Avoid The Next Pet Food Recall - Here's Some Tips | Recipes

By SusanThixton
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2007 turned out to be the worst year in history for pet food recalls. There is no chance of being completely certain that your pet's food is poisoned or will be on a recall list - but there are some important thing to look for and avoid that can improve your chances to locate a healthy, safe pet food.

Judging the safety or the nutritional value of a pet food starts by ignoring the advertising, the price of the pet food, and ignoring the front of the bag. The real signs to the safety of a dog food or cat food lie on the back or side of the bag or can in the 'Ingredient Listing'. Regardless of what marketing terms ('choice', 'premium', and so on) are on the front of the bag or can of pet food, a pet owner cannot determine the quality or how safe the food is unless they look at the ingredients. With dry foods there can be 90 different ingredients (or more), with canned foods there can be 50 or more different ingredients. But don't panicyou don't have to understand hundreds of different pet food ingredients! You just need to be aware of a few key ingredientspet food ingredients that you do NOT want to see in a dog food or cat food (or treats).

'Wheat Gluten', 'Corn Gluten', or 'Rice Gluten'. These are the ingredients that were responsible for the pet food recall of 2007. While glutens have been used in some pet foods for years, the problem last year was the source of the products. The tainted ingredients were imported from China - a country with a history of poor quality control. The imported glutens were found to contain added chemicals that caused crystals in the kidneys of pets.

It is important to avoid dog foods and cat foods that contain imported glutens. And pet owners should be aware that glutens provide no real nutrition to their pet's food. Glutens can be used as a thickener and as a protein boost for a pet food. Adult dog foods must provide a minimum of 18% protein and adult cat foods must provide a minimum of 26% protein. Sometimes, when a pet food does not provide sufficient actual meat in a food - glutens are added to boost the protein to the required percentages. A better protein source for your pet comes from meat - not from glutens.

'By Products'. By-products have never been the cause of a pet food recall, but they are definitely ingredients you want to avoid feeding your pet. To give you an understanding of by-products, I'd like to compare this pet food ingredient to pies - you know, the dessert! How many different types of pies you can think of? There are apple pies, cherry pies, chocolate pies, meringue pies, meat pies, mud pies, pie in math, cow pies (yuck!) - I think you get my point. Now imagine if you purchased a pie and you didn't know what kind of pie it was. You wouldn't know if it was apple pie or mud pie or even cow pie. All you would know is that you purchased a 'pie'. The same thing applies to by-products in pet food.

AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials - the organization responsible for all animal feed manufacturing rules and regulations) defines by-products as "meat by-products is the non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth, and hoofs. It shall be suitable for use in animal food. If it bears name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond thereto."

By-products are a catch-all pet food ingredient. Any or all left over animal tissue materials from the human food industry are clumped into this one ingredient. A pet owner has no certainty of what is in the pet food. One batch of pet food could contain liver or bone by-products, while the next could contain intestines - there is just no way of knowing for certain what is actually contained in the pet food.

'Meat Meal', 'Meat and Bone Meal', or 'Animal Digest'. These ingredients are similar to by-products with a similar AAFCO definition. Again, this is a catch-all pet food ingredient using various left over animal tissues from human food processing that does not provide a pet owner with any certainty of what is actually in their pet's food.

'Animal Fat'. The FDA has tested many different pet foods - and released a long list of foods that contain the drug pentobarbital - the drug used to euthanize dogs, cats, cattle, and horses.

How can the drug that is used to euthanize animals be found in pet food? The answer - euthanized animals are rendered (cooked) and the end ingredients are placed in pet food. It has long been rumored that euthanized dogs and cats (from animal shelters and veterinarian offices) is the major source of the pentobarbital in pet food. The FDA/CVM (Center for Veterinary Management) developed testing methods on two separate occasions to determine the species source of the drug. No results have ever been determined. The pet food manufacturers adamantly deny they use rendered dogs or cats - but again, NO clinical evidence has ever been released to confirm the pentobarbital is from euthanized cattle and horses in pet food as they claim.

The FDA report did tell pet owners that the pet food ingredient 'animal fat' is the most common ingredient to contain pentobarbital. In other words, if your pet's food contains animal fat in the ingredient listing - you could be feeding your dog or cat a euthanized animal including the possibility of feeding your pet a euthanized pet. Not all pet foods or batches of the same brand of pet food that contained the ingredient animal fat tested positive to contain pentobarbital - many did.

'BHA', 'BHT', 'TBHQ', and 'Ethoxyquin'. These ingredient are chemical preservatives that you will need to scan the entire ingredient list on your pet food to find. All of these chemical preservatives are scientifically linked to tumors and cancer. A Google search of any of these preservatives will provide you with tons of controversy and scientific data. All of these chemicals are rarely used to preserve human food and if used, in far less quantity than is allowed in pet food.

'Corn', 'Wheat', 'Soy'. There is no scientific evidence that tells pet owners these common pet food ingredients are dangerous to pets. However these ingredients have been associated with pet food recalls in the past (1995, 1999, and 2005). These grains are prone to a deadly mold called aflatoxin. Pet food manufacturers - according to AAFCO regulations - are not required to test all ingredients as recalls of the past has proven.

Of course there is no guarantee to assure you your pet's food will never be recalled, even though there should be. Avoiding pet food ingredients that have a controversial history and continuing to learn about what your pet eats will greatly improve your odds. And always read the ingredient listing on your pet's food and treats.

About the Author

Before you feed your pet one more meal, visit TruthAboutPetFood.com to see how to select the best, safest food for your dog or cat. Make sure you visit the Paws Club library of pet food articles and see how Petsumer Report provides pet owners with information the pet food label doesn't tell you. pet food, pet food recall, dog food, dog food recall, cat food, cat food recall

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