Dog Food Article Horrible!!

here's the article....... i have mixed feelings about this article... :?





In October 1997 Austin, Texas Channel 42 News ran a series of expose´s about the pet food industry. It was quite shocking-- not for primetime-due-to-violent-content--type of newscasting, and the images had the whole town talking: Dead dogs and cats in big barrels were being dumped into vats of foaming food at a feed producing plant.

Radio DJ's were screaming, and talk radio was filled with panicked, irrate, amazed, and incredulous pet owners.

What was it all about? What did they mean "Foods Pets Die For?"

It came as a surprise to most dog and cat owners that those types of products are allowed to be used for animal feeds, but it was confirmed in interviews with officials at AAFCO, the government agency that regulates and controlspet foods.

I visited a rendering plant once. Once is enough for anyone. At the plant, where ingredients are mixed and cooked to produce animal feeds, I saw huge trucks pull up loaded with things as objectionable as maggot-infested carcasses and euthanized cats and dogs as well as city trucks of road kill and dead animals cleaned off of urban streets.

Like the viewers in Austin, I was incredulous. I hadn't stopped to consider what happens to those things. I guess I thought they went to the land fill or to some dead animal place in the sky.

No, folks. They go into dog and cat, cattle and hog food. Now, with 20 years of experience, I know that in the industry the 4 D's: dead, dying, diseased and decayed animals as well as dead dogs and cats are routinely used in many grocery and discount pet foods. But back those many years ago, I was as shocked and outraged as Austin pet owners were last week.

If the network wanted to enhance viewership, they did. The 5-part series had not even aired on Sunday, and I was already fielding questions from anxious clients who had only seen the name and teaser for the program.

I stayed up each night to see the news--something I'd like to do every night, but, sadly I am too weary from my day to stay awake after ten. The show was, indeed, exactly as we had anticipated: a wake-up call to pet owners.

Future Pets had tried to make a cost-conscious public aware of the ugly truth about cheap pet foods for over ten years. But since we don't sell any foods like that, our advicewas too often viewed as a marketing tool.Now, at last, the network news had finally done the job, albeit in a highly graphic and grotesque way. But if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes.

Austinites were dismayed that the newsroom never told us just which foods to avoid. That would have been, perhaps, too dangerous in the face of the huge, well-funded, and legally aggressive conglomerates like Quaker Foods and Purina Mills who make and market many grocery dog and cat foodvarieties such as "Cycle" and "Dog Chow".

They did, however give some guidelines to use when choosing a good product. I reiterate those guidelines here for theworld to see and have added a couple of my own.

1. Understand that the ingredients are listed in order that tells you the quantity of each of the ingredients in the bag (by weight before processing). There's more of the first than the second ingredient and more of the second than the third and so on. If you want your pet to have a chicken or lamb based diet, look for it first on the label.

2. Don't buy Meat and Bone Meal diets. How about animal fat? It is precisely the lack of definition of exactly what kind of meat that gets you into trouble.

3. Don't be afraid of by-products They are the non-meat portion of the animal such as the brain, the liver, or the innards, but they are very valuable as a source of nutrition. Chicken and lamb by-product are important pet food ingredients.


4. Don't be afraid of meal. Meal simply means that the meat has been dehydrated. The water is gone but the valuable nutrition stays. In fact, a diet whose first ingredient is chicken meal may very well have more actual chicken than a diet whose first ingredient is chicken or fresh chicken which is heavy with water when it is weighed for the label. It's weight makes it appear as a first ingredient, but it's value is negligible. Meal has more meat-less water.

5. Stay away from preservatives like ETHOXYQUIN. Maybe even BHA and BHT. Look instead for Vitamin E or Mixed Tocophorols (another name for vitamin E). Your pet eats a diet that is completely pre-made, so his every bite may be loaded with chemicals unless you protect him from them. I saw a study that showed that a medium sized dog might be ingesting as much as 10 pounds of preservatives in a year! Think of a bag of chemicals the size of a bowling ball and imagine feeding them to your dog. Not a pretty thought.

6. To make this easy, they came right out and said that the grocery store is NOT the place to shop for a quality diet. It's true. They know not what they sell. Future Pets does NOT carry any diets that contain dead dogs and cats or diseased animals. Be suspicious of the grocery where no-one can help you make an informed decision, and be suspicious of the big chains of WalMart-type pet superstores (you know their names) that carry the ugly foods along with the good. Don't give them your money, even if you're buying a good food.

If they really cared, they'd empty their shelves of the bags and the companies that make the bags of "Foods Pets Die For!".

Footnote April 1998--consumer Reports concluded that "designer" foods are no more "valuable" than Ol' Roy or any other off-brand pet foods, but when pressed, they have agreed to re-do the tests. We highly respect the opinion of Consumer Reports Magazine and think they are a fine source of quality investigative reporting. We are pleased that they have agreed that their studies may be flawed and will be re-evaluating their conclusions.

UPDATE Nov 2003: It is interesting to note that nothingin the dog food manufacturing industry seems to have changed in the lastcouple of years.

No, unfortunately its totally accurate. I bought a massive sack of Omega. However, that soon went into the bin when I found out that they buy whatever is cheapest that week and use that as the main ingredient. One week chicken, the next soya, the next - who knows? I've switched to Royal Canin as they are consistent with their recipe.
Interestingly, apparently chicken is very cheap (through battery farming, mutation of chickens like K.F.C do - growing them with more wings etc) so (and I didnt know this until recently) when you buy budget tinned or dry food its almost certain to be chicken but flavoured to suit the "tuna" or whatevr label.
Heres the worst part, stop reading if you get upset easily......









Luckily, my uncle is a member of the european parliament and through him I did abit of digging just recently to prove a point to a friend. I have wadges of E.U reports on what can and does go into animal feeds. Honestly, it made me sick just reading it, but I visited a rendering plant as a guest of a friend who worked in one in the midlands and he delighted in showing us how bad it was so we could understand something (which I'll come to in a minute) Oh boy, I left there sweating and dizzy with nausia. What was said in that article doesnt fully convey the horror of what is being done to save money. There are government guidelines on what can go into animal feed, and its pretty much everything except some parts that can spread disease etc. The blood is processed, the fat is drained from evrything and there is this awful grinding and mashing sound all the time of the carcasses being litterally pulped. I asked him jokingly what they did with things like feathers and bones and things. Stupid question. Like I said - nothings wasted, that would be wasting money. They process evey part of the animal in some way and use it in food. VERY little is wasted. Just think about that.
Which brings me onto the really serious part - the problem with "recycling animals" is you are eating "dirty food." That Big Mac tastes good with the dressing, but you paid so little for it. How do they do it so cheap? well, they have to save money somewhere, lets get the cheapest meat. So the meat processing plants that deal with food for human consumption need to bring down their prices so they go to the cheapest farmer. My grandad was a farmer and is still living at 91 years old. He's always said how animals raised on good grass and were well maintained and bred gave the best meat. Thats sooooooo true. Because while Mr Jannor is feeding his prize herd the very best feed produced on his farm in fields that have been balanced in soil ph and all, Cheap Skate the quick buck guy is buying the cheapest feed he can get to maximise his profits. He doesnt care, why should he? Hospital waste would be better for them, in fact im suprised that it hasnt already been utilized. I dont mean that jokingly, as everything becomes more and more about making money the quality WILL suffer. So the animal eats the feed, made form a concoction of animals, gathered from all places. BTW did you know that it IS legal for maggot infested carcasses and even faeces to enter the animal food chain?! And what do you get, an animal that is malnurished and inferior, ridden with problems induced by the food and lack of proteins and nutrients. So? its cheap and thats all that matters to them. So off the animal goes, is slaughtered and later is served up to you and I in a bap. Or in the supermarket as a sausage or something. That animal is legally fit for human consumption but is it?? CJD/Mad c.o.w (darn swear filter)disease was spread to humans through beef. And it was spread through cattle - through their feed. There were STRICT rules saying what could go into animal feed, but they were ignored by some plants. All it had to take was on infected animal, into feed, then that passes into 20 animals, which we then eat. See what I mean? This is the way its been going for years, its exactly like good dog breeders and puppy mills. a good breeder with good stock concentrates on producing the best QUALITY dog, breeding out defects, screening parents for diseases, and though it isnt cheap and it isnt very profitable the end result is a fantastic specimen that will carry on the breed traits. However, the mill is only interested in profit. Maximising turnaround, it costs too much to spend time with them to socialise them, who cares? they'll be rid of them in 10 weeks, well the ones that live anyway, they just want to make room for the next 30 pups or whatever. What do you get, dogs with problems, picking up disease from their filthy kennel and pasing that onto their young. Those pups leave, if one breeds it simply dilutes the breed standard and pases on more genetic hardships.
Noticed cancer rates increasing? Alll the toxins we are eating as a result of this recycling of animals and the intensive farming using pesticides and herbicides (make crop grow faster=more money / more silage=more animal feed=more profit / animal eats gras, ingests toxins, animal slaughtered, we eat animal, we get toxins.) is a strong factor in this as independent studies have proved. Its not widely known, just as its not widely known that oil companies developed hydrogen energy years ago but will wait until global reserves are low before releasing it (hydrogen energy echange is extremely efficient which means its cheaper, but they can make more money waiting selling oil at ever increasing prices) Why dont you believe me? Because I was the same, I just refused to accept that what I had been eating for 20 years was so little like propper food. We all laugh at the sausage packet that says "80 percent meat" well there you go. I saw a packet of ten sausages for 25pence/50 cents thats cheap. Mmmmm, and having read my post now you know why.

It wont change, believe me, as long as the love of money stands higher than anything else things can only get worse. Living in Devon I am able to avoid commercial food as much as I can without it being to inconvenient. All my meat is bought from a local farmer who's a friend of the family, same with the veggies etc. I choke when I goto McDonalds with my friends, I goto the sandwhich shop down the road and get a chicken breast subway thing and rejoin them. At leats I can see whats in it. I cant take take the risk anymore, its sometimes a pain but its my health and although a Whopper with cheese is the tastiest thing evvvvvvvvvvver........(it was my fav ) Its not good in the long run.



I thought I was rambling for a moment, but like it or not its all one big food pyramid and guess whos at the top getting all the bad bits from lower down? Us. So in answer to your question, yes it is not exagerated, if anything I would say its tame and merely scrapes the surface of a global problem.

Sorry this post is so big, I cant really contribute to most of the things on here as I am such a newbie to chis, but this is something thats close to my heart so I hope its made a few people think about the big picture as anything happening at the bottom of the food pyramid will affect us at the top.

I'm not a paranoid old man. Although I sound it!!!

Hollyspup said:

OMG my chi is on Science Diet because my vet said it is good...I was actually thinking about changing it because she just turned a year old. I'm glad I read this article.. Can someone tell me what's really bad about Science Diet? I'm really interested now...
Thanks,
Holly

Click to expand...

Well, I'm stating this in my honest opinion only about science diet. i have researched quality pet food ingredients and have founf that science diet has a lot of unhealthy ingredients in it; like by-products (which can be from any part of an animal and can be diseased, dying, or already dead animals). science diet also has corn meal listed as its first ingredient in some of their foods, which means it contains A LOT of fillers, not to mention corn isn't reallt digestable to dogs. there are just a lot of bad ingredients in the food...i don't listen to vets when they tell me "oh, science diet is the best your dog should eat it, blah blah blah blah." I do my own research on my pets food, that way i can be confident they're getting food, healthy stuff. again, this is only my opinion about cience diet...a lot of big brand dog food are like science diet, not to mention they are WAAAAY to expensive for the crappy ingredients in them. i'd rather spend that kind of money on a quality food like Wellness, Nutro, Royal Canin, Innova. By doing your homework when it comes to your pets food, you could actually be giving them a longer life and avoiding future health problems that could be associated with "cheap" foods. When a lot of dogs develope skin allergies, it's usually because of their food.

Well, this is just my opinion on the matter. :wave: