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i recently found out that in some brand name pet foods they use by-products from slaughterhouses, like the eyes, bone, hair, balls, teeth, etc. of cows and what not, but euthinised pets from shelters?!!
In Los Angeles alone, two hundred tons of euthanized animals including dogs are delivered to rendering plants on a monthly basis. Almost seven million dogs and cats are killed in dog pounds each year. Many of these end up at rendering plants.
Moderator cut: read TOS, can only quote 1-2 sentences and provide link
so whay do you think? real Moderator cut: inappropriate language? or someone out there on the web trying to smear dog food companys? whats your input?
Last edited by SouthernBelleInUtah; 02-26-2011 at 07:25 AM..
You wanna know what's even freakier? Brand-name commercial soap - such as that 99-44/100% pure Ivory Soap...
is made using the fat from those rendering plants. That is why they render it in the first place. Ivory Soap is 99-44/100% pure - rendered Bambi, Spot, and Fluffy fat.
The FDA tested pet foods to see if they contained dog or cat DNA, and concluded that they did not: Food and Drug Administration/Center for Veterinary Medicine Report on the Risk from Pentobarbital in Dog Food (http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CVM/CVMFOIAElectronicReadingRoom/ucm129131.htm - broken link)
A lot of the text from the link posted above seems to have come from this page: The Truth About Pet Food - Prepare To Be Shocked! (http://www.hugsandstitches.com/petfood.htm - broken link) It includes text that suggests that euthanized pets are used in making pet food, citing the study that found sodium pentobarital in pet food as proof. No mention is made of the DNA testing for dogs and cats that was done, probably because that website is in the business of selling pet food. It also doesn't mention that the levels found in pet food were determined to be safe.
Should we use better food for our pets? Probably. I don't believe we're feeding them dead dogs and cats though.
Thank you for this link. It gives me a glimmer of hope at least that euthanized animals aren't winding up in pet food. I wonder where the pentobarbitol came from though? It would have been nice if they had addressed this.
"Sampling was non-representative. Samples were purchased from retail outlets in the Laurel, MD, area. Only dry dog foods with certain animal-derived ingredients were sampled. This selection pattern meant that the samples were not representative of dog food nationwide or even locally.It also means that the data cannot be used to draw inferences about dog food being produced and sold in the U.S. today. The concentration of pentobarbital, if present in any U.S. pet food, may be different than the findings of these surveys. The results apply only to the specific lots analyzed."
So much for the FDA...they are a very small outfit and are not able to qualify or sample all commercially produced pet foods in this country. The data shows that they concluded dead animals 'may've' been present in pet foods, and that in their limited sampling dog and cat renderings were not found.
You wanna know what's even freakier? Brand-name commercial soap - such as that 99-44/100% pure Ivory Soap...
is made using the fat from those rendering plants. That is why they render it in the first place. Ivory Soap is 99-44/100% pure - rendered Bambi, Spot, and Fluffy fat.
This is kind of freaky and unpleasant to think about, but just like Plains Indians utilized every part of animals they slaughtered, and nature uses decaying matter to grow new plants, it almost seems respectful to utilize the animals bodies, rather than use up other resources for these products. Although all my deceased dogs are near me on a shelf in my living room and my current pets will be someday too. I don't know, does this thought sound creepy?
Edit: To be clear, I'm talking about using the bodies like tallow. I'm NOT talking about using diseased animals euthanized with pentobarbitol to feed to other animals.
Last edited by subject2change; 02-26-2011 at 10:57 AM..
I've read things suggesting the pentobarbital may have come from euthanized horses. It doesn't seem like there would be that many euthanized horses, in proportion to the other animal carcasses,,and cows are not slaughtered that way.
One disturbing thing to consider is that the products of rendering plants go into other animal feed, not just pet food. It's used in feed for pigs, cows and poultry, including dairy cows.
the problem is not with the animal byproducts themselves...its a combination of the fact that in a food containing "chicken byproduct" the byproduct is the ONLY meat source and anyone thats eaten chicken feet and seen chicken beaks knows theres not much meat on them...
the byproduct usually does NOT contain organs...chicken hears and livers are removed...byproduct will occaisoanlly contain the green tripe (uncleaned digestive tract) which is fine and actually beef green tripe is highly reguarded in the raw dog food community...but the crop (often filled with rocks...) is also included, and absolutly useless...the small rocks and sand in the crop get ground up along with everything else...
plus the fact that those byproducts also contain unknown parts of animals disesed and euthanized animals, and my favorite FLOOR SWEEPINGS...
yes thats right, EVERYtHING off the floor, dust, shavings, bone dust, anything those things have absorbed before being swept up (like bleach)
things like brewers rice...it isnt even rice...its the HUSK! yes, the shell, the bit we dont eat because its nutritionally useless...
corn in itself is useless too, we cant digest it (thats why it looks the same in and out) heck, even cors cant properly digest corn...why then is it a main ingredient in many petfoods...true not abyproduct...btu stull nutritioanlly useles...its bulk...filler...
the ONLY time my dogs get "byproduct" is if i feed them raw and thats because i follow a prey model diet (and i will eventually be switching them to 100% prey model raw) and in that feeding method you essentially give your animal the whole animal, its a more natural way of eating...but for prey model feeders who feed whole prey the dog typically chooses to leave the stomach contents, crops, beaks and feathers of birds...ect...
so then why, if a dog would naturally choose to leave these things...should they be the main "meat" source in some pet foods?
i have a big problem with them putting euthanized animals in pet food partially because of the chemicals these animals are killed with, partially because canibalism is NOT natural...
did you know BSE was caused by plants making COW feed out of SHEEP!...
sheep carry the BSE but are uneffected, but the cow has no immunity and when they put the mutton and lamb into cows feed to up the protein there was a massive outbreak of BSE in cows tainting thousands of tonnes of beef, causing human issues and market issues which are still being felt today...
i cant even donate blood because i lived in the uk and 10 yrs later i MIGHT have bse form eating tainted beef...
why of why would you feed a cow, a ruminant herbivore SHEEP! because its was cheap source to up the protein in the cow feed to make the cows grow quicker for meat production...
in the wild as far as my reaserch has shown wolves do not canibalize their own...they will kill tresspassing wolves and yet even if starving wolves will choose not to eat the dead wolf...
so knowing that it would be very unnatural for a canine to eat another canine (again theyll kill eachother but not eat them) why would it be OK for pet food companies to grind up euthanized dogs and put them in dog food?
im all about feeding as natural as possible...and will e practicing what i preech as soon as i have my own place with a freezer big enough to store healthy meat (no chemicals, no hormones...) at which time they will be switched to 100% prey model raw.
again i have no problem with natural byproducts as long as there not the main/only meat source...
i DO have a problem with all the other stuff that gets dumped in WITH the animal byproducts.
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