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Cornucopia Institute Pet Food Report

The Cornucopia Institute has recently published an extensive report on the current conditions of pet food. It’s a very good read, they share to a new audience many of the concerns that we discuss here at TAPF.

The Cornucopia Institute has recently published an extensive report on the current conditions of pet food. It’s a very good read, they share to a new audience many of the concerns that we discuss here at TAPF.

What I am most pleased with in the Cornucopia Institute’s new report on pet food – Decoding Pet Food Labels: Avoiding harmful ingredients for your dogs and cats – is they have everything right and they are reaching another audience of consumers that perhaps are unfamiliar with feed grade or rendered pet food ingredients. The more education provided to consumers, the healthier their pets can become.

A concern to me reading their report was this sentence: “China also supplies ingredients that go into pet food made in the U.S. and Canada, including pea protein, soy protein, vitamins, and minerals.” We are well aware that China provides many supplements in pet foods, but I was not aware that China is a leading exporter of pea protein. Pea protein is a commonly used ingredient in grain free pet foods. If your grain free pet food includes this ingredient – call or email the manufacturer and ask the country of origin of all ingredients.

The Cornucopia Institute pet food report does not shy away from one of the biggest secrets of pet food – rendered pets in pet food. In fact they named names of companies that render dead pets. “In fact, the two largest companies that pick up carcasses from shelters and clinics, D&D Disposal, Inc. and Koefran, Inc. are both owned by rendering companies (West Coast Rendering and Reno Rendering, respectively).”

And they address the FDA Compliance policies that allow diseased animals and animals that have died other than by slaughter into pet food. “Since these materials are processed at very high temperatures, their nutritional value is degraded compared to fresh meat that would qualify for human consumption. Research has demonstrated that carcinogenic heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are formed when muscle meat is cooked at high temperatures.”

“The primary reason why “adulterated” ingredients from dead and downer animals have not been prohibited from pet and animal feed in the U.S. is economic. Due to the cost of their disposal, and the environmental and human health risks of improper disposal, there is economic incentive for the use of these materials.”

“There is no denying that there are environmental challenges surrounding the disposal of SRMs, and dead and downer animals. But putting this material into animal food to increase the profitability of rendering plants, live-stock producers, and pet food companies is clearly not an ethical solution to the problem.”

The Cornucopia Institute report provides warnings linked to science of common pet food ingredients including Carrageenan, Synthetic Preservatives (BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin), BPA, Sodium Selenite, Food Dyes, and Grains.

It is a great read – I encourage all to look it over. You can access the report and a consumer ‘buying guide’ from this page on the Cornucopia Institute website. My thanks to them for doing a fantastic job at reporting the ‘truth about the pet food’ industry. Click Here to go to the Cornucopia Institute website.

 

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food

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10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Anthony Hepton

    December 4, 2015 at 4:20 pm

    Cornucopia has identified a critical component of the pet food crisis. There is no HACCP on the part of independent renderers. They are willing, may be enthusiastic, to process any and all animals delivered to be rendered. Most of the animal material rendered probably impose no major concern to pet health as millions of pets are fed these products with no serious consequences, although I suspect that there are many sub critical adverse affects, like intestinal inflammation and periodic weight loss. The most serious effects will occur when a small percentage of the ingredients deliver serious levels of toxic contaminants that lead to illness and often to death of pets. The pet food manufacturers have an obligation to demand that their suppliers have in place both hazard analyses and critical control points that assure the hazards do not enter their supply chain, this does not appear to be the case and consequently we have periodic episodes of bad product leading to illnesses and deaths.

  2. Jane Eagle

    December 4, 2015 at 7:50 pm

    I must disagree with Anthony Hepton, above; over 80% of dogs in the USA die of cancer. I suspect this is a long-term effect due to constant ingestion of toxic feed. I love my dogs: I won’t feed them toxic garbage so some corporation can make money.

    On an entirely different note, I just want to say that I really REALLY enjoy all the pictures of pets on these pages: all beautiful. Thanks to everyone who posts them!

    • Anthony Hepton

      December 4, 2015 at 8:44 pm

      Jane, there may well be long term accumulation of adverse toxins, such as low level mycotoxins, that can induce cancer, but so little is known regarding the cause of cancer that I would not choose to speculate on that subject. I just wanted to focus on the numerous, though small percentage, number of serious illnesses and deaths that have clear association with the feeding of a particular brand of pet food.

      • Samantha C

        December 8, 2015 at 12:16 am

        Well, Anthony, one of the reasons for the cause of cancer is the rendering of meats at high temperatures as well as cooking the meats for long periods of time as you can read from the website by googling the words that the Cornucopia Institute mentioned: “carcinogenic heterocyclic amines” (as well as googling “polyclyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” which we really can’t do much about, as you can read why…..it’s everywhere!)

        Besides the pet food manufacturers causing the meat to be cancerous by rendering the carcasses that are picked up from shelters, apparently we humans, also, cause our meat to be cancerous in our own meat products when we cook them at too high of temperatures, or for too long.

        While the website I mentioned above is pretty difficult to comprehend for anybody but a scientist, I was still able to understand the gist of what they were trying to get across to the reader.

        Well, I guess I could have gone to Conucopia Institute’s website too. But I’m so glad that someone has finally stood up and has proclaimed the truth about the pet food….and the point Susan Thixton and her colleagues have been striving for all these years.

    • barbara m.

      December 4, 2015 at 9:29 pm

      Jane might benefit from reading Susan’s September post called The Elephant in Pet Food regarding endotoxins, one of the end results of rendering that can illness in animals. Endotoxins cannot be killed by heat. Manufacturers do not test for endotoxins. They are known to cause liver and gastrointestinal disease, and may be misdiagnosed as cancer. I hope that someone more knowledgeable than I would weigh in on this subject.

  3. PC

    December 5, 2015 at 4:13 am

    Cancer is very much on the rise in the canine species. Many contributing factors, including over vaccination. However, pet food has to be a major factor given the total toxic standards of food production. As I step into the world of feeding raw, I now must consider now that if I buy raw chicken and vegetables for example, they must also be pesticide, antibiotic free, hormone free, etc. It’s a dirty world of food production all round.

  4. Lynn Lassen

    December 6, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    Anyone concerned about pet health should read Canine Nutrigenomics by Dr. Jean Dodds.

  5. SharonO

    December 28, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    shared with facebook friend and got this back – do you know? “Do you know why most organic foods seem to be canned? I wonder if it preserves better?”

    • Susan Thixton

      December 28, 2015 at 5:55 pm

      My guess would be the facility the pet food is made it – the facility would have to meet Organic Standards and my guess is that most kibble manufacturing facilities don’t. Also it could be ingredients used in kibble – fewer organic options.

  6. Mary Ann Peddicord

    July 29, 2017 at 1:55 am

    It is simple if we feed our beloved pets “commercial pet food” we are slowly poisoning them!

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