>I was just wondering what everyone thinks about 8 in 1 Chicken
>FerretBites....
>
>Ingredients: Wheat flour, soy flour, water sufficient for processing,
>corn syrup, poultry digest."
 
I probably get a couple dozen questions like this every week (or more),
so I generally wait until I get a pile of them and then answer them in
bulk.  Your FML question prompted me to answer a bit early because at
least five people have asked me about this very product since I have
returned from Europe.
 
Wheat flour is the first ingredient on the list.  This means the weight
of the wheat flour exceeds the weight of any other ingredient.  The
second ingredient is soy flour, which weighs more than everything else
except for the wheat flour.  Then there is water, followed by corn syrup.
Finally, we get to poultry digest, which is the parts of poultry that in
most kitchens would be discarded as waste, but commercially the proteins
are recovered using various enzymatic, chemical, or mechanical processes.
It is normally a dried granular or powdery substance that--in poultry--
can have trace amounts of feathers.  It can be made from any part of
poultry, but tends (depending on the source) to be made from feet, heads,
defleshed bones, and other parts of the carcass.
 
I'm not going to discuss the poultry digest except to say that "Fear
Factor" has proven human revulsion to certain foods is entirely
psychological and no real harm can come of eating things some of our
minds think of as garbage.  As far as the physiological processes of a
mammalian body are concerned, protein is protein, so shovel it in.  I
will likewise say that certain parts of a carcass have different ratios
of specific amino acids so the completeness of the food may be in doubt,
but without an analysis of the amino acid content of the poultry digest,
I could not be sure exactly what was missing.  Keep in mind the quality
and completeness of the food can vary from batch to batch, or from
manufacturer to manufacturer.
 
To me, the real concern is the wheat flour, soy flour, and corn syrup.
Excluding water for processing, these three ingredients individually
weigh more than the poultry digest.  We don't know how much more and it
could be quite a bit (I could use industry publications to work out a
formula, but I would probably have at least a 10% error).  So, let's
discuss the best possible scenario, that each ingredient is just a
smidgeon more than the other.  In that case (and excluding water), the
amount of wheat flour, soy flour, and corn syrup is a little more than
three parts, and that of poultry digest is a little more than one part,
making a ratio of roughly 3:1.  That ratio means that at least 3/4ths of
the food is not animal protein, but a combination of flour and corn
syrup.  Granted, there are vegetable proteins and some oils in the flours
(not the syrup), but that is still a lot of carbohydrates.  The problem
with carbohydrates is that they will be converted to sugar by your
ferret.
 
Now, sugar isn't necessarily bad.  Blood sugar (or glucose) is necessary
for life.  Even if you are a primary, obligate carnivore that doesn't eat
carbohydrates, at least 50% of your vital functions are powered by
glucose (made from converting protein to glucose), even if the remaining
50% can be powered by ketone bodies from fats (this is the upper limit;
it is rarely this high).  Theoretically, a liquid diet of glucose,
complete amino acids, complete fatty acids, vitamins and trace nutrients,
and some insoluble fiber can keep any mammal alive for an indefinite
period of time, provided the ratios are balanced for the specific
species.  In theory, this would be a complete and balanced diet, yet as
much as we know about human nutrition--and we know more about the
nutritional needs of humans compared to any other species--we still
cannot define what a "complete and balanced diet" is for humans.  What we
know about ferrets is really just a drop in the bucket.  It has always
brought a chuckle to my lips to listen to someone call their ferret food
scientifically complete, yet defend the carbohydrate load of their food
by saying no one knows what amounts are correctwhich is it--do you know
what a scientifically complete diet is or not?  If you don't know the
correct carbohydrate load for the ferret, then you don't know what a
scientifically compete diet would be; a misleading misnomer.
 
The problem is insulinoma and its link to the long-term consumption of
processed carbohydrates.  Processed carbohydrates are part and parcel
of the kibble industry, needed to make the kibble hold together.  The
trouble is, carbohydrates are converted to sugar in the body.  It is not
just the sugar that is a problem, but also the way it causes insulin to
be secreted in the tissues.  The physiological process that results in
insulinoma in ferrets is similar to that which results in diabetes in
humans.  Don't misunderstand; insulinoma is the opposite problem of
diabetes, but that doesn't mean the PROCESS that initiates the disease is
all that different.  In diabetes, the cells that make and secrete insulin
"burn out" and the body receives insufficient insulin, while in ferrets
the same cells enlarge and produce too much insulin for the body.
Whatever causes the difference between species is likely to be related to
their individual evolutionary history; one is an omnivore and the other
is a primary, obligate carnivore with zero carbohydrate requirements.
You wouldn't expect them to react exactly the same.
 
You would think discussing the problem would cause pet food makers
to stand up and notice.  However, it is like talking to the tobacco
industry: "There is no duplicated, published scientific work that
directly links the use of our product to the observed diseases."  This
type of statement may be technically or legally correct, but the link
between the use of the product and the incidence of disease is real,
observable, and duplicable, and it doesn't matter if you are talking
about tobacco products or the processed carbohydrates in kibble.  Ferrets
that eat kibble develop insulinoma; wild polecats and ferrets eating
animal carcasses do not.  One of the reasons I want to go to New Zealand
is to sample the pancreases of feral ferrets; you could have no better
control.  Since the origin of the New Zealand feral ferret stock is
essentially the same as that of American ferret stock, it would be
extremely difficult for kibble manufacturers to argue the data.  Want
to take bets that the insulinoma rate in these ferrets will be extremely
low?
 
So, this mini-dissertation on nutrition notwithstanding, the bottom line
is the 8-in-1 "chicken treat" is the animal equivalent of "sugar bombs."
While I would never recommend them for any reason, if only a few were
given per week the increased sugar load probably wouldn't make much of a
difference compared to the load the ferret already processes from eating
kibble.  Still, I would recommend giving a more nutritionally sound
treat, such as minced raw chicken.
 
Bob C  [log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 4727]