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 commoningredient
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 firstplace, 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
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"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." |
