What's Really In Pet Foods?

FROM AN API INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
This information provided by the Animal
Protection Institute, which was renamed as
Born-Free-USA in 2007.
API Article - at BornFreeUSA.com

"Plump whole chickens, choice cuts of beef,
fresh grains, and all the wholesome nutrition
your dog or cat will ever need." (Sounds
good?)

These are the images pet food manufacturers
promulgate through the media and advertising.
This is what the $11 billion per year U.S. pet
food industry wants consumers to believe they
are buying when they purchase their products.

This report explores the differences between
what consumers think they are buying and what
they are actually getting for their money. It
focuses in very general terms on the most
visible name brands -- the pet food labels that
are mass-distributed to supermarkets and
discount stores -- but there are many highly
respected brands that may be guilty of the same
offenses.

What most consumers don't know is that the pet
food industry is an extension of the human food
and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a
market for slaughterhouse offal, grains
considered "unfit for human consumption," and
similar waste products to be turned into profit.
This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi,
and possibly diseased and cancerous animal parts.

Three of the five major pet food companies in
the United States are subsidiaries of major
multinational companies: Nestlé (Alpo,
Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston
Purina products such as Dog Chow, ProPlan, and
Purina One) Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train,
Kibbles n Bits, Nature's Recipe, Vets)
Colgate-Palmolive (Hill's Science Diet Pet
Food). Other leading companies are: Procter &
Gamble (Eukanuba and Iams) Mars (Kal Kan,
Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba, Waltham's) Nutro From
a business standpoint, multinational companies
owning pet food manufacturing companies is an
ideal relationship. The multinationals have
increased bulk-purchasing power; those that make
human food products have a captive market in
which to capitalize on their waste products, and
pet food divisions have a more reliable capital
base and, in many cases, a convenient source of
ingredients.

There are hundreds of different pet foods
available in this country. And while many of the
foods on the market are similar, not all of the
pet food manufacturing companies use poor
quality and potentially dangerous ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

Although the purchase price of pet food does not
always determine whether a pet food is good or
bad, the price is often a good indicator of
quality. It would be impossible for a company
that sells a generic brand of dog food at $9.95
for a 40-lb. bag to use quality protein and
grain in its food. The cost of purchasing
quality ingredients would be much higher than
the selling price.

BY-PRODUCTS

The protein used in pet food comes from a
variety of sources. When cattle, swine,
chickens, lambs, or any number of other animals
are slaughtered, the choice cuts such as lean
muscle tissue are trimmed away from the carcass
for human consumption. However, about 50% of
every food-producing animal does not get used in
human foods. Whatever remains of the carcass --
bones, blood, intestines, lungs, ligaments, and
almost all the other parts not generally
consumed by humans -- is used in pet food,
animal feed, and other products. These "other
parts" are known as "by-products,"
"meat-and-bone-meal," or similar names on pet
food labels.

The Pet Food Institute -- the trade association
of pet food manufacturers -- acknowledges the use
of by-products in pet foods as additional income
for processors and farmers: "The growth of the
pet food industry not only provided pet owners
with better foods for their pets, but also
created profitable additional markets for
American farm products and for the byproducts of
the meat packing, poultry, and other food
industries which prepare food for human
consumption."1

Many of these remnants provide a questionable
source of nourishment for our animals. The
nutritional quality of meat and poultry
by-products, meals, and digests can vary from
batch to batch. James Morris and Quinton Rogers,
two professors with the Department of Molecular
Biosciences, University of California at Davis
Veterinary School of Medicine, assert that;

"There is virtually no information on the
bioavailability of nutrients for companion
animals in many of the common dietary
ingredients used in pet foods. These ingredients
are generally by-products of the meat, poultry
and fishing industries, with the potential for a
wide variation in nutrient composition. Claims of
nutritional adequacy of pet foods based on the
current Association of American Feed Control
Officials (AAFCO) nutrient allowances
('profiles') do not give assurances of
nutritional adequacy and will not until
ingredients are analyzed and bioavailability
values are incorporated."2

RENDERING

Meat and poultry meals, by-product meals, and
meat-and-bone meal are common ingredients in pet
foods. The term "meal" means that these materials
are not used fresh, but have been rendered. What
is rendering? Rendering, as defined by Webster's
Dictionary, is "to process as for industrial use:
to render livestock carcasses and to extract oil
from fat, blubber, etc., by melting." Home-made
chicken soup, with its thick layer of fat that
forms over the top when the soup is cooled, is a
sort of mini-rendering process. Rendering
separates fat-soluble from water-soluble and
solid materials, and kills bacterial
contaminants, but may alter or destroy some of
the natural enzymes and proteins found in the
raw ingredients. Meat and poultry by-products,
while not rendered, vary widely in composition
and quality.

What can the feeding of such products do to
your companion animal? Some veterinarians claim
that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals
increases their risk of getting cancer and other
degenerative diseases. The cooking methods used
by pet food manufacturers - such as rendering
and extruding (a heat-and-pressure system used
to "puff" dry foods into nuggets or kibbles) --
do not necessarily destroy the hormones used to
fatten livestock or increase milk production, or
drugs such as antibiotics or the barbiturates
used to euthanize animals.

ANIMAL AND POULTRY FAT

You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor when
you open a new bag of pet food -- what is the
source of that delightful smell? It is most
often rendered animal fat, restaurant grease, or
other oils too rancid or deemed inedible for
humans.

Restaurant grease has become a major component
of feed grade animal fat over the last fifteen
years. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon
drums, is usually kept outside for weeks,
exposed to extreme temperatures with no regard
for its future use. "Fat blenders" or rendering
companies then pick up this used grease and mix
the different types of fat together, stabilize
them with powerful antioxidants to retard
further spoilage, and then sell the blended
products to pet food companies and other end
users.3

These fats are sprayed directly onto dried
kibbles or extruded pellets to make an otherwise
bland or distasteful product palatable. The fat
also acts as a binding agent to which
manufacturers add other flavor enhancers such as
digests. Pet food scientists have discovered that
animals love the taste of these sprayed fats.
Manufacturers are masters at getting a dog or a
cat to eat something she would normally turn up
her nose at.

Wheat, Soy, Corn, Peanut Hulls, and Other
Vegetable Protein

The amount of grain products used in pet food
has risen over the last decade. Once considered
filler by the pet food industry, cereal and
grain products now replace a considerable
proportion of the meat that was used in the
first commercial pet foods. The availability of
nutrients in these products is dependent upon
the digestibility of the grain. The amount and
type of carbohydrate in pet food determines the
amount of nutrient value the animal actually
gets. Dogs and cats can almost completely absorb
carbohydrates from some grains, such as white
rice. Up to 20% of the nutritional value of
other grains can escape digestion. The
availability of nutrients for wheat, beans, and
oats is poor. The nutrients in potatoes and corn
are far less available than those in rice. Some
ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used for
filler or fiber, and have no significant
nutritional value.

Two of the top three ingredients in pet foods,
particularly dry foods, are almost always some
form of grain products. Pedigree Performance
Food for Dogs lists Ground Corn, Chicken
By-Product Meal, and Corn Gluten Meal as its top
three ingredients. 9 Lives Crunchy Meals for cats
lists Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, and
Poultry By-Product Meal as its first three
ingredients. Since cats are true carnivores --
they must eat meat to fulfill certain
physiological needs -- one may wonder why we are
feeding a corn-based product to them. The answer
is that corn is much cheaper than meat.


----------------------------------------------------
Article submitted by Tim Delaney, an avid dog
lover and pet enthusiast. References include
Nzymes at http://www.nzymes.com and Nzymes EU at
http://www.nzymes.eu.com


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