The connections among disease and human, pet and livestock foods have been established. Yet there is more to health than avoiding disease.

While eating one’s own dog food remains a negative thing, eating one’s own cat food ingredients may be a good thing for the pet food industry, as it emphasizes the humanization of pet foods.

Eating what unfussy hunters and gathers eschewed, such as rodent eyes, may have provided sources of vital nutrients to dogs during domestication, including omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), along with omega-6 fatty acid alpha linolenic acid (ALA).

For those cat owners who let their felines roam the neighborhood, high-protein cat food may be one means to reduce predatory pressure on birds and other small wildlife.

For dogs, the paleo diet can mean meat and other items encountered around human camps during domestication. Although “discarded loincloth” will never become a dog food variety, other ancient flavors may remain to be revived as dog foods.

A decree ends genetically modified corn imports to Mexico by 2024. However, exactly what this means for the pet food industry is uncertain. Meanwhile, landraces are losing ground to varieties developed outside corn’s crib in Mexico.

Scientists identified ranges of animal emotions and associated behaviors, as described by pet owners. Those same pet owners also noted their own emotions while interacting with their pets.

The multiplicity of sustainability problems makes containing them in single term difficult. For many pet owners the concept of sustainability may remain hazy, or they may think of the word in different terms pet food executives and marketers.

With declining numbers of real babies and fewer fur babies, the pet food industry faces potentially conflicting demographic trends.