Hazards of Commercial Pet Food
Commercial pet food that purports to be nutritionally balanced food for your dogs has the following ingredients in it - cow brains, sheep guts, chicken heads, road kill and rancid grain. This is the extent of pollution in pet food. Investigative reporter John Eckhouse of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an expose “How Dogs and Cats Get Recycled into Pet Food.” in which he writes “Each year, millions of dead American dogs and cats are processed along with billions of pounds of other animal materials by companies known as renderers.
The finished products - tallow and meat meals - serve as raw materials for thousands of items that include cosmetics and pet food.” Inspite of denials by the pet food companies, this fact has been borne by the FDA, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the California Veterinary Medical Association. The big problem is that in the absence of any government agency setting quality standards pet owners cannot get any real assurance of quality in pet food. Governments in the USA and Canada limit themselves to regulating the food label, company details, product weight and whether it is dog food or cat food.
The unwholesome elements of pet food get brushed under headings such as “meat meal” and “meat by-products”. The terms however are misnomers because there is very little meat in the byproducts; it is basically offal and viscera - bones, blood, pus, intestines, ligaments, subcutaneous fat, hooves, horns, beaks, and any other parts not normally consumed by humans. Not to mention the fact that pets are forced into cannibalism as euthanized dogs and cats and those culled at animal centers are also dumped into the renderers. Often the same brand of commercial pet food but from different batches causes a physical and behavioral change in dogs. This includes diarrhea, increased flatulence, a dull hair coat, intermittent vomiting, and itching. A fact that cannot be ascribed to mere coincidence is that most pet food companies are actually subsidiaries of multinational food product companies. From a business point of view, it’s an excellent relationship for the two entities but little attention is paid to the consumer’s needs.
All the waste generated at the food processing sections of companies like Heinz and Nestle is channeled to the pet food manufacturing section. Absolutely nothing goes to waste. Anything rejected for human consumption is good for your pet. This includes the 4-D animals – dead, diseased, dying, disabled. Apart from unhygienic meat, ear tags, cancerous tissue, and plastic that make their way into pet food, there are also the sterilizing and denaturing agents added so that the stuff does not make its way back into the human food chain.
These agents include phenol and creosote both of which are highly toxic. Fuel oil, kerosene, and insect repellants are also added as denaturing agents. These find their way into your pet’s stomach. In order to make the stuff palatable, the pet food companies add restaurant grease and fat to the pet food which makes the naturally revolting stuff appealing to dogs and cats which cannot resist the smell of the fat. The nutrition offered by commercial pet food too is questionable. 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.
Processed pet food does not take into consideration nutrition requirements that vary with breeds, worse they can actually exacerbate or even cause degenerative diseases in pets. occurs due to the concentration of protein in the food as well as various toxic elements present therein. Vomiting, loss of appetite, uremic poisoning cancer, heart disease, allergies, arthritis, obesity, dental disease and death are some of the consequences that can result from a diet of processed pet food.
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Hazards of Commercial Pet Food by diet.MEDtrials.info - August 24th, 2007 10:43 am
[…] Posted by as Uncategorized Vomiting, loss of appetite, uremic poisoning cancer, heart disease, allergies, arthritis, obesity, dental disease and death are some of the consequences that can result from a diet of processed pet food.article continues at Savvy Pet Editor brought to you by diet.medtrials.info and conSALSITA […]