Real Food – Quick Baked then Air-Dried
Don’t compare CARNA4 to any dry kibble. That would be like comparing your mom’s best roast dinner to a power bar. Unlike other ready-to serve pet foods, CARNA4 is made entirely from real food ingredients (that means no meat meal, rendered fats, preservatives or other synthetics) and meets all your pet’s nutritional requirements without adding anything.
Traditional dry kibble is made with a nutrient-destroying “extrusion” process that uses ultra-high temperature, pressure and steam to mass-produce chunks of dry matter that need to have synthetic vitamins & minerals sprayed-on afterwards to make them “complete”. We decided we needed to find a better way.
At Carna4, we use a short cycle of dry hot air to gently heat (for just 4 minutes!) our mixture of whole vegetables and clean, real meat from federal-inspected facilities , carefully preserving their nutrients which include live enzymes and probiotics, while eliminating any traces of pathogens. We then air-dry the nuggets for a longer period to reduce their moisture level. This creates a shelf-stable, power-packed nugget that looks just like a kibble on the outside – but with concentrated, live nutrition on the inside.
CARNA4 contains higher levels of bio-available nutrients, naturally-occurring enzymes, live probiotics, antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids than you will find in any other complete pet food. That means it compares closely to the best raw pet foods – but without the risk of pathogens like salmonella.
Some other pet foods may appear similar, but look carefully at their ingredients. You’ll discover “supplemented” synthetic and man-made vitamins and minerals – virtually all manufactured in off-shore factories and combined into pre-mixes in the U.S. You’ll also find man-made preservatives (mixed tocopherols or potential carcinogens like BHT, BHA, ethoxyquin or propyl gallate) and sprayed-on “digest” or flavoring, made by boiling meat by-products from unnamed sources in an acid and water solution.
Unlike CARNA4, most dry pet foods also contain some form of “meal” – which is a dry powder made from old carcasses of animals after their usable meats have been removed. Meat meal is not simply “meat with the water removed”. It has been “rendered” (boiled extensively) to kill the bacteria that grows in the aging by-products of the meat-packing industry that are no longer fit for human consumption. This form of extreme processing robs these meat remnants of much of their remaining nutritional value.
There are several tools available to help customers assess different pet foods. However, most don’t realize that these tools are biased towards conventional ultra-processed pet foods and the large corporations that create them. For examples, please click here to see our responses to a popular assessment questionnaire.
Carna4 stands alone because we…
Still hungry for more details? Visit our Label Reading Tips section. We also invite you to visit other pet foods’ websites and compare their ingredients to Carna4. Notice the undesired impurities we leave out: animal fats, preservatives, filler grains, synthetic vitamins/minerals and manmade flavor or digest. See the pure and nourishing ingredients in CARNA4: fresh, real meat, whole vegetables and fruit, and certified organic sprouted seeds – clean food for your best friend.