What's in Pet Food?

When we buy pet food, we are bombarded with images of happy, healthy pets sitting under a rainstorm of prime cuts of beef, fresh vegetables, hearty grains, vitamins and minerals, which in combination instantly give your dog a shiny coat, a healthy immune system, and a happy disposition. The ingredients in our pet food, however, never meet these standards.
The primary ingredient in any pet food is a protein source. The protein source is primarily derived from animals (although sometimes from vegetables or other sources), but not in the ways that you might think. When animals are slaughtered, the choice cuts are parceled out and allotted for human consumption. The remains, including bones, blood, intestines, ligaments, and various other pieces which are deemed unfit for human consumption, are allocated to pet food, then ground up and dried into a fine powder known as “meal”. The remains which are used to make the pet food meal are of questionable nutritive value. Fresh meat contains many complexes with important consequences for the physical health of an animal organism. There is little or no nutritive value in the bones, ligaments, and other connective joinery which make up the bulk of the meal used for pet food. Another common ingredient in animal meal used for pet food is, surprisingly, dogs and cats. Although the pet food industry has frequently denied it, third party reports from the American Veterenary Medical Association has reported the frequent use of euthanized animals as a key component in meal used for pet food. The Pentobarbital which is used to euthanize animals is not cooked out or chemically altered by the rendering process, and therefore makes its way into the finished pet food. Further complicating the issue is the fact that there is no unilaterally required standard in the pet food industry for the makeup of animal meal, as it is manufactured from scraps which necessarily vary from batch to batch. Therefore statements made by the pet food manufacturers about the composition or health values or risks of animal meal can only be speculative, and it is impossible to be sure exactly what we are feeding our pets, even from can to can of the same pet food from the same source.
If you read the label of many pet foods, the main ingredient appears to be fresh meat (usually chicken), and much lower down the list you will find the “meal” component of the pet food. This is due to the misleading way in which ingredients can be displayed on pet food labels. The federal government requires labels for pet foods to include a list of ingredients, by descending weight. This weight, however, is allowed to include water weight. A massive pile of powdered animal meal is easily outweighed by even a small portion of poor quality fresh chicken, and allows pet food manufacturers to proudly display on their labels “primary ingredient- fresh chicken” which is legally true even though only a tiny fraction of the pet food is actually constituted by fresh meat.
How have pet food manufacturers been allowed to run so rampant in their practices? The sad fact is, the primary reason is due to consumer complacency. As pet owners, we are charged with caring for another life, and it is part of that charge to provide the best possible care we can. Many pet owners, though, do not ask the right questions about pet food, or care enough to find out the answers. We owe it to our pets and ourselves to take a definitive stand against the reprehensible practices so prevalent in the pet food industry which is supposed to care for “man’s best friend”.