When I tell people what I feed my friend they say it's just too expensive, but then they are willing to spend thousands of dollars for vet bills and pharmaceuticals. AND what about the trauma and heart-break.
Here is what I have found from my research.
What's Really in Pet Food
Source: Animal
Protection Institute
"Plump whole chickens, choice cuts of beef, fresh grains, and all the
wholesome nutrition your dog or cat will ever need;" are the images pet food manufacturers promulgate through the media and
advertising. This is what the $11 billion per year U.S. pet food
industry wants consumers to believe they are buying when they purchase their
products.
What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered "unfit for human consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and diseased and cancerous animal parts.
Three of the five major pet food companies in the United States are subsidiaries of major multinational companies: Nestlé (Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston Purina products such as Dog Chow, ProPlan, and Purina One), Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits, Nature's Recipe), Colgate-Palmolive (Hill's Science Diet Pet Food). Other leading companies include Procter & Gamble (Eukanuba and Iams), Mars (Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba, Waltham's), and Nutro. From a business standpoint, multinational companies owning pet food manufacturing companies is an ideal relationship. The multinationals have increased bulk-purchasing power; those that make human food products have a captive market in which to capitalize on their waste products, and pet food divisions have a more reliable capital base and, in many cases, a convenient source of ingredients.
Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. The cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers -- such as rendering, extruding (a heat-and-pressure system used to "puff" dry foods into nuggets or kibbles), and baking -- do not necessarily destroy the hormones used to fatten livestock or increase milk production, or drugs such as antibiotics or the barbiturates used to euthanize animals.
You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor when you open a new bag of pet food -- what is the source of that delightful smell? It is most often rendered animal fat, restaurant grease, or other oils too rancid or deemed inedible for humans.
Restaurant grease has become a major component of feed grade animal fat over the last fifteen years. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon drums, may be kept outside for weeks, exposed to extreme temperatures with no regard for its future use. "Fat blenders" or rendering companies then pick up this used grease and mix the different types of fat together, stabilize them with powerful antioxidants to retard further spoilage, and then sell the blended products to pet food companies and other end users.
These fats are sprayed directly onto extruded kibbles and pellets to make an otherwise bland or distasteful product palatable. The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add other flavor enhancers such as digests. Pet food scientists have discovered that animals love the taste of these sprayed fats. Manufacturers are masters at getting a dog or a cat to eat something she would normally turn up her nose at.
Wheat, Soy, Corn, Peanut Hulls, and Other Vegetable Protein
The amount of grain products, entirely GM, used in pet food has risen over the last decade. Once considered filler by the pet food industry, cereal and grain products now replace a considerable proportion of the meat that was used in the first commercial pet foods. The availability of nutrients in these products is dependent upon the digestibility of the grain. The amount and type of carbohydrate in pet food determines the amount of nutrient value the animal actually gets. Dogs and cats can almost completely absorb carbohydrates from some grains, such as white rice. Up to 20% of the nutritional value of other grains can escape digestion. The availability of nutrients for wheat, beans, and oats is poor. The nutrients in potatoes and corn are far less available than those in rice. Some ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used for filler or fiber, and have no significant nutritional value.
Two of the top three ingredients in pet foods, particularly dry foods, are almost always some form of grain products. Pedigree Performance Food for Dogs lists Ground Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, and Corn Gluten Meal as its top three ingredients. 9 Lives Crunchy Meals for cats lists Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, and Poultry By-Product Meal as its first three ingredients. Since cats are true carnivores -- they must eat meat to fulfill certain physiological needs -- one may wonder why we are feeding a corn-based product to them. The answer is that corn is a much cheaper "energy source" than meat.
In 1995, Nature's Recipe pulled thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained that their dogs were vomiting and losing their appetite. Nature's Recipe's loss amounted to $20 million. The problem was a fungus that produced vomitoxin (an aflatoxin or "mycotoxin," a toxic substance produced by mold) contaminating the wheat. In 1999, another fungal toxin triggered the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care at one of its plants, including Ol' Roy (Wal-Mart's brand) and 53 other brands. This time, the toxin killed 25 dogs.
Although it caused many dogs to vomit, stop eating, and have diarrhea, vomitoxin is a milder toxin than most. The more dangerous mycotoxins can cause weight loss, liver damage, lameness, and even death as in the Doane case. The Nature's Recipe incident prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to intervene. Dina Butcher, Agriculture Policy Advisor for North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer, concluded that the discovery of vomitoxin in Nature's Recipe wasn't much of a threat to the human population because "the grain that would go into pet food is not a high quality grain."
Soy is another common ingredient that is sometimes used as a protein and energy source in pet food. Manufacturers also use it to add bulk so that when an animal eats a product containing soy he will feel more sated. While soy has been linked to gas in some dogs, other dogs do quite well with it. Vegetarian dog foods use soy as a protein source.
Additives and Preservatives
Many chemicals are added to commercial pet foods to improve the taste, stability, characteristics, or appearance of the food. Additives provide no nutritional value. Additives include emulsifiers to prevent water and fat from separating, antioxidants to prevent fat from turning rancid, and artificial colors and flavors to make the product more attractive to consumers and more palatable to their companion animals.
Adding chemicals to food originated thousands of years ago with spices, natural preservatives, and ripening agents. In the last 40 years, however, the number of food additives has greatly increased
All commercial pet foods must be preserved so they stay fresh and appealing to our animal companions. Canning is a preserving process itself, so canned foods contain less preservatives than dry foods. Some preservatives are added to ingredients or raw materials by the suppliers, and others may be added by the manufacturer. Because manufacturers need to ensure that dry foods have a long shelf life to remain edible after shipping and prolonged storage, fats used in pet foods are preserved with either synthetic or "natural" preservatives. Synthetic preservatives include butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), propyl gallate, propylene glycol (also used as a less-toxic version of automotive antifreeze), and ethoxyquin. For these antioxidants, there is little information documenting their toxicity, safety, interactions, or chronic use in pet foods that may be eaten every day for the life of the animal.
Potentially cancer-causing agents such as BHA, BHT, and ethoxyquin are permitted at relatively low levels. The use of these chemicals in pet foods has not been thoroughly studied, and long term build-up of these agents may ultimately be harmful. Due to questionable data in the original study on its safety, ethoxyquin's manufacturer, Monsanto, was required to perform a new, more rigorous study. This was completed in 1996. Even though Monsanto found no significant toxicity associated with its own product, in July 1997, the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine requested that manufacturers voluntarily reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by half, to 75 parts per million. While some pet food critics and veterinarians believe that ethoxyquin is a major cause of disease, skin problems, and infertility in dogs, others claim it is the safest, strongest, most stable preservative available for pet food. Ethoxyquin is approved for use in human food for preserving spices, such as cayenne and chili powder, at a level of 100 ppm -- but it would be very difficult to consume as much chili powder every day as a dog would eat dry food. Ethoxyquin has never been tested for safety in cats.
Some manufacturers have responded to consumer concern, and are now using "natural" preservatives such as Vitamin C (ascorbate), Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols), and oils of rosemary, clove, or other spices, to preserve the fats in their products. Other ingredients, however, may be individually preserved. Most fish meal, and some prepared vitamin-mineral mixtures, contain chemical preservatives. This means that your companion animal may be eating food containing several types of preservatives. Federal law requires preservatives to be disclosed on the label; however, pet food companies only recently started to comply with this law.
Additives in Processed Pet Foods
Anticaking agents
Antimicrobial agents
Antioxidants
Coloring agents
Curing agents
Drying agents
Emulsifiers
Firming agents
Flavor enhancers
Flavoring agents
Flour treating agents
Formulation aids
Humectants
Leavening agents
Lubricants
Nonnutritive sweeteners
Nutritive sweeteners
Oxidizing and reducing agents
pH control agents
Processing aids
Sequestrants
Solvents, vehicles
Stabilizers, thickeners
Surface active agents
Surface finishing agents
Synergists
Texturizers
While the law requires studies of direct toxicity of these additives and preservatives, they have not been tested for their potential synergistic effects on each other once ingested. Some authors have suggested that dangerous interactions occur among some of the common synthetic preservatives.4 Natural preservatives do not provide as long a shelf life as chemical preservatives, but they are safe.
How Pet Food Is Tested
Although feeding trials are no longer required for a food to meet the requirements for labeling a food "complete and balanced," most manufacturers perform palatability studies when developing a new pet food. One set of animals is fed a new food while a "control" group is fed a current formula. The total volume eaten is used as a gauge for the palatability of the food. The larger and more reputable companies do use feeding trials, which are considered to be a much more accurate assessment of the actual nutritional value of the food. They keep large colonies of dogs and cats for this purpose, or use testing laboratories that have their own animals.
What Happened to the Nutrients?
Dr. Randy L. Wysong is a veterinarian and produces his own line of pet foods. A long-time critic of pet food industry practices, he said, "Processing is the wild card in nutritional value that is, by and large, simply ignored. Heating, cooking, rendering, freezing, dehydrating, canning, extruding, pelleting, baking, and so forth, are so commonplace that they are simply thought of as synonymous with food itself."7 Processing meat and by-products used in pet food can greatly diminish their nutritional value, but cooking increases the digestibility of cereal grains.
To make pet food nutritious, pet food manufacturers must "fortify" it with vitamins and minerals. Why? Because the ingredients they are using are not wholesome, their quality may be extremely variable, and the harsh manufacturing practices destroy many of the nutrients the food had to begin with.
Contaminants
Commercially manufactured or rendered meat meals and by-product meals are frequently highly contaminated with bacteria because their source is not always slaughtered animals. Animals that have died because of disease, injury, or natural causes are a source of meat for meat meal. The dead animal might not be rendered until days after its death. Therefore the carcass is often contaminated with bacteria such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli. Dangerous E. Coli bacteria are estimated to contaminate more than 50% of meat meals. While the cooking process may kill bacteria, it does not eliminate the endotoxins some bacteria produce during their growth and are released when they die. These toxins can cause sickness and disease. Pet food manufacturers do not test their products for endotoxins.
Mycotoxins -- These toxins comes from mold or fungi, such as vomitoxin in the Nature's Recipe case, and aflatoxin in Doane's food. Poor farming practices and improper drying and storage of crops can cause mold growth. Ingredients that are most likely to be contaminated with mycotoxins are grains such as wheat and corn, cottonseed meal, peanut meal, and fish meal.
The 100% Myth -- Problems Caused by Inadequate Nutrition
The idea of one pet food providing all the nutrition a companion animal will ever need for its entire life is a myth.
Cereal grains are the primary ingredients in most commercial pet foods. Many people select one pet food and feed it to their dogs and cats for a prolonged period of time. Therefore, companion dogs and cats eat a primarily carbohydrate diet with little variety. Today, the diets of cats and dogs are a far cry from the primarily protein diets with a lot of variety that their ancestors ate. The problems associated with a commercial diet are seen every day at veterinary establishments. Chronic digestive problems, such as chronic vomiting, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease are among the most frequent illnesses treated. These are often the result of an allergy or intolerance to pet food ingredients. The market for "limited antigen" or "novel protein" diets is now a multi-million dollar business. These diets were formulated to address the increasing intolerance to commercial foods that animals have developed. The newest twist is the truly "hypoallergenic" food that has had all its proteins artificially chopped into pieces smaller than can be recognized and reacted to by the immune system.
Dry commercial pet food is often contaminated with bacteria, which may or may not cause problems. Improper food storage and some feeding practices may result in the multiplication of this bacteria. For example, adding water or milk to moisten pet food and then leaving it at room temperature causes bacteria to multiply. Yet this practice is suggested on the back of packages of some kitten and puppy foods.
Pet food formulas and the practice of feeding that manufacturers recommend have increased other digestive problems. Feeding only one meal per day can cause the irritation of the esophagus by stomach acid. Feeding two smaller meals is better.
Feeding recommendations or instructions on the packaging are sometimes inflated so that the consumer will end up purchasing more food. However, Procter & Gamble allegedly took the opposite tack with its Iams and Eukanuba lines, reducing the feeding amounts in order to claim that its foods were less expensive to feed. Independent studies commissioned by a competing manufacturer suggested that these reduced levels were inadequate to maintain health. Procter & Gamble has since sued and been countersued by that competing manufacturer, and a consumer complaint has also been filed seeking class-action status for harm caused to dogs by the revised feeding instructions.
Urinary tract disease is directly related to diet in both cats and dogs. Plugs, crystals, and stones in cat bladders are often triggered or aggravated by commercial pet food formulas. One type of stone found in cats is less common now, but another more dangerous type has become more common. Manipulation of manufactured cat food formulas to alter the acidity of urine and the amount of some minerals has directly affected these diseases. Dogs also form stones as a result of their diet.
History has shown that commercial pet food products can cause disease. An often-fatal heart disease in cats and some dogs is now known to be caused by a deficiency of the amino acid taurine. Blindness is another symptom of taurine deficiency. This deficiency was due to inadequate amounts of taurine in cat food formulas, which itself occurred because of decreased amounts of animal proteins and increased reliance on carbohydrates. Cat foods are now supplemented with taurine. New research suggests that supplementing taurine may also be helpful for dogs, but as yet few manufacturers are adding extra taurine to dog food. Inadequate potassium in certain feline diets also caused kidney failure in young cats; potassium is now added in greater amounts to all cat foods.
Rapid growth in large breed puppies has been shown to contribute to bone and joint disease. Excess calories and calcium in some manufactured puppy foods promoted rapid growth. There are now special puppy foods for large breed dogs. But this recent change will not help the countless dogs who lived and died with hip and elbow disease.
There is also evidence that hyperthyroidism in cats may be related to excess iodine in commercial pet food diets.9 This is a new disease that first surfaced in the 1970s, when canned food products appeared on the market. The exact cause and effect are not yet known. This is a serious and sometimes terminal disease, and treatment is expensive.
Many nutritional problems appeared with the popularity of cereal-based commercial pet foods. Some have occurred because the diet was incomplete. Although several ingredients are now supplemented, we do not know what ingredients future researchers may discover that should have been supplemented in pet foods all along. Other problems may result from reactions to additives. Others are a result of contamination with bacteria, mold, drugs, or other toxins. In some diseases the role of commercial pet food is understood; in others, it is not. The bottom line is that diets composed primarily of low quality cereals and rendered meat meals are not as nutritious or safe as you should expect for your cat or dog.
What Consumers Can Do
Write or call pet food companies and the Pet Food Institute and express your concerns about commercial pet foods. Demand that manufacturers improve the quality of ingredients in their products.
Call DogFood with any information about the pet food industry, specific manufacturers, or specific products.
Print out a copy of this report for your veterinarian to further his or her knowledge about commercial pet food.
Direct your family and friends with companion animals to this website, to alert them of the dangers of commercial pet food. Or request copies of our Fact Sheet on Selecting a Good Commercial Food.
Stop buying commercial pet food. Or if that is not possible, reduce the quantity of commercial pet food and supplement with fresh foods. Purchase one or more of the many books available on pet nutrition and make your own food. Be sure that a veterinarian or a nutritionist has checked the recipes to ensure that they are balanced and complete.
For Further Reading about Animal Nutrition
The Animal Protection Institute recommends the following books, many of which include recipes for home-prepared diets:
Rudy Edalati. Barker's Grub: Easy, Wholesome Home Cooking for Your Dog. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80442-1.
Richard H. Pitcairn, D.V.M., and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. Rodale Press, Inc. ISBN 0-87596-243-2.
Kate Solisti-Mattelon and Patrice Mattelon. The Holistic Animal Handbook: A Guidebook to Nutrition, Health, and Communication. Beyond Words Publishing Co. ISBN 1-5827-0023-0.
Donald R. Strombeck. Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative. Iowa State University Press. ISBN 0-8138-2149-5.
Celeste Yarnall. Natural Cat Care. Journey Editions. ISBN 1-8852-0363-2.
Celeste Yarnall. Natural Dog Care. Journey Editions. ISBN 0-7858-1123-0.
What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered "unfit for human consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and diseased and cancerous animal parts.
Three of the five major pet food companies in the United States are subsidiaries of major multinational companies: Nestlé (Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston Purina products such as Dog Chow, ProPlan, and Purina One), Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits, Nature's Recipe), Colgate-Palmolive (Hill's Science Diet Pet Food). Other leading companies include Procter & Gamble (Eukanuba and Iams), Mars (Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba, Waltham's), and Nutro. From a business standpoint, multinational companies owning pet food manufacturing companies is an ideal relationship. The multinationals have increased bulk-purchasing power; those that make human food products have a captive market in which to capitalize on their waste products, and pet food divisions have a more reliable capital base and, in many cases, a convenient source of ingredients.
Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. The cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers -- such as rendering, extruding (a heat-and-pressure system used to "puff" dry foods into nuggets or kibbles), and baking -- do not necessarily destroy the hormones used to fatten livestock or increase milk production, or drugs such as antibiotics or the barbiturates used to euthanize animals.
You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor when you open a new bag of pet food -- what is the source of that delightful smell? It is most often rendered animal fat, restaurant grease, or other oils too rancid or deemed inedible for humans.
Restaurant grease has become a major component of feed grade animal fat over the last fifteen years. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon drums, may be kept outside for weeks, exposed to extreme temperatures with no regard for its future use. "Fat blenders" or rendering companies then pick up this used grease and mix the different types of fat together, stabilize them with powerful antioxidants to retard further spoilage, and then sell the blended products to pet food companies and other end users.
These fats are sprayed directly onto extruded kibbles and pellets to make an otherwise bland or distasteful product palatable. The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add other flavor enhancers such as digests. Pet food scientists have discovered that animals love the taste of these sprayed fats. Manufacturers are masters at getting a dog or a cat to eat something she would normally turn up her nose at.
Wheat, Soy, Corn, Peanut Hulls, and Other Vegetable Protein
The amount of grain products, entirely GM, used in pet food has risen over the last decade. Once considered filler by the pet food industry, cereal and grain products now replace a considerable proportion of the meat that was used in the first commercial pet foods. The availability of nutrients in these products is dependent upon the digestibility of the grain. The amount and type of carbohydrate in pet food determines the amount of nutrient value the animal actually gets. Dogs and cats can almost completely absorb carbohydrates from some grains, such as white rice. Up to 20% of the nutritional value of other grains can escape digestion. The availability of nutrients for wheat, beans, and oats is poor. The nutrients in potatoes and corn are far less available than those in rice. Some ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used for filler or fiber, and have no significant nutritional value.
Two of the top three ingredients in pet foods, particularly dry foods, are almost always some form of grain products. Pedigree Performance Food for Dogs lists Ground Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, and Corn Gluten Meal as its top three ingredients. 9 Lives Crunchy Meals for cats lists Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, and Poultry By-Product Meal as its first three ingredients. Since cats are true carnivores -- they must eat meat to fulfill certain physiological needs -- one may wonder why we are feeding a corn-based product to them. The answer is that corn is a much cheaper "energy source" than meat.
In 1995, Nature's Recipe pulled thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained that their dogs were vomiting and losing their appetite. Nature's Recipe's loss amounted to $20 million. The problem was a fungus that produced vomitoxin (an aflatoxin or "mycotoxin," a toxic substance produced by mold) contaminating the wheat. In 1999, another fungal toxin triggered the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care at one of its plants, including Ol' Roy (Wal-Mart's brand) and 53 other brands. This time, the toxin killed 25 dogs.
Although it caused many dogs to vomit, stop eating, and have diarrhea, vomitoxin is a milder toxin than most. The more dangerous mycotoxins can cause weight loss, liver damage, lameness, and even death as in the Doane case. The Nature's Recipe incident prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to intervene. Dina Butcher, Agriculture Policy Advisor for North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer, concluded that the discovery of vomitoxin in Nature's Recipe wasn't much of a threat to the human population because "the grain that would go into pet food is not a high quality grain."
Soy is another common ingredient that is sometimes used as a protein and energy source in pet food. Manufacturers also use it to add bulk so that when an animal eats a product containing soy he will feel more sated. While soy has been linked to gas in some dogs, other dogs do quite well with it. Vegetarian dog foods use soy as a protein source.
Additives and Preservatives
Many chemicals are added to commercial pet foods to improve the taste, stability, characteristics, or appearance of the food. Additives provide no nutritional value. Additives include emulsifiers to prevent water and fat from separating, antioxidants to prevent fat from turning rancid, and artificial colors and flavors to make the product more attractive to consumers and more palatable to their companion animals.
Adding chemicals to food originated thousands of years ago with spices, natural preservatives, and ripening agents. In the last 40 years, however, the number of food additives has greatly increased
All commercial pet foods must be preserved so they stay fresh and appealing to our animal companions. Canning is a preserving process itself, so canned foods contain less preservatives than dry foods. Some preservatives are added to ingredients or raw materials by the suppliers, and others may be added by the manufacturer. Because manufacturers need to ensure that dry foods have a long shelf life to remain edible after shipping and prolonged storage, fats used in pet foods are preserved with either synthetic or "natural" preservatives. Synthetic preservatives include butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), propyl gallate, propylene glycol (also used as a less-toxic version of automotive antifreeze), and ethoxyquin. For these antioxidants, there is little information documenting their toxicity, safety, interactions, or chronic use in pet foods that may be eaten every day for the life of the animal.
Potentially cancer-causing agents such as BHA, BHT, and ethoxyquin are permitted at relatively low levels. The use of these chemicals in pet foods has not been thoroughly studied, and long term build-up of these agents may ultimately be harmful. Due to questionable data in the original study on its safety, ethoxyquin's manufacturer, Monsanto, was required to perform a new, more rigorous study. This was completed in 1996. Even though Monsanto found no significant toxicity associated with its own product, in July 1997, the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine requested that manufacturers voluntarily reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by half, to 75 parts per million. While some pet food critics and veterinarians believe that ethoxyquin is a major cause of disease, skin problems, and infertility in dogs, others claim it is the safest, strongest, most stable preservative available for pet food. Ethoxyquin is approved for use in human food for preserving spices, such as cayenne and chili powder, at a level of 100 ppm -- but it would be very difficult to consume as much chili powder every day as a dog would eat dry food. Ethoxyquin has never been tested for safety in cats.
Some manufacturers have responded to consumer concern, and are now using "natural" preservatives such as Vitamin C (ascorbate), Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols), and oils of rosemary, clove, or other spices, to preserve the fats in their products. Other ingredients, however, may be individually preserved. Most fish meal, and some prepared vitamin-mineral mixtures, contain chemical preservatives. This means that your companion animal may be eating food containing several types of preservatives. Federal law requires preservatives to be disclosed on the label; however, pet food companies only recently started to comply with this law.
Additives in Processed Pet Foods
Anticaking agents
Antimicrobial agents
Antioxidants
Coloring agents
Curing agents
Drying agents
Emulsifiers
Firming agents
Flavor enhancers
Flavoring agents
Flour treating agents
Formulation aids
Humectants
Leavening agents
Lubricants
Nonnutritive sweeteners
Nutritive sweeteners
Oxidizing and reducing agents
pH control agents
Processing aids
Sequestrants
Solvents, vehicles
Stabilizers, thickeners
Surface active agents
Surface finishing agents
Synergists
Texturizers
While the law requires studies of direct toxicity of these additives and preservatives, they have not been tested for their potential synergistic effects on each other once ingested. Some authors have suggested that dangerous interactions occur among some of the common synthetic preservatives.4 Natural preservatives do not provide as long a shelf life as chemical preservatives, but they are safe.
How Pet Food Is Tested
Although feeding trials are no longer required for a food to meet the requirements for labeling a food "complete and balanced," most manufacturers perform palatability studies when developing a new pet food. One set of animals is fed a new food while a "control" group is fed a current formula. The total volume eaten is used as a gauge for the palatability of the food. The larger and more reputable companies do use feeding trials, which are considered to be a much more accurate assessment of the actual nutritional value of the food. They keep large colonies of dogs and cats for this purpose, or use testing laboratories that have their own animals.
What Happened to the Nutrients?
Dr. Randy L. Wysong is a veterinarian and produces his own line of pet foods. A long-time critic of pet food industry practices, he said, "Processing is the wild card in nutritional value that is, by and large, simply ignored. Heating, cooking, rendering, freezing, dehydrating, canning, extruding, pelleting, baking, and so forth, are so commonplace that they are simply thought of as synonymous with food itself."7 Processing meat and by-products used in pet food can greatly diminish their nutritional value, but cooking increases the digestibility of cereal grains.
To make pet food nutritious, pet food manufacturers must "fortify" it with vitamins and minerals. Why? Because the ingredients they are using are not wholesome, their quality may be extremely variable, and the harsh manufacturing practices destroy many of the nutrients the food had to begin with.
Contaminants
Commercially manufactured or rendered meat meals and by-product meals are frequently highly contaminated with bacteria because their source is not always slaughtered animals. Animals that have died because of disease, injury, or natural causes are a source of meat for meat meal. The dead animal might not be rendered until days after its death. Therefore the carcass is often contaminated with bacteria such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli. Dangerous E. Coli bacteria are estimated to contaminate more than 50% of meat meals. While the cooking process may kill bacteria, it does not eliminate the endotoxins some bacteria produce during their growth and are released when they die. These toxins can cause sickness and disease. Pet food manufacturers do not test their products for endotoxins.
Mycotoxins -- These toxins comes from mold or fungi, such as vomitoxin in the Nature's Recipe case, and aflatoxin in Doane's food. Poor farming practices and improper drying and storage of crops can cause mold growth. Ingredients that are most likely to be contaminated with mycotoxins are grains such as wheat and corn, cottonseed meal, peanut meal, and fish meal.
The 100% Myth -- Problems Caused by Inadequate Nutrition
The idea of one pet food providing all the nutrition a companion animal will ever need for its entire life is a myth.
Cereal grains are the primary ingredients in most commercial pet foods. Many people select one pet food and feed it to their dogs and cats for a prolonged period of time. Therefore, companion dogs and cats eat a primarily carbohydrate diet with little variety. Today, the diets of cats and dogs are a far cry from the primarily protein diets with a lot of variety that their ancestors ate. The problems associated with a commercial diet are seen every day at veterinary establishments. Chronic digestive problems, such as chronic vomiting, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease are among the most frequent illnesses treated. These are often the result of an allergy or intolerance to pet food ingredients. The market for "limited antigen" or "novel protein" diets is now a multi-million dollar business. These diets were formulated to address the increasing intolerance to commercial foods that animals have developed. The newest twist is the truly "hypoallergenic" food that has had all its proteins artificially chopped into pieces smaller than can be recognized and reacted to by the immune system.
Dry commercial pet food is often contaminated with bacteria, which may or may not cause problems. Improper food storage and some feeding practices may result in the multiplication of this bacteria. For example, adding water or milk to moisten pet food and then leaving it at room temperature causes bacteria to multiply. Yet this practice is suggested on the back of packages of some kitten and puppy foods.
Pet food formulas and the practice of feeding that manufacturers recommend have increased other digestive problems. Feeding only one meal per day can cause the irritation of the esophagus by stomach acid. Feeding two smaller meals is better.
Feeding recommendations or instructions on the packaging are sometimes inflated so that the consumer will end up purchasing more food. However, Procter & Gamble allegedly took the opposite tack with its Iams and Eukanuba lines, reducing the feeding amounts in order to claim that its foods were less expensive to feed. Independent studies commissioned by a competing manufacturer suggested that these reduced levels were inadequate to maintain health. Procter & Gamble has since sued and been countersued by that competing manufacturer, and a consumer complaint has also been filed seeking class-action status for harm caused to dogs by the revised feeding instructions.
Urinary tract disease is directly related to diet in both cats and dogs. Plugs, crystals, and stones in cat bladders are often triggered or aggravated by commercial pet food formulas. One type of stone found in cats is less common now, but another more dangerous type has become more common. Manipulation of manufactured cat food formulas to alter the acidity of urine and the amount of some minerals has directly affected these diseases. Dogs also form stones as a result of their diet.
History has shown that commercial pet food products can cause disease. An often-fatal heart disease in cats and some dogs is now known to be caused by a deficiency of the amino acid taurine. Blindness is another symptom of taurine deficiency. This deficiency was due to inadequate amounts of taurine in cat food formulas, which itself occurred because of decreased amounts of animal proteins and increased reliance on carbohydrates. Cat foods are now supplemented with taurine. New research suggests that supplementing taurine may also be helpful for dogs, but as yet few manufacturers are adding extra taurine to dog food. Inadequate potassium in certain feline diets also caused kidney failure in young cats; potassium is now added in greater amounts to all cat foods.
Rapid growth in large breed puppies has been shown to contribute to bone and joint disease. Excess calories and calcium in some manufactured puppy foods promoted rapid growth. There are now special puppy foods for large breed dogs. But this recent change will not help the countless dogs who lived and died with hip and elbow disease.
There is also evidence that hyperthyroidism in cats may be related to excess iodine in commercial pet food diets.9 This is a new disease that first surfaced in the 1970s, when canned food products appeared on the market. The exact cause and effect are not yet known. This is a serious and sometimes terminal disease, and treatment is expensive.
Many nutritional problems appeared with the popularity of cereal-based commercial pet foods. Some have occurred because the diet was incomplete. Although several ingredients are now supplemented, we do not know what ingredients future researchers may discover that should have been supplemented in pet foods all along. Other problems may result from reactions to additives. Others are a result of contamination with bacteria, mold, drugs, or other toxins. In some diseases the role of commercial pet food is understood; in others, it is not. The bottom line is that diets composed primarily of low quality cereals and rendered meat meals are not as nutritious or safe as you should expect for your cat or dog.
What Consumers Can Do
Write or call pet food companies and the Pet Food Institute and express your concerns about commercial pet foods. Demand that manufacturers improve the quality of ingredients in their products.
Call DogFood with any information about the pet food industry, specific manufacturers, or specific products.
Print out a copy of this report for your veterinarian to further his or her knowledge about commercial pet food.
Direct your family and friends with companion animals to this website, to alert them of the dangers of commercial pet food. Or request copies of our Fact Sheet on Selecting a Good Commercial Food.
Stop buying commercial pet food. Or if that is not possible, reduce the quantity of commercial pet food and supplement with fresh foods. Purchase one or more of the many books available on pet nutrition and make your own food. Be sure that a veterinarian or a nutritionist has checked the recipes to ensure that they are balanced and complete.
For Further Reading about Animal Nutrition
The Animal Protection Institute recommends the following books, many of which include recipes for home-prepared diets:
Rudy Edalati. Barker's Grub: Easy, Wholesome Home Cooking for Your Dog. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80442-1.
Richard H. Pitcairn, D.V.M., and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. Rodale Press, Inc. ISBN 0-87596-243-2.
Kate Solisti-Mattelon and Patrice Mattelon. The Holistic Animal Handbook: A Guidebook to Nutrition, Health, and Communication. Beyond Words Publishing Co. ISBN 1-5827-0023-0.
Donald R. Strombeck. Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative. Iowa State University Press. ISBN 0-8138-2149-5.
Celeste Yarnall. Natural Cat Care. Journey Editions. ISBN 1-8852-0363-2.
Celeste Yarnall. Natural Dog Care. Journey Editions. ISBN 0-7858-1123-0.
MEAT BYPRODUCTS or MEAT MEAL
This is a misnomer or euphemism for protein in pet food consisting of the parts of animals that intelligent people would never meat. In fact, these byproducts contain little, if any, meat. They are the parts of animals left over after the meat has been stripped away from the bone and include chicken heads, feet, entrails, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach, bones, blood, intestines, and any other part of the carcass not fit for human consumption. This can include dogs, cats, rats, zoo animals, road kill, and dead, diseased, disabled, or dying livestock.
Three examples:
* Sanimal Inc., until 2001 was putting 40,000 pounds of dead dogs and dead cats into its dog and cat food every week.
*The city of Los Angeles alone, for example, sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs to a rendering plant every month.
* In 1995, five million tons of processed slaughterhouse leftovers were sold for animal feed in the United States.
Euthanized animals along with collars, I.D. tags, and plastic bags are routinely used in the making of meat byproducts, meat meal and bone meal. Sodium phenobarbital the drug used to kill animals can withstand the heat from rendering. Veterinarians and animal advocates have known about this for years and in a report by their Panel on Euthanasia they wrote: "In euthanasia of animals intended for human or animal food, chemical agents that result in tissue residue cannot be used."
Also contained in meat byproducts are substances such as abscesses and cancerous material increasing a pet's chances of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. Glandular tissue may contain high levels of hormones, which may also cause serious health problems including cancer.
About 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides, and 30 percent of all insecticides are considered to be cancer causing in and of themselves and yet they are not removed. Even organic commercial pet foods may include these things if they are in the ingredients sent from outside sources. Flea collars not removed during rendering contain poison. Pesticides used in flea collars are as toxic as the pesticides used to kill any other insects.
Before these animal parts and by-product used for pet food are shipped from the slaughterhouse to the rendering plant, the by-product is "denatured." This means that crude carbolic acid, cresylic disinfectant, or citronella, is sprayed on the product. In the case of a whole beef or swine carcass that has been condemned, the denaturing product is injected into the entire carcass. If meat inspectors condemn only parts of an animal, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires that before an approved denaturing agent is applied, the product must be freely slashed so that pieces are less than 4" in diameter. This allows the denaturant to contact all parts of the product.
RENDERING GARBAGE INTO "FOOD"
At the rendering plant a machine slowly grinds the entire mess in huge vats and heats it to between 220 degrees Fahrenheit and 270 degrees Fahrenheit to be cooked from 20 minutes to one hour. (refer to "AGEs" in "WHY RAW" on this website) The mixture is spun at a high speed and the fat rises to the top to be removed from the mixture, separated out and saved to be added later as the source of animal fat in most pet foods. When you open a can of dog or cat food and there is a layer of fat on top you now know where it comes from. The remaining material is dried and called "meat byproducts" or "meat meal". About a quarter of the brown powder called, "meat byproducts" consists of fecal material. Meat byproducts is used as an additive to all commercial pet food and livestock feed. Farmers call it "protein concentrates."
FILLERS AND ADDITIVES
Corn and other grain fillers, peanut hulls, sawdust and other cellulose are added to commercial pet foods for bulk. Preservatives and inferior quality mineral and vitamin supplements are marketed as fortifying the product.
Some side-effects of commercial additives and fillers:
* Synthetic B vitamins out of complex can cause B vitamin deficiency.
* Zinc content of some dry dog foods tested by independent labs is 20 times the recommended daily allowance for dogs.
* Omega-3 fatty acids are acutely sensitive to heat and are destroyed and easily become rancid during processing. Without exception, all canned and dried pet foods are heated.
* Hormones are not destroyed by the high temperatures or pressure cooking used in the manufacture of pet food. Cats seem to be most adversely affected by high hormone levels.
* Chemical preservatives and other artificial additives are added by the manufacturer, to ingredients already doused with herbicides, insecticides, and pesticides used by farmers to boost crop yields.
* Synthetic antioxidants may build up in the tissues; ingestion of small doses over time may be just as toxic as a single large dose.
* Sugar is often the third ingredient in many dog treats. In fact, one can't buy pet food anymore without some kind of sugar being present. As the animal's system rebels to excess sugar an autoimmune disorder may attack pancreatic cells that make insulin destroying the insulin-producing capabilities.
NATURAL ALTERNATIVES TO COMMERCIAL PET FOODS
My pet is my child. I would not put poison on my baby. Just as babies and children are more susceptible to the effects of toxic exposures than adults, so too are animals more susceptible to the effects of toxic exposures than humans.
Natural health food stores usually stock a few varieties of organic or all-natural pet foods.
There are other owners who go even further and prepare their pets' foods from real, whole ingredients including fats. Necessary for good health and disease prevention, they should be raw and organic or unrefined—not processed. Organic meat, fish, eggs, or milk in their natural states are the best sources of fat. Omega-3 fatty acids are effective for treating various inflammatory diseases. Cod liver oil can be added to pet foods as a good source of omega-3 fatty acids as well as vitamin A.
MISLEADING MARKETING
Marketing is designed to sell a product to the human owner and not necessarily in the best interest of the dog.
Some examples:
* To reduce protein in the diet of a healthy old dog. Old dogs still need protein. They may develop sensitivity to commercial dog foods. They will not develop problems with organic natural meats and foods.
* Many pet foods that claim to be 100% nutritionally complete and balanced can legally use isolated nutrients and not whole foods. Although motivated by an interest to assure quality for the consumer, these tests ignore important nutritional issues and give both producer and consumer a false sense of knowledge and security. There are more than forty known, essential nutrients, and more than fifty other nutrients are under investigation. Thus, making sure a food contains appropriate amounts of only a dozen of these nutrients does not assure that a food is "complete."
* Many pet foods advertised as "preservative-free" do, in fact, contain preservatives in one or more of their components.
* Chemical free or all natural ingredients have been found to have synthetic antioxidants in all samples. The term "natural" is unregulated and only a marketing tool. Organic is dependable.
Sources:
American Veterinary Medical Association Report
from the Panel on Euthanasia
Fast Food Nation
by Eric Schlosser
by Jessica Smith and published on Natural News.com
Fluoride The Aging Factor
by John Yiamouyianni
Food Pets Die For
by Ann M. Martin
Healing Pets with Nature's Miracle Cures
by Henry Pasternak, DVM, CVA
Home Safe Home
by Debra Lynn Dadd
Mad Cowboy
By Howard F. Lyman
Article by Jessica Smith, published on Natural News.com
Natural Pet Cures
by Dr John Heinerman
This is a misnomer or euphemism for protein in pet food consisting of the parts of animals that intelligent people would never meat. In fact, these byproducts contain little, if any, meat. They are the parts of animals left over after the meat has been stripped away from the bone and include chicken heads, feet, entrails, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach, bones, blood, intestines, and any other part of the carcass not fit for human consumption. This can include dogs, cats, rats, zoo animals, road kill, and dead, diseased, disabled, or dying livestock.
Three examples:
* Sanimal Inc., until 2001 was putting 40,000 pounds of dead dogs and dead cats into its dog and cat food every week.
*The city of Los Angeles alone, for example, sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs to a rendering plant every month.
* In 1995, five million tons of processed slaughterhouse leftovers were sold for animal feed in the United States.
Euthanized animals along with collars, I.D. tags, and plastic bags are routinely used in the making of meat byproducts, meat meal and bone meal. Sodium phenobarbital the drug used to kill animals can withstand the heat from rendering. Veterinarians and animal advocates have known about this for years and in a report by their Panel on Euthanasia they wrote: "In euthanasia of animals intended for human or animal food, chemical agents that result in tissue residue cannot be used."
Also contained in meat byproducts are substances such as abscesses and cancerous material increasing a pet's chances of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. Glandular tissue may contain high levels of hormones, which may also cause serious health problems including cancer.
About 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides, and 30 percent of all insecticides are considered to be cancer causing in and of themselves and yet they are not removed. Even organic commercial pet foods may include these things if they are in the ingredients sent from outside sources. Flea collars not removed during rendering contain poison. Pesticides used in flea collars are as toxic as the pesticides used to kill any other insects.
Before these animal parts and by-product used for pet food are shipped from the slaughterhouse to the rendering plant, the by-product is "denatured." This means that crude carbolic acid, cresylic disinfectant, or citronella, is sprayed on the product. In the case of a whole beef or swine carcass that has been condemned, the denaturing product is injected into the entire carcass. If meat inspectors condemn only parts of an animal, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires that before an approved denaturing agent is applied, the product must be freely slashed so that pieces are less than 4" in diameter. This allows the denaturant to contact all parts of the product.
RENDERING GARBAGE INTO "FOOD"
At the rendering plant a machine slowly grinds the entire mess in huge vats and heats it to between 220 degrees Fahrenheit and 270 degrees Fahrenheit to be cooked from 20 minutes to one hour. (refer to "AGEs" in "WHY RAW" on this website) The mixture is spun at a high speed and the fat rises to the top to be removed from the mixture, separated out and saved to be added later as the source of animal fat in most pet foods. When you open a can of dog or cat food and there is a layer of fat on top you now know where it comes from. The remaining material is dried and called "meat byproducts" or "meat meal". About a quarter of the brown powder called, "meat byproducts" consists of fecal material. Meat byproducts is used as an additive to all commercial pet food and livestock feed. Farmers call it "protein concentrates."
FILLERS AND ADDITIVES
Corn and other grain fillers, peanut hulls, sawdust and other cellulose are added to commercial pet foods for bulk. Preservatives and inferior quality mineral and vitamin supplements are marketed as fortifying the product.
Some side-effects of commercial additives and fillers:
* Synthetic B vitamins out of complex can cause B vitamin deficiency.
* Zinc content of some dry dog foods tested by independent labs is 20 times the recommended daily allowance for dogs.
* Omega-3 fatty acids are acutely sensitive to heat and are destroyed and easily become rancid during processing. Without exception, all canned and dried pet foods are heated.
* Hormones are not destroyed by the high temperatures or pressure cooking used in the manufacture of pet food. Cats seem to be most adversely affected by high hormone levels.
* Chemical preservatives and other artificial additives are added by the manufacturer, to ingredients already doused with herbicides, insecticides, and pesticides used by farmers to boost crop yields.
* Synthetic antioxidants may build up in the tissues; ingestion of small doses over time may be just as toxic as a single large dose.
* Sugar is often the third ingredient in many dog treats. In fact, one can't buy pet food anymore without some kind of sugar being present. As the animal's system rebels to excess sugar an autoimmune disorder may attack pancreatic cells that make insulin destroying the insulin-producing capabilities.
NATURAL ALTERNATIVES TO COMMERCIAL PET FOODS
My pet is my child. I would not put poison on my baby. Just as babies and children are more susceptible to the effects of toxic exposures than adults, so too are animals more susceptible to the effects of toxic exposures than humans.
Natural health food stores usually stock a few varieties of organic or all-natural pet foods.
There are other owners who go even further and prepare their pets' foods from real, whole ingredients including fats. Necessary for good health and disease prevention, they should be raw and organic or unrefined—not processed. Organic meat, fish, eggs, or milk in their natural states are the best sources of fat. Omega-3 fatty acids are effective for treating various inflammatory diseases. Cod liver oil can be added to pet foods as a good source of omega-3 fatty acids as well as vitamin A.
MISLEADING MARKETING
Marketing is designed to sell a product to the human owner and not necessarily in the best interest of the dog.
Some examples:
* To reduce protein in the diet of a healthy old dog. Old dogs still need protein. They may develop sensitivity to commercial dog foods. They will not develop problems with organic natural meats and foods.
* Many pet foods that claim to be 100% nutritionally complete and balanced can legally use isolated nutrients and not whole foods. Although motivated by an interest to assure quality for the consumer, these tests ignore important nutritional issues and give both producer and consumer a false sense of knowledge and security. There are more than forty known, essential nutrients, and more than fifty other nutrients are under investigation. Thus, making sure a food contains appropriate amounts of only a dozen of these nutrients does not assure that a food is "complete."
* Many pet foods advertised as "preservative-free" do, in fact, contain preservatives in one or more of their components.
* Chemical free or all natural ingredients have been found to have synthetic antioxidants in all samples. The term "natural" is unregulated and only a marketing tool. Organic is dependable.
Sources:
American Veterinary Medical Association Report
from the Panel on Euthanasia
Fast Food Nation
by Eric Schlosser
by Jessica Smith and published on Natural News.com
Fluoride The Aging Factor
by John Yiamouyianni
Food Pets Die For
by Ann M. Martin
Healing Pets with Nature's Miracle Cures
by Henry Pasternak, DVM, CVA
Home Safe Home
by Debra Lynn Dadd
Mad Cowboy
By Howard F. Lyman
Article by Jessica Smith, published on Natural News.com
Natural Pet Cures
by Dr John Heinerman
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