PETS
by
Janene Zakrajsek
The Dirty Truth – Pet Feed or Pet Food
Adorable pet pictures and funny pet videos aren’t the only
things that should be distracting you online these days. A pet
care topic has been gaining momentum, and may be reaching
the tipping point to change the way in which we feed our pets.
Pet food buyers beware -- the news world is abuzz over a nationwide class action lawsuit filed by a pet owner in California
against pet food giant Nestle Purina Petcare Company alleging that the well-known dog food brand Beneful contains toxic
substances that are capable of killing dogs.
The basis of the lawsuit is the inclusion of propylene glycol
(included in antifreeze, and used a moisturizing additive in dog
food), and grains (the principal ingredient in Beneful) with tainted with fungus that produce mycotoxins, (poisons produced
by low-quality grain molds) among other things and is charging
Nestle Purina with a breach of warranty, negligence and negligent misrepresentation that resulted in the death and/or serious illness in all three of the plaintiff’s family dogs, and including more than 3,000 others complaints posted via the internet.
“The dogs show consistent symptoms, including stomach and
related internal bleeding, liver malfunction or failure, vomiting,
diarrhea, dehydration, weight loss, seizures, bloating, and kidney failure,” the Beneful toxic dog food class action lawsuit
alleges.
The fact is the majority of all pet food is sold within the grocery
retail channel. If you are a pet caregiver among those buyers,
you should be suspect. Rightfully, we should all be concerned
about food safety – for our pets as well as ourselves! As with
any number of major brands manufactured by giant consumer product companies that value profits over nutrition, despite
what their false claims in advertising represent, generally all
these foods are indeed lacking quality. A quick analysis of any
ingredient panel on any of those foods can be summarized as
highly processed cereals made from corn-, wheat-, and soy
by-products, meat by-products, and containing many other additives that raise a red flag and have no business being
something included in our animal companions’ “complete and
balanced” diet.
Pet food is ‘governed’ by feed law not food law. The truth
is that there is little to no regulation of the pet food industry,
little to no enforcement of regulations, standards vary from
state-to-state, and the differences of what constitutes ‘feed’
regulations vs. ‘food’ (human) regulations and which allow for
inclusions of 4-D meats (dead, dying, diseased, or disabled)
and numerous other awful things into pet food recipes is…
shocking to say the least.
What is so unfortunate is that all but a very small percentage
of consumers buying dog and cat food is truly informed of
the dangers of commercial pet foods. Yes, even in light of
the massive pet food recalls in 2007 due to melamine-tainted
Chinese-sourced protein in pet foods, resulting in thousand و ]X]