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How to purchase Stewart products.

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Product packaging

Frequently Asked Questions

Stewart's Pet Food Flavor Enhancer

Question: Does Flavor Enhancer contain added salt?
Answer: The sodium level is within the recommended range for a sodium-restricted diet.

Question: Can Flavor Enhancer be used for an extended period of time?
Answer: Yes; there is no reason why it cannot.

Question: Is there a product difference in the cat and dog labels?
Answer: While the ingredient listings appear similar, the blend of flavors and tastes in the different products reflect the preferences of cats and dogs.

Technical Data

Indications

1. Switching pet foods
2. Restricted therapeutic diets
3. Medicated meals
4. Long-term or short-term use for anorexia resulting from meal preference

Contraindications

1. Food-allergic pets (contains beef, chicken components)

Effectiveness Profiles

Effective

1. Canned food eaters changing to a restricted therapeutic canned food
2. Dry food eaters changing to a restricted therapeutic dry pet food
3. Adding palatability to geriatric, low protein, and sodium restricted diets
4. Medicated meal enhancement

Moderately Effective

1. Satisfying clients' need to provide flavor variety without changing the base food
2. Improving palatability for anorexia resulting from respiratory-disease induced damage to olfactory sensors

Marginally Effective

1. Canned or soft-moist eaters changing to dry pet food (use Flavor Enhancer based gravy at decreasing amounts to aid difficult dietary conversion)
2. Interleuken-1 medicated anorexia in a sick animal

Rationale

The advent of dietary management of disease in the dog and cat has highlighted the importance of pet food palatability. Nutrient components that correlate positively with palatability (fat, protein, sodium) are often decreased in special diets in order to achieve therapeutic objectives. Substitution of crude fiber and carbohydrates for fat and protein (therapeutic weight control diets) causes a decrease in palatability.

Difficulty substituting a restricted therapeutic diet for regular commercial pet food diets is commonplace in small animal practice and can create significant medical problems. In a 1984 study, Finco and Barsanti comparing protein-restricted commercial diets in renal patients found "partial anorexia occurred due to the diet's poor palatability" in referring to a markedly restricted protein diet.⁽¹⁾ In a 1991 study of the effect of undigestible components used to lower calorie density in cat food, a generalized decrease in acceptance took place with increasing percentages of the indigestible component.⁽²⁾

Client Compliance

Anthropomorphism is practiced with a vengeance by pet owners when it comes to their pet's eating habits. The psychological effects of eating and hunger humans associate with food are envisioned in their pets. When asked in a nationwide survey what factors were most important in purchasing pet food, dog owners named acceptance as the most important factor and cat owners named acceptance a close second, behind nutrition.⁽³⁾

Feeding Instructions

A .25-.50% application results from a light covering of the entire surface of a meal. The meal should be shaken to distribute the Flavor Enhancer. Difficult conversions (i.e. canned or soft-moist eaters to dry food) can be aided by adding Flavor Enhancer to water to form a gravy and decrease the amount of water used over time.

Description

Stewart's Flavor Enhancer is a combination of powdered, spray-dried proteins derived from beef and chicken sources as well as yeast-derived flavors. It is a very fine powder that allows the product to cling to the surface of food. The product is adjusted to a 1:1 calcium/phosphorus ratio. An inert carrier powdered cellulose is used to ease the flow and inhibit caking of the product.

Mechanism of Action

1. Olfactory - A combination of savor notes are used to improve palpability
2. Taste - Yeast flavors and pH adjustment improves taste
3. Texture - Rice flour and bean gum provide a small increase in viscosity after being moistened to improve the "mouth feel" aspect of palatability

Food Intake

Food intake in dogs is generally increased by low environmental temperature, decrease in glucose utilization, CNN depressants, social facilitation and palatability.⁽⁴⁾

Food intake in cats does not respond to low environmental temperatures, social facilitation or decrease in glucose utilization but will respond to palatability.⁽⁵⁾ Since a decrease in blood glucose does not stimulate intake in cats (unlike dogs), fasting a cat to stimulate food intake can create a dangerous situation for the cat. For example, fasting an obese cat as an encouragement to accept reduced-digestibility diets can result in hepatic lipidosis.

Palatability/Preference

Palatability or preference for a food substance depends upon:

1. Olfactory appeal
2. Taste (as it affects taste buds)
3. Texture

These palatability factors are inter-related and are difficult to define individually for a given food. Comparisons of palatability can be accomplished dependably using split plate palatability studies. A number of dogs are presented with two foods in side-by-side dishes, and the amount of each food eaten in a time period is determined.

1. Olfactory

Odor is particularly important to initial attraction and trial of a food for both dogs and cats. "Odor is important but only for detecting minor differences between food as in distinguishing lamb from pork."⁽⁸⁾ Loss of appetite during feline respiratory disease is thought to be partly attributable to damage to sensory cells in the lining of the sinus.

Different odor categories are characterized by a combination of savor notes. Different combinations of notes provide scents which have specific meanings for dogs or cats. Food preference response to these note combinations varies between cats and dogs and can vary by breed within a species.

2. Taste

Dogs have taste bud receptors for sweet, bitter and salty. Cats have no preference for sweet (sucrose) as do most mammals, but this is not unexpected in a strict carnivore. Dogs prefer (most to least) beef, pork, lamb, chicken, horsemeat and prefer a meat diet to a high-protein non-meat diet.⁽⁹⁾ Cats prefer fish to meat and are extremely sensitive to small differences in diets. ^(10,11)

3. Texture

Often called "mouth feel" by industry experts, it relates to the friction, viscosity and smoothness of the food as it contacts the surfaces of the mouth. Fat and moisture positively impact the mouth feel aspect of palatability. As a rule canned food (75% moisture) is more palatable than soft-moist food (30% moisture) which is generally more palatable than dry dog food (10% moisture).⁽⁶⁾ Fat also contributes to a positive mouth feel in food, and palatability of fat-restricted diets suffer accordingly. A fat-free diet prepared as a gel with 50-60% water proved acceptable to cats.⁽⁷⁾ It seems that fat can be reduced in a diet as long as the texture is maintained.

Variety

Both cats and dogs (puppies and adults) prefer novel foods over familiar ones.^(12,13,14) Both cats and dogs initially eat a new diet but given a choice will eventually prefer the more palatable of the two.⁽¹⁵⁾ Owners who continually switch pet foods in order to provide variety find that the pet gravitates toward more and more palatable products. In one study, however, cats fed the same diet since weaning would consume only diets similar to the diet on which they had been raised.⁽¹⁶⁾ This suggests that owners who feed a consistent diet from kittenhood may avoid having a finicky adult cat.

Under stress, however, cats will choose a familiar food over a novel one.⁽¹⁷⁾ This suggests that a cat in a hospital situation should be fed its regular diet.

Improving Palatability

Improving palatability is accomplished by adjusting the taste, olfactory profile or texture of a food to the animal's preferences. Taste can be improved by adjusting pH or adding sweet (except for cats) or salty taste. Human foods commonly use food acids as "taste intensifiers to amplify these tastes." Adding missing "savory notes" to the aroma of a food can intensify olfactory appeal markedly.

Intensifying aroma may be of help where respiratory disease has compromised olfactory sensors. Interleuken-1 mediated anorexia, however, will be affected little by palatability improvements.

Texture is the most difficult factor to impact. Water is the easiest way to add viscosity to a food and forming a paste or gel serves to improve mouth feel.

Nutritional Impact

The percentage of each nutrient added to a meal using maximum recommended application level of 0.5%.⁽¹⁾

Average Analysis (DM%)

Ingredients

Stewart's Flavor Enhancer for Dogs

Digest, dried brewers yeast, rice flour, bean gum, powdered cellulose, calcium carbonate

Stewart's Flavor Enhancer for Cats

Dried brewers yeast, digest, rice flour, bean gum, powdered cellulose, calcium carbonate

Packaging

Dog 1.75 oz. jar
Cat 1.75 oz. jar

Footnotes:

(1) Barsanti, J.A.; Finco, D.R. Dietary Management of Chronic Renal Failure in Dogs. J.A.A.H.A., May/June 1985, Volume 21, pp 371-375.
(2) Kienzle, Ellen; Meyer, Helmut; Schnieder, Roland. Investigations on Palatability, Digestibility and Tolerance of Low Digestible Food Components in Cats. Journal of Nutrition, 1991, 121:S56-S57.
(3) Better Homes and Gardens Consumer Survey, September, November, 1991.
(4) Houpt, K.A. Domestic Animal Behavior, Iowa University press, Ames, Iowa. 1991 pp 279-280.
(5) Ibid. pp 286-288.
(6) Ibid. p 290.
(7) McDonald, M.L., Rogers, Q.R., and Morris, S.G. Role of Linoleate as an essential fatty acid for the cat independent of arachidonate synthesis. Journal of Nutrition, 1983, Volume 113, pp 1422-1433.
(8) Houpt, K.A. Domestic Animal Behavior, Ames: Iowa University Press, Iowa. 1991, p 281.
(9) Ibid. p 280.
(10) Ibid. p 287.
(11) Kane E., Feeding Behavior of the Cat in Nutrition of the Dog and Cat, Waltham Symposium Number 7, Cambridge Press, 1985, p 149.
(12) Mugford, R.A., External influences on the feeding of carnivores. The Chemical Senses and Nutrition. M.R. Kare and O. Muller, New York: Academic Press, 1984, pp 25-50.
(13) Ferrel, F. Preference for Sugars and Nonnutritive sweeteners in young beagles. Neuroscience and Biobehavior. 1984, Rev. 8: pp 199-203.
(14) Higstead, D.M., Gersholl, S.N., Lentine, E., The development of palatability tests for cats. Am. J. Vet. Res., 1956, 17: pp 733-737.
(15) Logue, K. Kitson, Stewart Pet Products, professional experience 1985-1992.
(16) Mugford, R.A., External influences on the feeding of carnivores. The Chemical Senses and Nutrition. M.R. Kare and O. Mueller, New York: Academic Press, 1984, p 149.
(17) Kane E., Feeding Behavior of the Cat in Nutrition of the Dog and Cat, Waltham Symposium Number 7, Cambridge Press, 1985, p 149.

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