Did you know that common pets like dogs and cats can have a really large ecological footprint? It’s called a pawprint! Their food is a big contributing factor. Making pet food takes a lot of animal protein, and the current trend is often to feed our pets high-meat diets with increasing “human-grade” quality meat. A study in 2011 also estimated that the British use more than 10% of all palm kernel meal, a byproduct of palm oil, produced to feed animals.
The stats seem wild but research in 2017 showed pets constitute about 25–30% of the environmental impacts from animal production in terms of the use of land, water, fossil fuels, phosphate, and pesticides. As pet ownership increases so do these issues. In the US alone, the pet food is an industry worth nearly $25 billion and pets around the world consume about 20% of our meat and fish. So as we adjust our own diets to work better with the environment, it’s important we also tweak our pets nutrition where we can. Small changes can have a big impact.
To help combat this Yora Pet created dog food made from insects as an alternative to traditional meat and fish sources – they’re also in home compostable packets and the protein source is made from their own grub farm. They genuinely seem pretty awesome and really care. Other tips are to use more meat by-product, add more plant-based foods, use local / home raised chicken eggs rather than as much meat and decrease the food given if appropriate as many pets are overfed. There’s a good chance this all might be a bit cheaper too! And of course, #adoptdontshop.
