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Awareness of pollution, toxins, and other environmental and food health issues is important.

However, everything, other than you, is potentially toxic to you. If you have an autoimmune condition, you can even be toxic to yourself.

There are tens of thousands of toxins in air, water, food, and by contact. Some are synthetic and industrial, many are natural. There are endless websites that make a living scaring people with an endless parade of toxins du jour Â in cookware, water, food, lotions, household products, air, and clothing.

Can we get rid of or avoid them all? No. Can we get rid of even a significant percentage of them? No.

Therefore, making one's mission in life the avoidance of all toxins is an impossible task. Should we try, within reason, certainly.

The most common question we receive at our offices is about this or that toxin buzzing about on the Internet. As a result, virtually every one of the hundreds of ingredients used in our human and animal products has elicited a letter or phone call from a concerned person who has read something somewhere about the dangers of an ingredient.

If food manufacturers were to exclude any ingredient that could potentially be toxic, they would be selling only empty packages.

Concerned people often come to us armed with a "study" that "proves" that the ingredient is toxic. Unfortunately, most people not familiar with the flow of scientific and medical literature or skilled in its analysis, do not realize that every month there are hundreds of thousands of articles and studies. Virtually no finding in this copious and swelling body of information goes unchallenged by other studies and other science. Such is the case with all reports of toxicity. In other words, to read one article (and usually people are not even reading the original study, but a report of a study in the popular press) and form a certain conclusion is misleading.

We must explain that the study is not relevant to Wysong products as they are formulated and used. An improperly controlled study about ingredient X fed to a mouse at levels high enough to choke a horse, or ingredient Y used by one person without regard to any of the other environmental factors in that one person's life, does not constitute good science.

Practical proof of this is the 35 year history with the ingredient in question having been used by hundreds of thousands of people, and animals through multiple generations--with health, not disease, toxicity, and death--resulting. Those who insist that the ingredient is toxic (in effect charging Wysong with poisoning people and animals) must also reconcile their belief with the thousands of letters we receive from people experiencing the exact opposite to the lethal effects they believe our products create (see Testimonials). An opinion never defeats direct experience.

To some, in their zeal about a particular toxin, such facts will not matter.

When asked for actual proof that Wysong products used as directed have caused toxicity, there is a deafening silence. What they have read without regard to the experimental design, the controls, the dosage, the study blindedness, the statistical validity, and the confounding factors that must be taken into consideration is all the proof they need. The cause, the mission, and the zeal that often accompanies it, takes precedence over common sense and reason.

So how can it be that there are so many toxins about us and we are able to survive at all? Because we and our companion animals are designed for toxins. That is what our immune system is all about.

Additionally, the most important principle in toxicology is: THE DOSE MAKES THE POISON. Everything can be toxic in high enough dosage--even water and oxygen. But at a smaller dose, the toxin usually causes no harm unless exposure is continuous. Another principle also holds true, THE REVERSE EFFECT: That which is toxic at a high dose, may be health-promoting at a lower dose. Water and oxygen are examples, as are homeopathic preparations made from the very agents that cause disease.

It is with these principles in mind that Wysong has devised its product use recommendations. Not only are any potentially toxic substances in low enough dose to cause no harm, they are at the right dose to bring health benefits. To further assure safety, Wysong recommends rotation and variety to permit the body to detoxify in order to prevent any potential adverse reaction to an ingredient.

Now then, let's talk about the dangers of the toxin crusades themselves. Not only is it mentally unhealthy to attempt the impossible--live in a toxin-free world--it distracts from what can actually cause health. Reason, knowledge, and balance are the keys to health. By understanding that toxins are everywhere, we can deduce that although toxins cannot be avoided, they can be minimized and their effects blunted by rotation, variety, and good living and eating practices. By fortifying our mind and body with good food, supplements, sunshine, exercise, sound and broad knowledge, and open-mindedness, we can build health and withstand the inevitable assault of toxins.

On the other hand, getting on a toxin bandwagon narrows one's focus and presumes that by eliminating this or that reputed toxin, health will be achieved. (This is, of course, not to say that a substance proven to be toxic at levels commonly used in foods should not be avoided.) That approach to life and health is doomed to failure. It discounts the other essential elements to health. It makes one vulnerable to the yet-to-be-discovered toxins in the very product one uses constantly because it does not contain their particular feared toxin.

For example, people trying to avoid preservative toxins fall prey to the greater dangers of free radical toxins in processed foods with "no preservatives." Patients told by doctors to steer clear of natural skin creams because of potential allergies and other reactions, fall prey to the greater dangers of the pharmaceutical lotions the doctor prescribes. A pet owner trying to avoid the supposed dangers of grains, instead feeds a continuous diet of "no-grain" foods that contain the most serious problem, starch, but in less nutritious and perhaps more toxic form, such as cyanide-containing tapioca. People avoiding fortified foods because they contain synthetic and purported toxic vitamins and minerals, risk deficiencies because natural vitamins and minerals are destroyed in the processed food they are consuming.

More information regarding purported toxins and "bad" ingredients can be found here:

Grain-Free Dog Food An Examination
Starch Free™ vs. "Grain-Free": http://www.wysongepigen.net/Epigen Flyer.pdf
Regarding corn and soy: Are corn and soy bad ingredients?
Regarding starch sources in pet foods: Are grains healthy?
Regarding grain-free pet foods: Are grain free pet foods the way to health?
Regarding the presence or absence of certain ingredients: How pet food companies play the ingredient game

To get perspective in our world of tens of thousands of synthetic and natural toxins consider the wisdom of one of the world's most preeminent and experienced scientists in the field:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gI0QqqkfHs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1EEscgMF14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50MqCgDlO1E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1denSoAbc