Poisoning the canary in the coal mine.
Blowing the lid off the pet food industry
Aisles upon aisles in stores like PetsMart and PetCo are devoted to shiny displays of brightly colored bags and cans of dog food. A look at the lengthy list of ingredients on the side of the bag could leave the well-intentioned pet owner confused. What is "animal digest?" "Meat and poultry meal?" "BHA and ethoxyquin?"Ann M. Martin, author of "Foods Pets Die For," will tell you that none of these things are what animals should be eating.
"In my opinion, when we purchase these bags and cans of commercial food, we are purchasing garbage," she said.
The FDA soothingly states that "consumers can take comfort in knowing that pet food is manufactured under a series of standards and regulations," but concedes, in a monumental understatement, that it "contains parts of the animal not normally eaten by people."
The pet food industry, to put it bluntly, uses food unfit for human consumption.
If the buyer envisions plump chickens and choice, juicy cuts of beef going into that expensive bag of dog food, he is in for a rude awakening. "Meat meal" is ground-up slaughterhouse discards, often containing disease-ridden tissue and high levels of hormones and pesticides. Cancerous tissue and worm-infested organs are perfectly acceptable. Whatever remains of the carcass after it is stripped of the muscle meat reserved for humans are ground up into an unsavory mess.
What are known as 4D animals - "dead, dying, diseased or disabled" - are routinely rerouted into pet food. Plastic foam packaging containing spoiled meat from the supermarkets, ear tags and spoiled slaughterhouse meat also make their way into the mix. Restaurant grease is used to coat the outside of pet food, making it more palatable to pets.
The grains included in pet food are those deemed unfit for humans because of mold, contaminants or poor quality; they also can include hulls and other remnants from the milling process.
High temperatures and lengthy processing procedures rob the mixture of whatever nutrients it might contain; to compensate, a long list of chemical additives are dumped in. These are usually added all together as a premix, and if there is a mistake in making up the mix, it can throw off the entire balance, resulting in a potentially toxic imbalance. Dyes (to add eye appeal) and preservatives such as BHT and Ethoxyquin can accumulate in the pet's body, resulting in organ damage.