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WARNING Beneful Dog Food Toxic Read
WHAT'S In YOUR DOGS FOOD
Corpse Kibbles?
The information contained in page report will reveal to you
The SHOCKING Truth about what's in your pet's food.
Did you know that:
== The maximum life span of a DOG is estimated to be about 27 years
yet the average dog lives only approximately 13 years?==
== The maximum life span of a CAT is estimated to be about 25-30
years
yet the average cat lives only approximately 14 years?==
Pet Food Industry advertising promotes the idea that, to keep pets healthy, one must feed them commercially formulated pet foods. But such a diet has been proven to contribute to cancer, skin problems, allergies, hypertension, kidney and liver failure, heart disease and dental problems. Please read the information very carefully, as it can help you to increase your pet's lifespan, overall health and daily well being.
==What's Really in Your Pet Food==
Plump whole chickens, choice cuts of beef, fresh grains, and all
the wholesome nutrition your dog or cat will ever need. These are the images
pet food manufacturers promulgate through the media and advertising. This
is what the $11 billion per year U.S. pet food industry wants consumers
to believe they are buying when they purchase their products. This report
explores the differences between what consumers think they are buying and
what they are actually getting. It focuses in very general terms on the
most visible name brands - the pet food labels that are mass-distributed
to supermarkets and discount stores - but there are many highly respected
brands that may be guilty of the same offenses.
What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an
extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides
a market for slaughterhouse throw aways, grains considered "unfit for human
consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This
waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and possibly diseased and
cancerous animal parts. Three of the five major pet food companies in the
United States are subsidiaries of major multinational companies: Nestlé
(Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog), Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy
Train, Kibbles n Bits, Recipe, Vets), Colgate-Palmolive (Hill's Science
Diet Pet Food). Other leading companies are Procter & Gamble (Eukanuba
and Iams), Mars (Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba), and Nutro. From a
business standpoint, multinational 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.
== General Pet Food Ingredients==
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.
However, about 50% of every food-producing animal does not get used in human foods. Whatever remains of the carcass - bones, blood, intestines, lungs, ligaments, and almost all the other parts not generally consumed by humans - is used in pet food, animal feed, and other products. 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. 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 growth of the pet food industry not only provided pet owners with better foods for their pets, but also created profitable additional markets for American farm products and for the byproducts of the meat packing, poultry, and other food industries which prepare food for human consumption."
Many of these remnants provide a questionable source of nourishment for our animals. The nutritional quality of meat and poultry by-products, meals, and digests can vary from batch to batch. 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." Meat and poultry meals, by-product meals, and meat-and-bone meal are common ingredients in pet foods.
The term "meal" means that these materials are not used fresh, but
have been 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." Home-made chicken
soup, with its thick layer of fat that forms over the top when the soup
is cooled, is a sort of mini-rendering process. Rendering separates fat-soluble
from water-soluble and solid materials, and kills bacterial contaminants,
but may alter or destroy some of the natural enzymes and proteins found
in the raw ingredients. What can the feeding of such products do to your
companion animal? Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse
wastes to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative
diseases. The cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers - such as
rendering and extruding (a heat- and-pressure system used to "puff" dry
foods into nuggets or kibbles) - do not necessarily destroy the hormones
used to fatten livestock or increase milk production, or drugs such as
antibiotics or the barbiturates used to euthanize animals.
==Specific PetFood Ingredients==
Animal and Poultry Fat You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor
when you open a new bag of pet food -- what is the source of that delightful
smell? It is most often rendered animal fat, restaurant grease, or 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. "Fat blenders" or rendering companies then pick up this used 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 and other end users. These fats are sprayed directly
onto dried kibbles 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 such as digests. 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, cereal and grain products
now replace a considerable proportion of the meat that was used in the
first commercial pet foods.
The availability of nutrients in these 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 the nutritional value 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. Some ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used for filler or fiber, and have no significant nutritional value. Two of the top three ingredients in pet foods, particularly dry foods, 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. 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 or "mycotoxin," a toxic substance produced by mold) contaminating the wheat. In 1999, another fungal toxin triggered the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care at one of its plants, including Ol' Roy (Wal-Mart's brand) and 53 other brands. This time, the toxin killed 25 dogs. Although it caused many dogs to vomit, stop eating, and have diarrhea, vomitoxin is a milder toxin than most. The more dangerous mycotoxins can cause weight loss, liver damage, lameness, and even death as in the Doane case.
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." Soy
is another common ingredient that is sometimes used as a protein and energy
source in pet food. Manufacturers also use it to add bulk so that when
an animal eats a product containing soy he will feel more satisfied. While
soy has been linked to gas in some dogs, other dogs do quite well with
it.
MORE ABOUT COMMERCIAL DOG FOOD PAGE 3Vegetarian dog foods use soy as a protein source.
http://www.Pet-Health.org
