, where the food contains Grade 1 carcinogenic ingredients with the inclusion of pork by-products, these toxins in the pork will need to be processed through the dog with already ailing kidneys and could hasten the onset of further renal disease in a dog, instead of benefitting the dog!!!
The published article states that “The highest toxic metals concentrations, in general, in animal-based ingredients than plant-based ingredients could be attributed to the potential for the accumulation of these elements in the animal organism.”
**IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT A PLANT-BASED DIET SUCH AS ANY OF THOSE WE SELL IN OUR JUST BE KIND SHOP WILL CONTAIN NONE OF THESE TOXIC ANIMAL BY-PRODUCT CARCINOGENS!**
Did you know that there is no word for ‘welfare’ in Chinese and why is this significant?
What a sad fact that I was only made aware of recently, that the word ‘welfare’ does not exist in the chinese language. The image below is a 26 storey pig farm skyscraper. Yes you read that right and the image came off a video showing the inside of one of these skyscrapers in China with thousands upon thousands of pigs being reared for the meat industry on a truly industrial scale.
The stress these sentient animals must experience being born into such a facility must be overwhelming which obviously affects their immune system as they undergo castrations (to avoid a ‘pungent’ flavour of pork), teeth trimming and tail amputations as they are in such close proximity with each other and cannot interact normally. The amount of antibiotics and anti parasitics that they must have pumped into them to keep the entire facility viable must be enormous as it would be too financially risky to have an outbreak of a disease.
It is a welfare issue beyond any imagineable in the UK, where dedicated teams are trying their hardest to expose our grossly misrespresented RSPCA welfare scheme that we have in place in the UK. This is on another scale of cruelty.
The worst bit is imagining how these pigs are killed once they reach their growth rate at 6 weeks. Surely the vast numbers that are produced in such a building would not allow for them to be transported and killed individually (as I so harrowingly had to witness as a young veterinary student visiting an abbattoir in the late 80’s!)
Surely these millions of animals are gassed in one section of the skyscraper – maybe an entire room or section of the skyscraper dedicated to this?! Now I want you to imagine what is needed to kill a pig – a lot and a lot of very toxic gas that must fill the room and enter their lungs to ensure that they are dead enough to not be able to move when moved to a different section of this skyscraper to be butchered?
Now continue to imagine where this toxic gas (as potent as euthatal) ends up in the body of the pig as it floods into their lungs and into their blood stream to stop their hearts – the kidneys, liver and fat of course, which is where the antibiotics they have had pumped into them end up too!!
Now see how significant this article is about where Royal Canin source their pig fat, kidneys and livers from to add to all their dog (and cat) foods…..
Mars Petcare opened a £106 million dog food production factory in Tianjin China in 2024 to produce their dry food, wet food and treats as shown by this article. The article also shows how Nestle has also moved some of their production to China too. So the dog foods made by Mars Petcare (Royal Canin, Pedigree, Whiskas, Sheba) will ALL contain pork byproducts full of antibiotic and lethal gas toxins from the Chinese multistorey pig farms! We absolutely do NOT want to be feeding these to our dogs and no wonder pork is classed by the WHO as a Class 1 carcinogen!!
If you are reading this article and you have been told by your vet that your dog needs to go onto a hydrolysed prescription diet by Hills or Royal Canin (which is how you have come to find this article), and you know nothing about plant-based nutrition in humans, then please reconsider the next time you bite into a bacon butty or sausage roll. You too are consuming these grade 1 carcinogens with every bite that you take of pork meat!!! If your health and not animal welfare is your pain point, then please consider moving yourself to a kind and healthy vegan diet – there is nothing easier and I have not met a single vegan who does not absolutely love their food (dogs included here) 👍
What about products made by Nestle Purina?
Let’s look at the highly processed ingredients in Purina HA dried food (taken off the Purina website)
These ingredients are very concerning as the sugar component (yes pure sugar is the 5th ingredient which we don’t even want to imagine what that will do to a dog’s teeth and hormones long term!), is from corn.
The corn starch ingredient and soya protein used would come from exactly the same source as used to feed our livestock animals. These 2 ingredients – corn and soya are used so much globally as animal feed that they have been genetically modified to withstand pests that damage the crops. This means that the vast fields will be sprayed with pesticides to kill the weeds that grow amongst them, but the GMO corn and soya will survive due to their genetic modification.
So in effect, ANY dog food that contains soya or corn (maize) which does NOT mention that it has been organically and sustainably sourced; will contain genetically modified ingredients affected by pesticides which are toxins to our dogs and will shorten their lifespans!! The only soya-based dog food that we stock in Just Be Kind is Noochy Poochy puppy food as they choose non GMO sustainably sourced soya which we are happy with for your dogs.
This can be one of the most important factors as to why vegan dog foods were shown to lengthen the lifespan of a dog by up to 18 months!! (See published research on Dogs Go Plant-Based website)
Here is an interesting article about how pets have fallen ill eating Purina foods but no bacteria were found, is this just social media hype, or is there some truth in it?
I was pleased to read this headline recently that Purina has worked on pet food containing fava bean protein and millet….but then they STILL add in pig’s liver and chicken byproducts to this food as shown in this article.
Are Hills, Royal Canin and Nestle Purina threatened by Vegan Dog Food?
ABSOLUTELY they are as they compete with each other as all 3 are multi-billion companies that float on the stock exchange and a lot of money is at stake to keep their shares bouyant and competitive!
Hills is owned by Colgate-Palmolive, and in February 2024, a lawsuit was filed against the companys’ vets for making false statements linking “boutique, exotic and grain-free” diets to a greater risk of dogs developing Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Read more about this multi million pound court case here that is still ongoing!
Royal Canin is owned by Mars Petcare (who also own over 1000 veterinary practices in the UK – mainly specialist veterinary practices as shown in this article). Mars Petcare funded a study at the Liverpool Veterinary School using one of their Royal Canin vets Dr Alex German, to attempt to contradict Prof Andrew Knight’s very thorough and non-corporate funded study into the benefits of vegan dog food diets. A fresh row erupted as shown here, with Royal Canin unable to show that dogs on a vegan diet did not benefit.
How sad that Mars Petcare sought to fund this study to rundown Prof Knight’s valuable studies, instead of focussing on the very harmful rise in the number of people feeding their dog’s a raw food diet that has had NO studies showing any positive effects, only 85 studies (!!) showing how dangerous they are to our health, our dog’s health AND our future’s health!
Nestle Purina own Lily’s Kitchen that make 2 brands of vegan tinned food – Lily’s Kitchen Vegan Stew and Burrito Bowl. They also own Purina HA prescription foods (shown above to contain GMO corn and soya), and instead of advertising their Lily’s Kitchen vegan products to vets that are far healthier for dogs without the inclusion of any genetically modified and highly processed ingredients, they ONLY stock Purina HA in vet practices – WHY IS THAT as surely vegan dog food that dogs can stay on indefinitely is a far healthier option than highly processed genetically modified corn and soya?!
Mars Petcare owns over 1000 vet practices and uses these practices to stock their extensive Royal Canin range. Nestle Purina own a share in the largest veterinary corporate IVC Evidensia that now owns over 2500 veterinary practices in 20 countries but mainly in the UK, and they all sell Purina HA! (If you are a vet reading this and you work for an IVC Evidensia practice, then please try to get them to stock the much kinder and better formulated Lily’s Kitchen Vegan Stew than Purina HA – both owned by Nestle)
Read here how Mars Petcare have a one BILLION dollar budget in marketing online (yes you read that right!!!!) (I am so angry writing this that I can feel my hands shaking as all those animals killed unnecessarily to fund this eye-watering budget when we have the PERFECT solution with plant-based dog food that none of the pet food corporates want to sell as it doesn’t earn them enough profit!!)
We do appreciate that the individuals that work either as vets for these corporate veterinary practices, or as employees in the pet food production, will be like us and want what is best for the animals – ALL animals, but it is what happens behind closed doors in these high level board room meetings where the dangers lie.
When there is so much money at stake and if the decision is to choose a more sustainable but more expensive ingredient instead of a heavily government subsidised animal slaughter byproduct (or product made in the factories in China), and their shares fall due to this change, and their competing large corporate does not make this change and their shares improve….then obviously they will choose the cheapest ingredient if it makes more profit….. even if it is to the detriment of our planet and our animal’s health!!!
We all know that corporate companies where profit is involved do not have the health of our dogs or our planet at heart as we do as with any corporate where so much money is at stake, it is all down to profits for them, not ethics and doing the right thing for our future and our animals!
I do remain an eternal optimist. One of the owners of Mars Petcare popped up on my LinkedIn feed and why I noticed it, is his image was his own dog – a female Boxer which stood out for me and made me really think. Boxers are a breed that we used to see so many of in the 80’s and 90’s and they have decreased so much in popularity as they are known to not live that long as they are one of the main breeds prone to cancer. Surely if this owner of the corporate Mars Petcare who we know would love his dog as much as we all love ours, was to read this post…..surely he would think twice about feeding the pork-byproduct filled Royal Canin food to his own much loved Boxer?!
It is individuals such as you who are going to drive the change by choosing plant-based for your dog and being the change we want others to see. Only individuals can drive that change and that gives us all hope.
“I believe in a kinder, healthier way to feed our dogs that does no damage to our environment, harms no animals and uses fresh, healthy plant-based ingredients for a balanced, wholesome and delicious diet”
– Dr Arielle with Ruff Plant Powered family dog