More pet food recalls
Just in – Hills Pet Nutrition (a “global leader”) has decided to recall its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry food as a result of the latest gluten contamination that is hitting the market. According to recent reports, in Oregon alone, 32 dogs and cats have died during this pet food crisis and an additional 94 have been sickened with cases of kidney disease.
This scares me. I am a serious animal lover. We have three dogs and I would do anything for them. I think of them as part of the family. We luckily feed our dogs Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance food which is not on the list. I can’t imagine what pet owners who have fed their pets food from the list must feel. And that list is insanely long. It seems one company is the maker of 70 or 80% of the food sold in stores today. IAM? Eukanuba? I grew up being told these were premier foods. They are on the list of recalled food.
If you have pets and haven’t taken this story seriously because you don’t think your food is on the list, double check your work. Contact your vet or your pet food provider and confirm that your pet food is not tainted. Further – DO IT AGAIN! Take care of your friends.
Educate yourselves, please. There are many natural, no preservative, human grade pet foods available. Yes, they cost a little more, but they are safe and better for you pets. Portland has a plethora of natural pet supply stores, they are independent reatilers who you should support.
Based on info I have so far gluten is the culprit. My lovely black feline ladies dine on Iams dry cat food (with a little oomph for hairball control). My review of the ingredients does not mention gluten. If anyone has more info that should make me alarmed for Mildred & Maude, please post.
a natural, no preservative ingredient is at fault. which makes things harder for a consumer…
“When a manufacturer uses corn and wheat and gluten, it is usually as a substitute for meat, chicken, fish, dairy. You see gluten = protein, but it does not have a high biological protein.”
FYI
I suggest people read the book “Food Pets Die For” by Ann Martin.
here is a link to an excert for the book.
http://www.homevet.com/petcare/foodbook.html
If you don’t want to go to the link just read this small excert below to understand what can be in some of the foods that marketing makes you think you can trust.
“As discussed in Chapter Two, companion animals from clinics, pounds, and shelters can and are being rendered and used as sources of protein in pet food. Dead-stock removal operations play a major role in the pet food industry. Dead animals, road kill that cannot be buried at roadside, and in some cases, zoo animals, are picked up by these dead stock operations. When an animal dies in the field or is killed due to illness or disability, the dead stock operators pick them up and truck them to the receiving plant. There the dead animal is salvaged for meat or, depending on the state of decomposition, delivered to a rendering plant. At the receiving plants, the animals of value are skinned and viscera removed. Hides of cattle and calves are sold for tanning. The usable meat is removed from the carcass, and covered in charcoal to prevent it from being used for human consumption. Then the meat is frozen, and sold as animal food, which includes pet food….
At the rendering plant, slaughterhouse material, restaurant and supermarket refuse, dead stock, road kill, and euthanized companion animals are dumped into huge containers. A machine slowly grinds the entire mess. After it is chipped or shredded, it is cooked at temperatures of between 220 degrees F. and 270 degrees F. (104.4 to 132.2 degrees C.) for twenty minutes to one hour. The grease or tallow rises to the top, where it is removed from the mixture. This is the source of animal fat in most pet foods. The remaining material, the raw, is then put into a press where the moisture is squeezed out. We now have meat and bone meal.”
Also a good site to check out, the dog food project. The link here is for Dog Food Lable Information 101.
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=labelinfo101
Here’s a link to the FDA site with the list
of affected products:
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html
Hope it’s ok to post links here. If not, my bad.