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What's
Really For Dinner?
The truth about commercial pet
foods...
(Don't read if you have a weak stomach)
by Tina Perry
Cow brains. Sheep guts. Chicken heads.
Road kill. Rancid grain. These are a few of the so-called
nutritionally balanced
ingredients found in the commercial pet food served to companion animals
every
day.
More than 95 percent of US companion animals
derive their nutritional needs from a single source:
processed pet food. When
people think of pet food, many envision whole chickens, choice cuts of
beef,
fresh grains, and all the nutrition that a dog or cat may ever need -- images
that pet food manufacturers promote in their advertisements. What these
companies do not reveal is that instead
of whole chickens they have substituted
chicken heads, feet, and intestines. Those choice cuts of
beef are really cow
brains, tongues, esophagi, fetal tissue dangerously high in hormones, and
possibly diseased and even cancerous meat. Those whole grains have had the
starch removed for
corn starch powder and the oil extracted for corn oil, or
they are hulls and other remnants from the
milling process. Grains used that are
truly whole have usually been deemed unfit for human consumption because of
mold, contaminants, poor quality, or poor handling practices. Pet food is one of
the worlds
most
synthetic edible products, containing virtually no whole
ingredients.
Pet food manufacturers have become masters at
inducing companion animals to eat things cat and
dogs would normally spurn. Pet
food scientists have learned that it's possible to take a mixture of
inedible
scraps, fortify it with artificial vitamins and minerals, preserve it so that it
can sit on the shelf
for more than a year, add dyes to make it attractive, and
then extrude it into whimsical shapes that
appeal to the human consumer. For
this, pet food companies can expect to earn $9 billion in sales
in 1996.
Scraps and Byproducts
For years, many care givers have tried to avoid
feeding their companion animals people food leftovers,
having been warned by
veterinarians about the heath problems they can cause. Yet much scrap
material
from the human food industry is ending up in dogs and cats dinner bowls. What
the consumer purchases and what the manufacturer advertises are often two
entirely different products, and
this difference threatens the animals healthy,
especially as they age. Learning to read ingredient
labels
and taking the time
to read them carefully is crucial to making an educated choice when
purchasing
pet food. Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight (heaviest first)
under
standards
established by the Center for Veterinary Medicine for the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA).
The
name of the product (in most states) is
dictated by the regulations of the American Association of
Feed Control
Officials (AAFCO). The trouble is, AAFCO standards can lead to deceptive product
names
due to the weight and volume variations between wet and dry ingredients.
Also, the average consumer
has no idea what the definitions for the listed
ingredients mean. Preservatives, vitamins, minerals,
flavorings, and cereal make
up most of what the companion animal eats.
It is not happenstance that four of the top
five major pet food companies in the United States
are subsidiaries of major
multinational food production companies: Colgate Palmolive (which produces
Hills Science Diet), Heinz, Nestle, and Mars )see The Corporate Connection). From a
business standpoint,
multi-national food companies owning pet food manufacturers
is an ideal relationship. The multinationals
have captive market in which to
dump their waste products, and the pet food manufacturers have a
direct source
of bulk materials. Both make a profit from selling scraps that originate from
places far
worse than the dinner table. In his 1986 book Pet Allergies
veterinarian Al Plechner sums up what
goes into companion animals food:
Condemned parts and animals rejected for human consumption
are routinely
rerouted for commercial pet foods. A similar fate applies to so-called 4-D
animals. These
are
food animals picked up dead, or that are dying, diseased, or
disabled, and do not meet human-food qualifications. They are processed
straightaway for companion animal consumption. Little goes to
waste. Says Plechner, Food processing refuse of all sorts winds up in your animals dinner
bowls. Moldy
grains. Rancid foods. Meat meal. The latter is ground-up
slaughterhouse discards often containing
disease-ridden tissue and high levels
of hormones and pesticides, the very things that may have
contributed to the
death of the steer or hog. A decade later, his words still apply. When cattle,
swine, chickens, lambs, or other animals meet their ends at a slaughterhouse,
the choice cuts -- lean muscle
tissue and organs prized by humans -- are trimmed
away from the carcass for human consumption.
Whatever remains of the carcass
(bones, blood, pus, intestines, ligaments, subcutaneous fat, hooves,
horns,
beaks, and any other parts not normally consumed by humans) is, according to the
pet food
industry, perfectly fit as a protein source for cat and dog food.
The Pet Food Institute, the trade association
of pet food manufacturers, acknowledges in its 1994
Fact Sheet the importance of
using byproducts in pet foods as additional income for processors and
farmers.
The purchase and use of these ingredients by the pet food industry not only
provides
nutritional foods for pets at reasonable costs, but provides an
important source of income to
American farmers and processors of meat, poultry,
and seafood products for human consumption.
Many of these remnants are
indigestible and provide a questionable source of nutrition. The amount of
nutrition
provided by meat byproducts, meals, and digests varies from vat to vat
of this animal protein
soup.
A vat filled with chicken feet, beaks, and viscera
is going to make available a lower amount of
protein
than a vat of breast meat.
James Morris and Quinton Rogers, professors with Department of
Molecular
Biosciences at the University of California at Davis Veterinary School of
Medicine, assert that
there is virtually no information on the bio-availability
of nutrients for companion animals in many of the common dietary ingredients
used in pet foods. These ingredients are generally byproducts of the
meat,
poultry
and fishing industries, with the potential for wide variation in
nutrient composition. Claims
of nutritional adequacy of pet foods based on the
current AAFCO nutrient allowances (profiles) do not
give
assurances of
nutritional adequacy and will not until ingredients are analyzed and
bioavailability
values
are incorporated. Meat byproducts, the catch-all term of
the pet food industry, is a misnomer
because these byproducts contain little if
any meat. Byproducts contain little if any meat. Byproduct
are animal parts
leftover after the meat has been stripped from the bone. Chicken byproducts
include
heads, feet, entrails, lungs, spleens, kidneys, brains, livers,
stomachs, noses, blood, and intestines free
of their contents. What the pet food
manufactures fail to mention is that most byproducts, digests and
meals
are also
filled with other substances, such as cancerous tissue cut from the carcass,
plastic foam
packaging containing spoiled meat from supermarkets, ear tags,
spoiled slaughterhouse meat, road kill,
and pieces of downer animals.
Canned Cannibalism
Another source of meat that isn't mentioned on pet
food labels is pet byproducts, the bodies of dogs
and cats. In 1990 the San
Francisco Chronicle reported that euthanized companion animals were found
in pet
foods. Although pet food company executives and the National Renderers
Association vehemently denied the report, the American Veterinary Medical
Association and the FDA confirmed the story. The
pets serve a viable purpose by
providing foodstuff for the animal feed chain, said Lea McGovern, chief
of the
FDA's animal feed safety branch. Because of the sheer volume of animals rendered
and the
similarity in protein content between poultry byproducts and processed
dogs and cats, rendering
plant workers say it would be impossible for purchasers
to know the exact contents of what they buy.
In
fact, Sacramento Rendering cited
by inspectors five times in the past two years for product-labeling violations.
Grease and Grain
The most nutritious dry pet food is no better than
the worst if an animals will not eat it. Pet food
scientists have discovered
that spraying the kibble or pellets with a combination of refined animal fat,
lard, kitchen grease, and other oils too rancid or deemed inedible for humans
makes an otherwise bland
or distasteful product palatable. Animal fat is mainly
packing house waste or supermarket trimmings from
the packaging of meats.
Animals love the taste of this sprayed fat, which also acts as a binding
agent to which manufacturers may add other flavor enhancers. The pungent odor wafting
from an open
bag of pet food is created by this concoction. Restaurant grease
has become a major component of
feed-grade animal fat over the last 15 years.
Often held in 50-gallon drums for weeks or months in
extreme temperatures, this
grease is usually kelp outside with no regard for its safety or further use.
The
rancid grease is then picked up by fat blenders who mix the animal and vegetable
fats together,
stabilize them with powerful antioxidants to prevent further
spoilage, and then sell the blended
products to pet food companies. Rancid,
heavily preserved fats are extremely difficult to digest and
can lead to a host
of animal health problems, including digestive upsets, diarrhea, gas, and bad
breath.
Once considered a filler by the pet food industry, the amount of grain
products included in pet food has
risen over the last decade as the American
population has focused its attention away from consuming
beef and toward a
healthier diet of grains and vegetables. Commonly two of the top three pet
food
ingredients are some form of grain products. For instance, Alpo's Beef Flavored
Dinner lists ground
yellow corn, soybean meal, and poultry byproduct meal as its
top three ingredients. 9 Lives Crunchy Meals lists ground yellow corn, corn
gluten meal, and poultry byproduct meal as its top three ingredients. Of the
top four ingredients of Purina's O.N.E. Dog Formula -- chicken, ground yellow corn,
ground wheat, and
corn gluten meal -- two are corn-based products from the same
source. This is an industry practice
known as splitting. When components of the
same whole ingredient are listed separately (ground yellow
corn and corn gluten meal) it appears that there is less corn than chicken, even when the whole
ingredient may weigh more than the chicken. Soy is another common ingredient in
many pet foods. It is
used by the manufacturers to boost the claimed protein
content and add bulk so that when animals eat
a product containing soy they will
fell more sated. Tofu is suitable for humans, but most forms of soybean
do not agree with a dog or cat's digestive system. Like many other pet food
ingredients, soy is virtually unusable by an animal's body. Being obligate
carnivores, cats have little ability to digest any nutrients
from soy.
The
problem is worse for dogs because they lack the essential amino acid to digest
soy products.
Soy has also been linked to bloat and gas in many dogs.
Additives and Processing
Pet food industry critics note that many of the
ingredients (such as corn syrup and corn gluten meal)
used as humectants to
prevent oxidation also bind water molecules in such a way that the food
actually
sticks to the animal's colon and may cause blockage. Blockage of the colon may
cause an
increased risk of cancer of the colon or rectum. Two-thirds of the pet
food manufactured in the
United States contains synthetic preservatives added by
the manufacturer. Of the remaining third,
90 percent includes ingredients
already stabilized by synthetic preservatives. Because most pet food
contains
large percentages of added fat, a stabilizer is needed to maintain the quality
of the food.
Sodium nitrite, often used as a coloring agent, fixative, and
preservative, has the ability to combine
with natural stomach and food chemicals
(secondary amends) to create nitrosamines, powerful
cancer-causing agents,
according to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives.
Many pet foods advertised as preservative-free
do not contain preservatives. Almost all rendered
meats have synthetic
preservatives added as stabilizer, but manufacturers aren't required to
list
preservatives they themselves haven't added. Premixed vitamin additives can also
contain
preservatives. In the 1003 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical
Association, veterinarian Philip Roudebush reported finding low concentrations
of synthetic antioxidant preservatives in all analyzed
samples of products
labeled as chemical free or all-natural. Other types of additives depend on
whether
the pet food is semi-moist, dry or canned. Because semi-moist food
contains 25-50 percent water, antimicrobial preservatives must be used.
Propylene glycol was frequently used in cat food until it was
pulled in 1992 for
causing a variety of health problems. Processing greatly alters the nutritional
value of
the food ingredients. Veterinarian R. L. Wysong states in Rationale for
Animal Nutrition: Processing is the
wild card in nutritional value that is, by
and large, simply ignored. Heating, freezing, dehydrating,
canning, extruding, pelleting, baking and so forth, are so commonplace that they are simply thought
of
as synonymous with food itself. Because the ingredients that pet food
companies use are not
wholesome, and harsh manufacturing practices destroy what
little nutritional value the food may have
had in the first place, the final
product must be fortified with vitamins and minerals.
Questionable Nutrition
How, then, can any pet food be guaranteed to be
100 percent complete or nutritionally adequate?
As long as it meets the AAFCO
minimum standards, such a guarantee can be on the label. Yet in 1994,
feed tests
conducted by the New York State Agriculture Department showed 7 percent of all
pet foods analyzed failed chemical analyses for guaranteed nutrients. Other
states report similar findings, with
failure of analyzed feed ranging from to 12
percent. Even if a pet food meets AAFCO standards, certain nutritional
requirements (for example, lysine) can vary between species by as much as
seven-fold.
Although manufacturers clam that millions of companion animals can
thrive on a diet consisting of
nothing by commercial pet food, research and an
increasing number of veterinarians implicate
processed pet food as a source of
disease or as an exacerbating agent for a number of
degenerative diseases. For
example, kidney disease is on of the top three killers of companion animals.
According to Plechner, the extra protein and harsh ingredients of many pet foods
place an overload on
the kidneys.
Left untreated, the toxic buildup leads to
vomiting, loss of appetite, uremic poisoning,
and death.
Wysong adds, In the
last few years, large statistical studies have shown the link between
the diet
(of processed foods) and a variety of degenerative diseases, including cancer,
heart disease,
allergies, arthritis, obesity, dental disease, etc. After
extensive research, the Animal Protection
Institute (API) published a Pet Food
Investigative Report to educate companion animal care givers
about pet food
ingredients, ingredient definitions, labeling, and dietary ailments resulting
from
processed commercial
pet food, including the most commonly know brands.
Yet, whether such food is purchased at the supermarket, pet store, or from a
veterinarian, it makes little difference in terms of
the quality -- only
in the
cost. Since the report was published earlier this year, API has conducted
more
research on
holistic pet care and pet food alternatives, but still claims that
the vast majority of
pet foods available
on the market today provide less that
optimum nutrition for companion animals.
It is sad to think that the food provided by
animal care givers to their four-legged friends could be
hazardous to the
animals'; health and longevity. Care givers should assume responsibility for
providing
as healthful a diet as possible for the animals in the care. Consumers
should be informed: speak with a
holistic practitioner or herbalist, or consult
your veterinarian (but be aware that a veterinarian's
knowledge of nutrition may
be limited to the two weeks of nutrition he or she had veterinary school
20
years ago). Although the ideal solution would be for companion animals to be fed
only wholesome homemade and/or vegetarian diets, this is not an optician for
everyone -- the cost and time
commitment is sometimes prohibitive. By taking
more moderate steps, however, care givers can still
greatly improve a companion
animals' diet and quality of life.
Tina Perry is an animal advocate with the
Animal Protection Institute.
Reprinted from The Animals' Agenda
Nov/Dec 1996
We are very happy to report
that Life's Abundance Pet Foods contain NONE of the things you
have read about
above, only human-grade, whole ingredients!!!
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