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Four of the five major pet food companies in the United States are subsidiaries of major multinational food production companies: Colgate-Palmolive (Hills Science Diet Pet Food), Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles n Bits, Recipe, Vets), Nestle (Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog) and Mars (Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba). From a business standpoint, multinational food companies owning pet food manufacturing companies is an ideal relationship. The multinationals have a captive market in which to capitalize on their waste products, and the pet food manufacturers have a reliable source from which to purchase their bulk materials.
There are hundreds of different pet foods available in this country. And while many of the foods on the market are virtually the same, not all of the pet food manufacturing companies use poor quality and potentially dangerous ingredients.
Whole
chickens, choice cuts of beef, fresh grains and all the
wholesome nutrition your dog or cat will ever need.
These are the images that pet food manufacturers proclaim
through their advertising. This is what the $10
billion per year pet food industry in the United States wants us to
believe we're buying when we visit our local pet food or grocery store.
This article examines the differences between what we
think we are buying compared to what we are actually
getting.
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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.
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. Whatever remains of the carcass -- bones, blood, pus, intestines, ligaments, and almost all the other parts not generally consumed by humans -- is used in pet food. These "other parts" are known as "by-products" or other names on pet food labels. The ambiguous labels list the ingredients, but do not provide a definition for the products listed. (See the API Pet Food Shopping Guide for a more detailed list of ingredient definitions.)
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 purchase and use of these ingredients by the pet food industry not only provides nutritional needs for pets at reasonable costs, but provides an important source of income to American farmers and processors of meat, poultry and seafood products for human consumption.
Many of these remnants are indigestible and provide a questionable source of nutrition for our animals. The amount of nutrition provided by meat by-products, meals, and digests can vary from vat to vat. 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.
Another source of meat you won't find mentioned on pet food labels are dogs and cats. In 1990 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that euthanized companion animals were being used in pet food. Although pet food manufacturers vehemently denied the report, the American Veterinary Medical Association confirmed the Chronicle's story. Many pets are euthanized with sodium pentobarbital and then rendered. This poison does not break down and goes into commercial pet food and feed for cows, pigs and horses. For the detailed report by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine on popular commercial pet foods containing pentobarbital, click here. When you read the report, please know that AD (animal digest) is animal waste (to be polite)!
Protein is protein once it is 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."
What can the feeding of such ingredients do to your companion animal? Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. One factor is that the cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers and rendering plants do not destroy many of the hormones used to fatten livestock, or medications such as those used to euthanize dogs and cats. Click here to read "Why is Cancer Killing Our Pets?"
You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor when you open a new bag of pet food -- the smell of restaurant grease from a hundred fast food restaurants. What is the source of that delightful smell? It is refined animal fat, kitchen grease, and 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. The next few times you dine out, be sure to look out back behind the restaurant for a container with a rendering company's name on it. It is almost guaranteed that you will find one. "Fat blenders" or rendering companies then pick up this rancid 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.
These fats are sprayed directly onto dried kibble 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 as well. 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, grain products now make up a considerable portion of pet food. The availability of nutrients in grain 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 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. Carbohydrate that escapes digestion is of little nutritional value due to bacteria in the colon that ferment carbohydrates. Some ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used strictly for "filler" and have no nutritional value at all!
Two of the top three ingredients in pet food 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.
Of the top four ingredients of Purina O.N.E. Dog Formula -- Chicken, Ground Yellow Corn, Ground Wheat, and Corn Gluten Meal -- two are corn-based products ... the same product. This industry practice is known as splitting. When components of the same whole ingredients are listed separately -- such as Ground Yellow Corn and Corn Gluten Meal -- it appears there is less corn than chicken, even though the combined weight of the corn ingredients outweigh the chicken.
In 1995 Nature's Recipe pulled thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained that their dogs were vomiting and losing their appetite. Nature's Recipe's loss amounted to $20 million. The problem was a fungus that produced vomitoxin, an aflatoxin, which is a subset of mycotoxin, a poison given off by mold contaminated the wheat.
Although it caused many dogs to vomit, stop eating and have diarrhea, vomitoxin is a milder toxin than most. The more virulent strains of mycotoxins can cause weight loss, liver damage, lameness, and even death. The Nature's Recipe incident prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to intervene. Dina Butcher, Agriculture Policy Advisor for North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer, concluded that the discovery of vomitoxin in Nature's Recipe wasn't much of a threat to the human
population because "the grain that would go into pet food is not a high quality grain. Which means that the grain used in pet food is not fit for human consumption and therefore not a threat to the human population.
Soy is another common ingredient that is sometimes used as filler in pet food. Manufacturers use it to add bulk so that when an animal eats a product containing soy he will feel more sated. While soy has been linked to gas in some dogs, other dogs do quite well with it. Vegetarian dog foods use soy as a protein source.
Industry critics note that many of the ingredients used as humectants -- ingredients such as corn syrup and corn gluten meal which bind water to prevent oxidation -- also bind the water in such a way that the food actually sticks to the colon and may cause blockage. The blockage of the colon may cause an increased risk of cancer of the colon or rectum.
Additives and Preservatives
Many additives are added to commercial pet foods to
improve the stability or appearance of the food. Additives
provide no nutritional value. Additives include emulsifiers to
prevent water and fat from separating. Antioxidants prevent
fat from turning rancid and antimicrobials reduce spoilage.
Added color and flavor make the product more attractive to
consumers and their companion animals.
How prevalent are synthetic additives in pet food? Two-thirds
of the pet food manufactured in the United States contains
preservatives added by the manufacturer. Of the remaining
third, 90% includes ingredients already stabilized by
synthetic preservatives. Premixed vitamin additives used to
supplement pet food can also contain preservatives. This means
that your companion animal may eat food with several types of
preservatives that have been added at the rendering plant, the
manufacturing plant and in the supplemental vitamins.