The Truth About Pet Food?

What's the truth about pet food? This has become a catch phrase, and I think the jury is still out. Still, I think it's worth a look at videos and resources that may shed some light on what we're feeding our cats and dogs.

It's also interesting to see how the posturing works on all sides of the argument. With all of the rumor and conflicting information that gets spread around on this topic, it's difficult to know what's going on.

Shawn Messonnier is a holistic veterinarian, and he has some things to say about pet food in general. Shawn provides recommendations on his website, Petcarenaturally.com.

With respect to pet food contamination, though, the pet owning public certainly got a wake up call in March of 2007, during the largest pet food recall in history to date.

But there have been many other incidents where pets have been poisoned by commercial pet food. Often, these incidents go unnoticed by the general public. They are often barely mentioned in the media.

Why is that?

Sometimes animals get sick -- maybe a little sick, or maybe a lot sick, like ending up with permanent kidney damage -- other times, pets die.

Two things are clear:

1. We need more awareness.
2. We need more regulation.

Like the coal mining accident in West Virginia, and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of April, 2010, it takes a large scale, widely publicized tragedy for people to start really looking at what's going on around them.

But, as time goes on, we forget. As I write this, March 2007 is a long time past. Here's a sad reminder...

There is so much conflicting information out there about what's in pet food, who actually manufactures the food you're feeding your cat, or even who is distributing the information and why that it's difficult to know where to start.

There's a video, titled "The Truth About Pet Food." According to YouTube's dating, it was posted in July of 2007, just a few months after the worst pet food recall in history took the lives of thousands of dogs and cats, and just a month after a Texas lab reported finding acetaminophen in dog and cat food. Acetaminophen, you may recall, is what's in Tylenol, and it is highly toxic to cats.

The video is formatted like a news piece, but it's clearly part of a public relations campaign for Wellness Pet Food. Embedding is disabled, but you can watch the video at YouTube...

Wellness Pet Food Video

Here's a video made by the folks at Life's Abundance, another pet food company. Their products are formulated by Dr. Jane Bicks, and marketed via network marketing.

Life's Abundance claim they've never been involved in a recall, and is getting more and more support from breeders and cat health professionals.

But is what they say accurate and true? Is Wellness, or Life's Abundance, or any other food really any better or worse than any of the others?

This next video is dated April, 2007, which is during the media frenzy over the news about the pet food industry. Cats were heavily impacted, and as the cat food recall list grew, people started to become aware of what was going into their pet's food.

Dr. Shawn talks about the nasty stuff that he learned about in college that they can legally put into pet food. He talks about the creation of meat and bone meal and by-products, a key ingredient in many pet foods.

Note that he mentions that slaughter houses use euthanized dogs and cats as part of the mix. According to some, that may be a thing of the past, but the regulatory situation is such that we don't really know for sure.

History shows that the FDA is not on the case in the way they should be. The back story on the euthanized animals in pet food includes previous FDA tests finding pentobarbitol in pet food.

Dr. Shawn recommends Life's Abundance, and I've also seen Susan Thixton recommend it as well.

Then, consider this video, which states that "dangerous fish bones" are in the Wellness dry dog food. Presumably, the video is made by a dog lover with good intentions, but some of the things in this video look a little, well, fishy.

And then the response is this video, the creator of which set out to see if he could find what the creator of the previous video said was in the dog food. Only he set it up so that it's easier to see that the video is not edited and there's no chance for sleight of hand. Apparently, he's seeking the truth about pet food as well!

An interesting video was posted on the history of commercial pet food, presumably to promote their "Pet Food Tribune" website, which now appears to be defunct...

I have not researched each aspect and time period here enough to know if this is factually accurate.

The bottom line, the real truth about pet food, if you will, is that food preparation and manufacture is not perfect. Manufacture of any kind is not perfect.

Regulation is not perfect either, but as long as we rely on others to grow, produce, process, and package the food for our pets, we'll have to rely on it.

Many folks are switching to raw food diets for their cats and dogs, or simply cooking at home. They feel this gives them not only more control, but better nutrition for their cats.

I'm not 100 percent convinced that's the case yet, but I'm keeping my mind open. I'm still concerned that people aren't being diligent enough and that their cats may not get the proper nutrition from homemade diets.

Resources for homemade cat food recipes

For those of us still feeding commercial cat foods, the regulations need to change in our favor. More premium companies need to come into the marketplace and set even higher standards for the industry as well.

That will help, but we can't forget that people get sick and sometimes die, even with the more strict regulations we have in place for people food.

With pet food regulation being far less stringent, it shouldn't be surprising then that we're making our cats ill, or worse, killing them in some cases. All we can really do is stay informed the best we can, and keep asking questions.

Hope And Change

Sometimes, the truth hurts, but is there hope? Like that now famous catch phrase used by the wizards behind President Barack Obama's 2008 winning campaign, "truth about pet food" has become a rallying cry for activists hoping to invoke change in pet food industry regulations.

As you can see from some of the videos, the phrase can also used by marketers to bring out strong emotions.

The good news is that we have seen some change. Awareness is on the rise and people are showing concern. Although the "great recession" has put a damper on it a bit, there has been some progress over the last few years.

More pet owners are becoming aware of the differences between lower quality food and higher quality food, and the similarities as well.

More pet owners are demanding regulation and better quality. While price doesn't always indicate safety or quality, there are numerous companies now making premium food for dogs and cats.

We're seeing more options on the market, including organic cat food, grain free cat food, and other "cat health food" products.

Topics Related To Truth About Pet Food

Susan Thixton's TAPF website

Dr. Wendell O. Belfield's Very Healthy Cat Book with an analysis of commercial cat foods

What's really in pet food

FDA Pet Health and Safety Widget for website owners