Do you know what's in the "complete diet" you are feeding your pet carnivore?
Manufactured pet food for our carnivorous pets is generally produced by obtaining protein and grain, adding vitamins, minerals, oils, colouring and preservatives, cooking it at high temperatures, and packaging it.
In the UK pet food regulation is much better than in the United States and Canada, in that most euthanized animals are not allowed to be put in the food.
Quote: “Most intra-species recycling of processed animal protein is banned”
Adherence to the Animal by-products code of practice is however strictly voluntary.
This code of practice, (which applies to 95% of the UK pet food market) allows the following to be used in commercial pet food:-
Meat & Animal carcases:parts of animal carcases which are not intended for human consumption, including dead zoo animals, pets, road-kill, abattoir leftovers which have been “denatured” i.e. sprayed with crude carbolic acid, cresylic disinfectant or citronella (a known carcinogen).
Non-ruminant blood, hides, skins, hooves, horns, pig bristles, feathers, wool, hair and fur Poultry: necks, heads, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines.
Catering Waste:
All waste food from restaurants, catering facilities and kitchens, including used cooking oils. i.e. garbage from hospitals, restaurants and food outlets, including supermarket products no longer fit for the shelves.
Quote: “Foodstuffs of animal origin or foodstuffs containing products of animal origin, other than catering waste, which are no longer intended for human consumption for commercial reasons or due to problems of manufacturing or packaging defects or other defects which do not present any risk to humans or animals.
Examples:
Cooked meat and cooked fish items such as cooked cocktail sausages and frankfurters (ready to eat).
Dips with cooked meat or fish.
Ham including Parma and Serrano, salami, pate etc.
Cooked prawns, dressed crabs and lobsters, seafood sticks, cooked mussels (ready to eat).
All ready meals e.g. – roast dinners, tuna (raw) in sauce with noodles, toad in the hole, carbonara tortellini, ravioli, lasagne, micro-waveable packs of chicken or fish and vegetables. Pies and pasties including ocean pie and shepherds pie.
Raw items which are eaten without further cooking e.g. smoked salmon, sushi, Bresaolo and beef jerkin.”
Shells, hatchery by-products: eggshells, infertile and un-hatched eggs, culled chicks that have been cooked, dried and ground, with or without removal of part of the fat and cracked egg by-products
The above will be labelled meat and animal derivatives, or animal by-products on your pet food. The code states that these animals must have passed a post-mortem inspection and be free of disease communicable to man or animals.
Whilst some of the above sounds like a great meal, these foodstuffs take time to reach the processing plants, where they are then further cooked at between 220 and 270 degrees F for between 20 and 60 minutes often still in their original packaging.
Industrial Waste
Basically the pet food you are buying be it wet or dry is made up of Industrial Waste, this includes:-
The rancid oil from the food industry
Burnt chocolate unfit for human consumption (Chocolate is poisonous to dogs) Feathers which increase the protein levels but are indigestible
Anti-toxidants have to be added to the mix because of the fact that this food is rancid extra vitamins and minerals are added, but before cooking at between 220 and 270 degrees F for between 20 and 60 minutes, which of course breaks down most of the vitamins and minerals that were still present Large skips are filled with meat left over from the docks or our supermarkets, this goes into our pets food still in it's polystyrene containers, along with the fag butts and coffee cups of the people filling the containers.
Quote: “Vegetable waste, bakery and biscuit waste etc that comes from premises that handle meat may now be fed to livestock.”
Other ingredients:
There are of course other ingredients than meat and meat derivatives in commercially available pet food. These are mostly grains:-
Corn :
Corn Flour Corn BranCorn Gluten meal
Wheat :
Wheat Flour – including sweepingsWheat germ meal – Wheat middlings and shorts – including sweepings
Beet Pulp – added for fibre, primarily sugar.
Soybean meal Powdered cellulose – a bulking agent
Sugar foods by-products – the inedible by-products of the sugar and sweet industry
Shells – ground almond and peanut shells for fibre, but also include, but are not restricted to :-
Preservatives: BHA and BHT, both suspected to be carcinogens, research shows that they also can initiate birth defects and damage to liver and kidneys.
Ethoxyquin, also used as a preservative has been associated with:- immune deficiency syndrome, leukaemia, blindness, skin, stomach, spleen, and liver cancer.
Vitamin and minerals:
Choline, Chloride,Calcium Panthenate, Thaimin Mononitrate, Riboflavin Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Biotin, Menadione Dimethylprimidinol Bisulfite, Ascorbic Acid, Iron proteinate, ferrous carbonate and ferrous sulphate, Copper Oxide and copper proteinate, Copper Sulfate
This content has been tested at up to 20 times higher than the recommended daily amount (toxic levels).
Food colouring:
Food colouring is added to this mix in order for it to look good to the consumer (i.e. the pet owner), these and the way that the labels show meat as the upper most ingredient on the list (but is usually only between 4% & 30% of the content), convince us that this is a healthy meal of our beloved carnivorous pet. Visible vegetables – manufacturers have caught on to some of this and a few have added visible amounts of carrot and peas to dog food. Unfortunately carrots are indigestible by dogs and peas contain far too much sugar for them. N.B. There is no governing body for the regulation of the contents of pet food, it is all done by the individual manufacturer.
The Pet Food industry unlike the human food industry are not obliged to list all the ingredients, nor are they obliged to list the contents in any sort of order, therefore they list the tiny "meat and animal derivative" content at the top to make you think that it is the most used ingredient.2005)
