While I was fighting to save my beloved kitty Peewee from a whole host of deadly ailments in 2003, my pet sitter Jackie encouraged me to learn more about what I had been feeding my finicky kitty for most of his life. He had always refused the "premium" foods in favor of Friskies and Fancy Feast. I began to Google questions about his illnesses along with advice for pet nutrition, and I was horrified by what I discovered. Giving Peewee the stuff he had liked over the years had no doubt accelerated the progress of the genetic illnesses he was born with, and gave him additional problems that made his inherited illnesses impossible to successfully treat. Why was Peewee so hooked on those awful foods? Corn syrup was a big part of the problem; it's an unhealthy ingredient for cats (and for us, too) but it's addictive-plus, the pet food companies receive government subsidies for including it in their foods. And the "premium" foods like Iams and Eukanuba? They weren't significantly better. The high price of those foods comes more from their expensive marketing campaigns than from better ingredients.
Here is just one of the articles out there on what's really included in commercial pet foods:
Poisons in Pet Food from Alternative Medicine Magazine, May 1998
A homeopath of our acquaintance, who specializes in animal health, recently reported that nearly all of her new cases are dogs and cats with cancer. This is a most unusual and alarming trend, she told us.
One of the reasons American dogs and cats are getting very sick can be found in the pet foods they eat every day. The realities of animal health aren't much different than human health: if you consume a diet of toxins, eventually you will get terribly sick.
Don't expect the food label to be any true guide to the product's contents. The list of ingredients on that bag of dry pet food or can of "meat" can mask the toxic horrors behind innocuous-sounding phrases such as "meat meal," "bone meal," and "meat by-products." It's the substances you don't know about in that can of pet food that may sicken or even kill your pet.
The list of materials that go into the rendering process is extensive and horrific. When cattle, sheep and poultry are slaughtered for human consumption, the parts deemed unsuitable for eating, heads (including growth hormone implants in cattle), skin, fat containing pesticide residues, toenails, hair or feathers, joints, hooves, stomach and bowels are rendered.
Other animal parts sent to rendering plants include cancerous tissues, worm-infested organs, contaminated blood and blood clots. Compounding these toxins, slaughterhouses add carbolic acid and fuel oil to these remnants as a way of marking these foods as unfit for human consumption.
Meat and poultry by-products, another major category of pet food ingredients, are the unrendered parts of the animal left over after slaughter, everything deemed unfit for human consumption. In cattle and sheep, this includes the brain, liver, kidneys, spleen, lungs, blood, bones, fatty tissue, stomachs and intestines. The items on this list that would normally be consumed by humans, such as the liver, would have to be diseased or contaminated before they could be designated for pet food. Poultry by-products include heads, feet, intestines, undeveloped eggs, chicken feathers and egg shells.
The primary ingredient in many dry commercial pet foods is not protein but cereal. Corn and wheat are the most common grains used but, as with the meat sources, the nutritious parts of the grain are generally present only in trace amounts. The corn gluten meal or wheat middlings added to pet foods are the leftovers after the grain has been processed for human use, containing little nutritional value.
Or they may be grain that is too moldy for humans to eat, so it's incorporated into pet food.
Mycotoxins, potentially deadly fungal toxins that multiply in moldy grains, have been found in pet foods in recent years. In 1995, Nature's Recipe recalled tons of their dog food after dogs became ill from eating it. The food was found to contain vomitoxin, a mycotoxin.
Harmful chemicals and preservatives are added to both wet and dry food. For example, sodium nitrite, a coloring agent and preservative and potential carcinogen, is a common additive. Other preservatives include ethoxyquin (an insecticide that has been linked to liver cancer) and BHA and BHT, chemicals also suspected of causing cancer. The average dog can consume as much as 26 pounds of preservatives every year from eating commercial dog foods.
Recent studies have shown processed foods to be a factor in increasing numbers of pets suffering from cancer, arthritis, obesity, dental disease and heart disease. Dull or unhealthy coats are a common problem with cats and dogs and poor diet is usually the cause, according to many veterinarians and breeders. The AAFCO nutrient profiles may play a role here, in the balanced" nutritional levels they recommend may be inadequate for an individual animal.
It is estimated that up to two million companion animals suffer from food allergies.
Dr. Plechner believes that the commercial pet foods are a primary cause and can contribute to a host of health problems.
"Among pets, there is a widespread intolerance of commercial foods," he states. "This rejection can show up either as violent sickness or chronic health problems. It often triggers a hypersensitivity and overreaction to flea and insect bites, pollens, soaps, sprays and environmental contaminants."
Feline Urological Syndrome, a chronic condition similar to cystitis in humans (characterized by frequent urination with blood in the urine), is an increasingly common and potentially fatal illness in cats. It has been linked to elevated levels of ash and phosphorus, two substances commonly found in commercial pet foods. High iodine levels are seen as a contributing factor for thyroid tumors in cats. "New diseases are being discovered that are linked to '100% complete' diets," states Dr Wysong. These include Polymyopathy (a muscle disorder) from low potassium levels, dilated Cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disorder) from low taurine levels, arthritic and skin diseases from acid/base and zinc malnutrition and chronic eczema from essential fatty acid malnutrition," he reports.
Given the high possibility that your favorite pet foods may be slowly poisoning your cat or dog, it's crucial that you find brands you can trust to be animal friendly.
http://www.frrhealthypet.com/id2.htmlPOLLUTED PET FOOD
Commercial pet food and stock feed contain a cocktail of dead domestic animals and deadly environmental toxins.
I'm not going to post these short articles, because they are a bit TOO disturbing (animal shelters sending pet remains to rendering plants for use in pet foods and other vile practices). Here's a link if you feel you need to know more:
http://www.frrhealthypet.com/id35.htmlSo, what's a caring pet owner to do? Jackie pointed me in the direction of Pookie's Bow wow Bakery, a holistic pet food store in Winter Park, Florida. They gave me samples and loads of information about the many brands of holistic, HUMAN GRADE pet foods out there, including Wellness, Artemis, Organix, Innova, Orijen, Merrick, California Naturals, Halo, and many more. It was too late for Peewee; he lost his battles on August 1st of 2003. But there's still plenty of time for your fur kids.
Some links for holistic foods:
www.pookiesbowwowbakery.com
www.waggintails.com
www.nationalpetpharmacy.com (search the natural food section)
www.halopets.com
www.artemiscompany.com (has a search function to find holistic pet food retailers in your area)
www.naturesvariety.com
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