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An Introduction to Rayne's
This is our guiding philosophy behind all of our products and our promise to you.
Whole food ingredients are the key to making pet foods that help prolong your pet's longevity and quality of life.
Rayne's ultimate goal is to provide as many nutrients aspossible from minimally processed and whole food ingredients. Dogs and cats have certain nutrients they need every day to meet their needs, promote their health, and improve their longevity. Where those nutrients come from matters. When the nutrients in a diet are provided individually through supplements and additives, the pet misses out on all of the many interactions between the food constituents in whole food. When consuming whole foods, these interactions are significant and provide superior health benefits.
Our formulation goal is simply to add less, supplement less, and help pets get those nutrients from whole food ingredients. It is better for pets -- and that is really all there is to it.
Rayne's diets start with whole foods (fresh meat and vegetables) to deliver the best nutrition.
Even though our kibble is extruded like other products on the market, the difference is the ingredients going in. Using more fresh, whole foods (instead of highly processed powders and meals) overall results in a diet that has gone through less high-heat processing and provides more nutrients from the ingredients going in, potentially reducing the risk of certain chronic health conditions.
This means that even if a pet is being prescribed a therapeuticdiet in reaction to a disease state or condition, it is still possible to be proactive by being"intentional" about the ingredients used in the diet.
It is non-negotiable that the Rayne diets do what we saythey will. Because of this, we will always choose our ingredients based on purpose and the benefit that they provide to the pet. This formulation process is all done under the direction of veterinary and animal health experts who are as focused on the health outcome for the pet as we are.
Our diets look different... as they should!
Whole food diets will look visibly different from batch to batch and can to can because whole food ingredients are naturally variable in color and texture. Since Rayne does not add any artificial colors or harmful binders, the end product will reflect the whole food ingredients' variability. You may see differences such as lighter or darker kibbles, or possibly different sizes or shapes of kibble, which can be impacted by higher or lower densities of the formula. Canned diets may have a softer texture or be different in color.
So just like the ingredients themselves, whole food diets will always vary in appearance, just like when you repeat your favorite scratch-cooking recipe at home.
The difference is that we have our expert manufacturing teams in place to monitor throughout every production to ensure, without a doubt, that the end product is nutritionally consistent and within precise nutritional parameters.
The pets who eat our diets depend on this, and that is why our testing is as extensive as it is. Based on this close and constant supervision, the product team is able to make minute adjustments to minimize changes in color, shape, and texture, but there will still be variances. We could eliminate these by switching to artificial colors and stabilizers to make each batch completely uniform. But put bluntly, we are not willing to do this. It goes against our Whole Food Philosophy, and more importantly, it is not the best option for pets.
Instead, we embrace that little bit of variability because we know it is visual proof of the whole food ingredients going in, which we believe is the best option for pets.
We come into contact with Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) every day. They are naturally formed in the body and are also ingested through the foods we eat. Foods that are highly processed and cooked at high temperatures contain more AGEs.
Over time, AGEs build up and cause inflammation and tissue destruction. This accelerates the natural aging process and may lead to heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.Under normal circumstances, the body is equipped to eliminate AGEs, but when consumed in large quantities (such as in highly processed foods that have been cooked at high temperatures), the body's ability to eliminate them can be overwhelmed.
The ingredients used in a pet's food and how those ingredients are processed can directly contribute to the accumulation of AGEs in that pet's body, therefore contributing to either the cause or prevention of chronic conditions.
Although the exact health implications of AGEs in dogs and cats have not been extensively researched, we do know that dogs eating a typical extruded diet can ingest up to 122 times more and that cats can ingest up to 38 times more AGEs than an adult human.
By avoiding highly processed ingredients that have higher levels of AGEs, we can potentially reduce the risk of certain chronic health conditions in dogs and cats.This is yet another reason that our Whole Food Philosophy is radically important to us.
Using whole food ingredients eliminates an entire step of high-heat processing in the manufacturing process and, therefore, out of our diets.This not only means that the pets who eat Rayne diets are getting their nutrients and micronutrients from real food (as opposed to highly processed meals, powders, and supplements), but that they are also consuming fewer AGEs. Reducing the harmful effects of AGEs is another way to proactively use nutrition to prolong our pets' lives and help prevent other chronic inflammation-based diseases.
Rayne does not offer any products with hydrolyzed ingredients. Hydrolyzed protein diets are formulated using a method that reduces the molecular weight of proteins to decrease antigenicity. These diets are made through an intensive processing technique of chemical digestion and protein fractionation. Producing this type of diet does not follow our Whole Food (less processing) Philosophy.
At Rayne, we have focused on developing a line of novel protein products to address highly sensitive patients with adverse reactions to food (gastrointestinal or dermatological) with simple, whole food ingredients. These diets and treats provide an alternative to the families searching for less-processed options that still address their pet's complex medical needs (and personal preferences -- we know we are not the only ones who are "picky" about ingredients and for good reason).
We also believe it is essential to provide multiple solutions for the sensitive pets who still may react to the parent protein in hydrolyzed products. One study states that 50% of patients who are allergic to the parent protein react to the hydrolyzed diet; another reports 40% recurrence of clinical signs when a chicken-based hydrolyzed diet was fed to dogs with chicken allergies.
This is not intended in any way to speak negatively on hydrolyzed products. Our team has seen many pets (and their relieved families) live very happy lives thanks to hydrolyzed diets, and we expect that the technology behind these products will continue to improve rapidly. Our goal is simply to follow our Whole Food Philosophy and to help as many pets as we can along the way.
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