Is Your Pet Food Company Dumpster Diving for its Ingredients?
By Deb Dempsey
Several recent articles, including one in Consumer Reports, have suggested that cheaper brands of dog food are just as good as their more expensive counterparts. I seriously beg to differ, although these articles do make an important point: the quality of a dog food cannot be determined by price alone. I base my opinion of quality and value on scrutiny of individual ingredients; not the blind acceptance of an AAFCO statement of nutritional adequacy. If you look closely at a pet food label, you’ll probably find a statement that reads:
“[Pet food name] has been formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles for all life stages of a dog.”
Sounds impressive right? This is the statement that some “experts” point to as the gold standard for determining pet food quality. This statement doesn’t tell you much about the food, except that it contains the minimum amount of nutrients that AAFCO deems appropriate for a dog to survive while eating the food.
I’d venture to guess that most pet owners have absolutely no idea what AAFCO stands for, let alone how this organization is involved in the pet food industry. AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials, Incorporated) is a corporation that was created in 1909 to establish a framework for uniform regulation of the feed industry, including companion animals—our dogs and cats. This seemingly impressive organization is made up of regulatory officials from the FDA, USDA and the Department of Agriculture. While only regulatory officials can join as official members, AAFCO Industry Advisors include some of the largest pet food manufacturers in the world, the National Grain and Feed Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Oilseed Processors and the NRA (National Renderers Association). The guidelines and definitions AAFCO sets are published in the AAFCO Annual Publication. This publication is then sold and used as a virtual bible by regulatory agencies across the country to regulate the pet food industry.
I visited the Colorado Department of Agriculture in April to take a closer look at this publication, as most of the information I had questions about was not available on the AAFCO Web site. I wanted to read the official AAFCO definition of various pet food ingredients and see for myself if their standards were similar to mine. What I found disgusted me. This selfappointed body of experts has approved and defined all kinds of recycled products for use as protein sources in the animal food industry including dehydrated garbage, hydrolyzed poultry feathers and dried swine waste (excreta). Rather than concentrating on the worst examples, I found myself zeroing in on three ingredients that are frequently found on pet food labels in grocery store shelves. These ingredients pass AAFCO’s muster but personally, make me cringe.
Meat Meal AAFCO’s definition: the rendered product from mammal tissues, including bone, exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices.
Meat meal is a rendered product and believe me, that process is not a palatable one to research. According to the National Renderers Association’s Web site: “Every year, the North American rendering industry recycles approximately 59 billion pounds of perishable material generated by the livestock and poultry, meat/poultry processing, food processing, supermarket and restaurant industries. The rendering industry turns this material into valuable ingredients for various soaps, paints and varnishes, cosmetics, explosives, toothpaste, pharmaceuticals, leather, textiles and lubricants. But the majority of its finished products are destined for the feed industry.”
The FDA had originally proposed (FDA Docket No. 2002N- 0273) to prohibit all dead and downer animals (“cattle not inspected and passed for human consumption”) from any feed unless the brains and spinal cords are removed in order to minimize the transfer of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy a.k.a. Mad Cow Disease). Tommy Irvin, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Agriculture, penned a memo in 2005 requesting that the FDA reconsider, as “independent renderers currently provide a service to Georgia’s beef and dairy industry by recycling offal, dead livestock and downer animals into animal feed.” At the time I submitted this article, the FDA had delayed their original proposal and it is still legal to dispose of these in our pets’ food.
My position on this ingredient: I don’t like meat meal because many dogs are sensitive to particular proteins and an unwitting pet owner has no idea whether it contains chicken, lamb, horse, rat or zebra. What might be included in one batch could be different in the next, which can throw an allergy prone dog into a virtual tizzy of scratching and digestive discomfort. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, in 2002, acknowledged that the sodium pentobarbital (a barbiturate used to end an animal’s life) “seems to be able to survive the rendering process.” (Euthanized animals are not prohibited from use in the rendering process). More specifically, a study found buried deep within the FDA’s Web site, outlines specific brands that were tested and shown to contain sodium pentobarbital remains (http://www.fda.gov/ cvm/FOI/dfchart.htm). I’d rather save sodium pentobarbital for an end of life situation and not include it in my dog’s daily diet.
Corn Gluten Meal – AAFCO’s definition: the dried residue from corn after the removal of the larger part of the starch and germ, and the separation of the bran by the process employed in the wet milling manufacture of corn starch or syrup or by enzymatic treatment of the endosperm.
In other words, corn gluten meal is a byproduct of the corn syrup industry. There’s an awful lot of that available these days, considering how much of it is used in the human food industry. For this reason, perhaps it’s not surprising that corn gluten meal has become a prevalent ingredient in pet foods. Incidentally, researchers at Iowa State University have also patented corn gluten meal for use as a pre-emergent weed killer.
My position on this ingredient: I won’t let my dogs (or my husband for that matter) eat this. Corn is often vilified as an ingredient that dogs are allergic to. But consider this - a large percentage of corn grown in this country is actually GMO (Genetically Modified Organism, a.k.a. Roundup Ready® or Frankenfood) and has been treated to withstand spray after spray of the weed killer Roundup® in the field. (Roundup® and Roundup Ready® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Company.) One might ask, is it the actual corn that a dog is allergic to or is it perhaps the fact that it’s GMO? The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations expressed concern that the transfer of allergenic genes could “be accidentally transferred from one species to another, causing potential allergic reactions in humans.” I personally wonder if this would also apply to dogs. Although China, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and all of the European Union Nations require GMO labeling on products containing this technology and six European countries now outlaw some GMO corn, the FDA does not require GMO labeling on products in the U.S. The only way to prevent eating this yourself or feeding it to your pet is to purchase organic corn or avoid the ingredient altogether.
Ground peanut hulls – AAFCO’s definition: Consists of the outer hull of the peanut shell.
A good way to understand this ingredient is to visualize all the piles of peanut shells left on the ground after a baseball game. Peanut hulls (shells) constitute about a quarter of a peanut’s weight, which would otherwise be discarded and create a significant waste-disposal problem. Instead, the hull is finely ground and incorporated into pet food. Peanut hulls in “weight loss” dog foods are fillers that are often used to make a dog feel full. This high fiber filler is just that—filler.
My position on this ingredient: Disgusting. Peanut hulls are also used as a carrier for pesticides (e.g. insecticides), drying agent for fertilizer and chemicals, abrasive for cleaning compounds, driller’s mud, cat litter, absorbents, cattle feed pellets, fuel pellets and mulch. I personally think those are much more appropriate uses for this product than feeding it to my dogs. Peanut hulls (and corn) are particularly susceptible to aflatoxin, a potentially fatal poison produced by a fungus called Aspergillus Flavus. This poison was the subject of a major pet food recall in 2005. By the way, pecan hulls (shells) are expected to be approved by AAFCO as yet another filler in the very near future.
The AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement, “Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that [pet food name] provides complete and balanced nutrition” sounds impressive to the naked eye. But keep in mind, this assures pet owners that a minimum of six out of eight dogs were able to survive (and not lose more than 15 percent of their body weight) 26 weeks while eating this particular food. I personally want more than that for my four-legged family members. A cheap dog food may meet AAFCO’s minimum standards, but before you purchase it, think about whether it meets yours.
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