If you own a dog or cat and feed it anything other than fresh meat from the local butcher, there is a good chance that at some point in the next year you will be reading about another product recall due to toxins and poisons found in pet food.
Here are just a few of the headlines from recent memory:
- December 20, 2005 – Diamond Pet Food discovers unacceptably high levels of Aflatoxin in pet food manufactured in their South Carolina facility and recalls 19 products in 23 states…
- April 10, 2007 – Pet food recall expands further to include products made at Menu Foods, a Canadian factory recently found to have contained melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer…Menu Foods was the first of six companies to recall pet food and treats tainted with melamine…it alone has recalled 100 brands sold throughout North America…
- July 30, 2010 – Proctor & Gamble is expanding an earlier pet food recall to include specialized dry pet food sold in Canada because it could be contaminated with Salmonella…the products were distributed to vet clinics and retailers throughout the US and Canada…
- October 11, 2010 – Certain Blue Buffalo dry dog foods may have too much Vitamin D in them, which could harm the pet’s health, so the company has issued a recall. The affected products include: Wilderness Chicken, Large Breed Adult Chicken, and Basics Salmon – all marketed under the BLUE brand. An inspection revealed there had been a sequencing mistake by the dry ingredients supplier….
- And yesterday we have yet another big one: December 8, 2011 – On the heels of another recall by the Procter & Gamble Company of its Iams ProActive Health Smart Puppy formula, another pet food manufacturer has announced their own much larger pet food recall because levels of aflatoxin —a naturally occurring byproduct from the growth of Aspergillus flavus in grain crops kept at high humidity. Cargill Animal Nutrition has recalled two regional brands of their dog food, River Run and Marksman, that were made at Cargill’s Lecompte, La. plant, between Dec. 1, 2010 and Dec. 1, 2011…
Salmonella…Melamine…Aflatoxin…Synthetic vitamins in toxic doses…why do these harmful poisons continually show up in pet food at sufficiently dangerous levels that products must be recalled ?
The manufacturing processes for pet food in North America have very few laws governing the quality of ingredients, and most pet food companies do not make full disclosure in their marketing. Most pet foods are made from such low grade sources that additional vitamins and minerals, and sometimes proteins, must be added to make it ‘nutritious’. These added nutrients are virtually all synthetic –made in large batches in chemical factories, then packed as a ‘vitamin-mix’ to be added by the scoopful to pet food. Too much of one ‘scoop’ can lead to toxic doses of Vitamin D in a batch, as happened recently.
As well, most pet food is made of such poor quality meat, meat meals and grain that natural mycotoxins, such as aflatoxin, and bacteria, such as salmonella, easily infect the products during both manufacture and storage.
To be sure your pet is not at risk of toxic chemical overdose, do not feed foods containing meat meal or synthetic ingredients of any kind – this especially includes any product with chemicals listed on the ingredients panel, usually at the end. Feed products with ONLY Table-grade meats, (i.e., federally inspected for human consumption, to reduce the risk of salmonella).