Q: Is Artificial Flavoring Essential for the Pet Food Industry?

We always had dogs and cats around us, in our household and all over the neighborhood, domesticated and street dogs and cats if you may call them that, I've never seen a dog or a cat reject any sort of food because it didn't smell too enticing, am I wrong?

At the age of 3, my late father brought me a tiny Boxer puppy, one of the smartest and strongest dog breeds, I called him Rocky. Rocky grew up fast and so beautiful in a very short time, comparing to us humans, I used to feed him from my own plate and he would never say no.

As Mediterraneans, we have a diverse cuisine made of mostly fresh ingredients, serials, beans, and everything the land grows, we are not the type of people who add spices for flavors much because the aroma of the fresh food once cooked was more than enough. Instead of adding artificial flavoring, when needed, we would add certain tree leaves and it does the trick.

Recently, I started getting engaged with the pet food industry and to my surprise, most brands add so much artificial flavoring claimed to be of natural origins to make their food acceptable to the pets targeted, dogs and cats mostly. I've tried many brands with our pets and they started selecting their food based on the smell without even tasting it.

I discussed the same with some pet food formulators I got access to and they all insist that artificial flavoring is a must ingredient to add in order to sell their products, it is made of natural ingredients like chicken liver, fish meal, and so on, I still disagree, and strongly though, IMO, if the food is right the pets should eat it without the artificial flavoring with its preservatives, your thoughts?