Sunday, April 1, 2007
Pet Food Recall
I couldn't agree with you more. Why isn't the public made aware that these so called high quality foods are not high quality? Isn't that false advertising? I've read the ingredients and they sound as if they are okay. I think I'm going to start making the dog food myself. (Of course I can't cook worth a darn and perhaps the store bands would be safer.) But this last recall has really got me thinking. It is not easy changing food diets for 5 cats. They are particular and won't even consider eating a piece of chicken. The dogs no problem they will happily eat just about anything. My challenge is to find a truly high quality food that doesn't have corn in it. One of my dogs seems to have a food allergy. Any suggestions?
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6 comments:
Jill, you're right, there is a lot of false advertising going on regarding pet food. I can't believe some companies have the nerve to say their foods are "all natural," when in fact, they are anything but. Sure you could make your own pet foods, but truthfully there are LOTS of human grade foods already available, and NONE of them contain corn or wheat gluten. But they are not sold in grocery or department stores. You have to get them from specialty pet and feed stores .... or PNI!! We carry most of them, mainly because I want people to have easy access to the better foods. Email me personally and I'll give you some info.
Someone posted, on another email list, a list of foods that are NOT part of the recall. I was shocked at the number of real quality foods that Menu foods makes - including Nature's Variety Prairie canned foods.
While I was at a pet food store last week, one of the sales people told me that the USDA folks have been coming around to all the stores making sure all the recalled products have been pulled from the shelves. (no products at this store were part of the recall) Anyway, the guy told her that this may not have been an accident, but a test of terrorism to see how easy it was to get some kind of poison into the US food system. And that we are hearing that 16 dogs/cats died, but the number is really more like 1000. I don't know how true any of this is, but it sure is scary!!
Firstly, this only pertains to canned foods. And secondly, Wellness, Newman's Own Organics, Pinnacle and Innova canned foods are also produced by Menu Foods, but NONE contain wheat gluten and are said to be produced on different production lines and in a different plant than the "cuts and gravy" style foods that have been affected so there is no chance of cross contamination.
Who knows, are any of us every 100% safe? I don't know if I'm ready to believe any conspiracy theories quite yet, but I do know that thousands of people die each year from E Coli and Salmonella poisoning from foods they've purchased in grocery stores and eaten in restaurants.
Here are the letters from the various companies regarding their canned foods produced by Menu:
Nature's Variety
Natura/Innova
I am still in awe of people who feed crap such, as Ol'Roy and Purina Dog the Chow (the original). I remember as a kid my father would go to the grocery store and buy gound up bone meal, and my mom would cook it up. I really never feed total cramp when I had my own dogs, I have used pedigree when money was tight, but I worked at a vet and was able to get Science diet, thinking wow what a good food I am can provide my dogs (oops). I think most people feed what is convient to shopping, that is way Eukanuba and Iams became available at the grocery store. My question is why can't the better brands like Solid Gold, Natures Variety, etc... be available at these places too. I believe if they were some of those cheaper brands would start feeling it.
Simply, the grocery store chains won't pay the price the human grade food companies want. If they did, they'd have to mark it up to crazy, ridiculous prices. If you guys think those foods are expensive now, you wouldn't believe how much mark up the chain stores do. For instance, I bet the actual cost of a 40-50lb bag of Purina Dog Chow is less than 50 cents a bag. In fact, I bet the bag costs more than the actual crap inside. And then the grocery store marks it up by what, heck, I don't even know what a 50lb bag of Purina Dog Chow costs, but let's say $15. So that is what, my math isn't that great, a 300% markup? So if it costs the grocery stores $30 for a bag of Solid Gold, that would mean they'd have to sell it for $3000 a bag!!!!
Chance and Ruby cat get Flint River Ranch kibble.
I switched Chance to raw burgers - Bravo or Nature's Variety. The Bravo distributors are an hour or more away and Nature's Variety distributor is about a 10-minute drive. Chance seems to prefer Bravo.
Ruby cat won't eat raw food (she is 18 years old)
Ferrets get a mix of Totally Ferret, kitten Evo and Superior Choice. TF is made by Performance foods. The Superior Choice is also privately made. All have human-grade ingredients.
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