What’s In Your Pet Food?

If you have a weak stomach, read a post about me wiring the house or something. This post is going to be about ingredients in pet food, and it ain’t pretty. I’ll try to keep it short.

I was talking with some fellow pet owners yesterday, and one of them said that pet food companies add “animal digest” materials. That is, euthanized, ground up pets. Added to the pet food. I almost barfed right then and there. I did a little digging and found this interesting piece of information:

AAFCO: A material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed. If it bears a name descriptive of its kind or flavor(s), it must correspond thereto.

A cooked-down broth made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: “4-D animals” (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on.

This website has more specific information on what company uses what. And this website has some information, too. The whole things is DISGUSTING. I cannot BELIEVE that companies would add dead, diseased, crushed-up parts of the same kinds of animals to feed animals! What the heck do they think causes mad-cow disease?!

And of course, when it comes to the human food supply sources, the corruption is so bad that I am apoplectic with fury. I’d read that companies have put human genes in rice, and it’s planted in Kansas. The only good thing coming out of this is that Mr. M may allow us to finally raise chickens around here.

It’s time we consumers took responsibility for our food. Of course, not everyone can raise all their own food, especially us in the Northeast who have such long winters. But we can make a tremendous stink to those food companies, that we are sick and tied of the contamination of our food supply. And folks, try your best to buy local produce and local meats. Farmer’s markets are wonderful, too. Grow your own food if you can.