Sweeteners: Dietary sugar can aggravate health problems in pets, including diabetes. Sweeteners are commonly added to lower quality pet food to increase its appeal to your pet.

Artificial Preservatives: Many artificial preservatives have been known to cause illnesses in our pets. Some are even suspected of being carcinogenic.

Artificial Colors: Your pet does not care about the color of its food, only that the food smells and tastes good. Manufacturers commonly add artificial colors to make the food look more like beef, fish, or other food products, so that it is more appealing to us, the humans. Completely unnecessary, and most of us should remember Red Dye #7 being pulled from human foods because it was found to be dangerous.

Sweeteners and Preservatives

• Propylene glycol: Also known as anti-freeze, although supposedly a safe, non-toxic version. It is commonly used in soft pet foods to help retain water and give them that intersting texture that soft pelleted cat food has. It is, however, linked to the reduction in red blood cell life span, and suspect of causing cancer.
• Propyl gallate: Synthetic preservative, suspected of causing diseases of the liver and cancer.
• Potassium sorbate: A commonly used preservative chemically similar to fat.
• Ammoniated glycyrrhizin: A sweetener.
• Sucrose: Table sugar which highly increases the risk of diabetes in pets.
• Etboxyquin: Developed for use in the production of rubber, this preservative has been found to cause thyroid, kidney, reproductive and immune related illnesses as well as cancer.
• Butylated bydroxytoluene (BHT): A preservative which is used to prevent fats from spoiling. This preservative may be a cause of liver, brain and kidney damage, metabolic stress, fetal abnormalities and serum cholesterol increase.
• Sodium nitrite: A widely used preservative and red coloring agent. When used in food, it can produce carcinogenic substances known as nitrosamines.
• Sodium Metabisulfate: A preservative. In humans it causes brain damage, weakness, difficulty in swallowing and loss of consciousness.
• Beet pulp: Dried residue from sugar beets (pure sugar).

• Red No. 3
• Red No. 40 (a possible carcinogen)
• Yellow No. 5
• Yellow No. 6
• Blue No. 1
• Blue No. 2 (shown in studies to increase dogs' sensitivities to fatal viruses)