Published on February 25, 2008
in About Us.
A long time dream came true the other day! Natasha’s Food for Paws went on to the shelves of Whole Foods Market in Santa Rosa, California on Friday the 29th!! There are not words to express how happy we are. This is marking a significant moment in our lives, dreams really can come true!
Natasha’s Food for Paws is bringing to market a food for our pets that supports them in every way that a good diet can. It is something that other pet food companies are doing too and we are so proud and lucky to be a part of this revolution. The growing awareness of how the food that we eat to sustain us plays a key role in our health and quality of life is growing and rightly so.
Good morning to my Blog and fellow Bloggers!!
This article encomposses what started our company…in a nutshell. I keep thinking it would be great to get this article out to as many people as possible. And it hit me last night, what better way than to post it?! This is a very informative article, the people at API did a great job.
Interesting and thourogh: “What’s Really in Pet Food”
http://www.api4animals.org/facts.php?p=359&more=1
Check it out 
Wags and Woofs!!
Natasha
Just a quick post to let you know we can now be found at Technorati.com. Here’s the link;
http://Technorati.com
It’s a more streamlined search engine designed to help you find specific topics with less clutter. I highly recommend it.
Kami
Alright, so, what are nutrient profiles?
Nutrient Profiles were created by “expert committees” for Canine and Feline Nutrition. A standard chemical analysis is done to make sure a food meets the profiles for “adult, growth, or all life stages, meaning it meets the growth standards and can be fed to all ages.
While this is great to determine if a food has the right balance of nutrients, it doesn’t address palatability, or digestibility which feeding trial did so, AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials)added a “safety factor” which was to exceed the minimum amount of nutrients required to meet the complete and balanced requirements. In my opinion this still leaves out “palatability” but, feeding trials are no longer required.
In 2006 the NRC published new standards but, it will still take several years to impact AAFCO.
See you soon,
Kami
I’d like to speak to what Kami mentioned in his post when he spoke about our environment being an invaluable resource. Our environment is something that I have always valued, since my daughter Dakota was born, my passion has grown even more. I am currently reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan and it is an eye opener. I have learned so much about the pet food industry, I have been so engrossed in it; I never gave much thought to how our human food industry operates. Reading this book as fueled my desire to make a difference, I highly recommend it.
My respect for this planet we inhabit is great and now more than ever I do my best to incorporate green living into our everyday life. Not only in my personal life, in business too.
Natasha’s Food for Paws is a company that contributes to the environment. We make sure that our company leaves a light footprint on the environment through recycling and sourcing our ingredients from sustainable and organic producers. As we continue to grow, so will the amount that we can contribute to our local community and our global environment.
Many wishes of health and happiness!!!
Natasha
Published on February 4, 2008
in About Us.
Hi again. I guess part of finding my voice, is identifying who I am so, I’ll share a little history today. As I said, my name is Kami. I’ve been a banker for the last 10 years and as you can probably guess, Banking and Pet Food don’t have a lot in common. It’s only since I met my business partner Natasha, that I’ve started educating myself on the pet food industry (and my dog Murphy definitely appreciates it!! Smile.) It’s funny, the more I’ve learned, the less it seems I know. Every day, I find that customers are educating me. For example,
1. Did you know?
That the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) created the Nutrient Profiles used today because the pet food industry found the National Research Council’s (the NRC) feeding trials too expensive and restrictive?
The NRC’s guidelines were the standard until the late 80’s. However, the NRC’s standards were based on purified diets and required extensive feeding trials to determine if a pet food was “complete” and/or “balanced.” The pet food industry found this too expensive and restrictive so AAFCO created an alternate method of determining the nutritional adequacy of pet food by testing for compliance with “Nutrient Profiles.”
hmmmm… this post is getting a bit long so, I’ll explain “Nutrient Profiles” in my next post.
Bye for now,
Kami
Published on February 2, 2008
in About Us.
Dear Blog? Hmmmm…. Hi, I’m Kami? I guess I’m not really sure how to start.
My business partner said I should find my voice as I expressed my fears to her about blogging.
This got me to thinking, “What is our voice?” Perhaps in searching for my voice, I might find it in trying to describe “our” voice. So, here goes;
We believe in the Health and Wellness of our family pets. We believe our pets are an extension of our family and therefore should be treated as such. We believe that Good Health starts with diet and excercise. With the rash of pet food recalls, we believe that cooking for our pets is the safest way to insure a healthy diet. We believe love goes a long way towards good health and that pets provide it unconditionally so, shouldn’t we do the same?
We believe in sustainable living. The environment we live in is a limited resource and we should do everything we can to sustain and replenish it.
hmmmm… I should probably stop with the ”we” at this point before Natasha has a heart attack. While we agree on the above, Natasha already has her own voice and doesn’t need me to provide it for her. Smile.
Thanks for listening,
Kami
