Oh Yeah, You Blend

The latest news about the Menu Foods pet food recall shows us just how much attention is really paid to the quality of some pet food ingredients. It’s looking like the first complaints about animals becoming sick came as early as December 2006, and that the initial statements about affected animals only included those animals which had become ill or died in Menu Foods’ labs (which, to be fair, might not be that unreasonable when you consider that those animals were the only ones they knew about for sure) – either way, given the popularity of the brand names on the recall list, I won’t be surprised to see the eventual death toll reach well into the thousands, and we may never know for certain, since kidney failure sadly isn’t exactly uncommon in cats. I know some people think “well, it’s only an animal”, and such people often assume that their view of the world is the only truly moral and correct one. Such people think that those of us who love our animals like members of our families are somehow sad, or broken, or otherwise worthy of at least some level of contempt. Now while I agree that people who treat their animals like people need a bit of a wake up call, I don’t agree that this is because it’s wrong for an animal to occupy one of the spaces in your life that for other people only another human might occupy, it’s because we do animals a disservice by treating them like people (with all the attendant morality and expectations that entails). I love my dog as much as I love anyone, but I also respect the fact that he’s a dog, not a little person in a fur coat, or (shudder) a “furbaby”. My point in dragging this out is to bring up the issue that for many people, losing their pet to something as preventable as contaminated wheat gluten is just as traumatic and life-affecting as any serious and life-changing tragedy. The fact that some people out there dispose of pets when they become inconvenient, or don’t even shed a tear when a pet dies, should not change the fact that not everyone views pets in this way, but regardless of how you feel about your pet, the recourse you have legally in an event such as this is paltry at best. Pets are generally treated as property by the law…at least for now, perhaps something as potentially widespread as this might get some changes made.

Anyway, this brings me in a very roundabout way to why you should read the ingredients lists on your pet food, and I can hopefully teach you a little of what I’ve learned about how to do so. By “pet”, I mean “dog and cat”, I don’t know much about other pets, but maybe at least some of the basic principles here could apply to you even if you own an exotic.

Pets should eat a food which is biologically appropriate for them. Now this doesn’t mean you need to venture into the often-intimidating world of raw feeding (although there are many prepared raw diets on the market now, which take the guesswork and most of the ick factor away), but it does mean that carnivores like cats (which are true “obligate carnivores”) and dogs (whether dogs are actually obligate carnivores is still a matter of debate, but they are considered by most to be at least primarily carnivorous) should be getting most of their protein from meat. So why is it that most of the mid-to-low end commercial pet foods contain so much grain? It’s cheap. If I see any grain (other than rice) in the top five ingredients of a pet food, I do not feed it. I do not feed anything containing corn or wheat (corn and wheat are very common allergens for dogs, and the fact that they’re extremely inexpensive tends to mean that foods which contain these ingredients are often toward the lower end of the quality scale).

By products. I do not feed any by products, not because everything in by products are intrinsically bad, but because the term “by products” means that looser quality control standards are used, and because the range of things which can be included under this term is very wide and can include things I do not want to feed (organs are just fine, heads and feet…less so, and since by products are sold by weight, you can bet that there’s more cheap stuff like heads than more nutritious stuff like hearts). Also, by products can be from rendered animals (“rendered” basically means “boiled into goo”, and it does NOT mean “every animal whose parts are in here was specifically slaughtered for food”, it can include animals which were down, dead, diseased or dying (the dreaded “Four D’s”) when they arrived at the slaughterhouse or processing plant). Note that identified organ meats (“beef hearts”, “lamb lungs”, other heavy metal band name type things) are perfectly acceptable ingredients.

Kibble. In dry food, I want to see meat as at least the first two ingredients, and ideally one of those two should be an identified meat meal (“chicken meal”, “beef meal” NOT “poultry meal” or “meat meal”) – meat meal is the meat without the water, so you get more nutritional bang for your buck, since ingredients are listed by weight. I don’t want to see any generic fats (“chicken fat” is a-ok, “poultry fat” or, even worse, “animal fat” is definitely not). “Animal digest” means I put the bag back on the shelf – “digest” is something animals should DO, not something they should eat (animal digest is basically hydrolysed parts that they can’t do much else with, and it has very few quality control standards and can contain just about any kind of animal and almost any part thereof – you have no way of knowing what’s in it from batch to batch). I rotation feed my dog, which means I change kibble nearly every bag (and I try to also rotate the main protein sources – one of the more current schools of thought about pet allergies is that over-exposure to the same proteins can increase the likelihood of the pet developing an allergy, plus I think it’s generally healthier for all of us to eat a varied diet).

Canned Food. Contrary to “common knowledge”, kibble doesn’t actually clean teeth at all. Really, the only benefits to kibble are price and convenience (especially for larger dogs). High quality canned food has no grain, can have no or very low carbohydrate content, no preservatives, and can get all or nearly all of its nutritional value from meat sources. Plus, the added moisture is especially beneficial for cats. The long-standing prejudice against canned food (even among vets, who are not generally very up to date on nutrition), is mystifying.

Prepared Raw. The prepared raw diets on the market are wonderful, but expensive. I have really come to believe that feeding at least part of your pet’s meals as raw food can be very beneficial, and my dog certainly loves it. If you’re prepared to deal with the minor inconvenience (wash your hands, wash the bowls, etc.), the prepared, frozen raw diets are a boon. I microwave it to thaw, and it’s three minutes or less from freezer to my dog’s stomach. I keep the costs down by feeding a super premium kibble (from the Whole Dog Journal‘s approved foods list) or a high quality canned food (I like the new Wellness 95% line and Tripett, which is canned green tripe) in the morning, and raw at night. My dog does well on this, and I rotate protein sources as well, which may help prevent animals from developing sensitivities to over-used proteins.

The bottom line: if this recall has prompted even a few people to pay some attention to what they feed their pets, instead of buying what the vet tells them to (vets are woefully under-educated about nutrition, and many do not ever research it further once they graduate, that’s the only possible reason I can think of for those vets who continue to recommend things like Science Diet and Iams), or what’s on sale, perhaps the net effect will be less of a tragedy. Cheap pet food is never a bargain, it’s not often as costly as this recall has and will continue to be, but even without melamine, you feed more of a cheap food (because the animal cannot use as much of it), clean up more poop (because much of it passes through undigested), and take chances with your pet’s health. Sure, nutrition is just one of many variables involved in health, but it’s one of the few we can control, so why not control it?

Tags: current events, dogs, pet food

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 3:17 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.