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Pet Food Ingredients

The Truth Spilled

A semi-truck carrying “chopped dead fish” meant for cat food overturned in Washington state. The picture posted speaks to the many truths of pet food.

A semi-truck carrying “chopped dead fish” meant for cat food overturned in Washington state. The picture posted speaks to the many truths of pet food.

This fishy accident happened in 2012 – but the image still speaks volumes about pet food. From Seattlepi.com

FishCatFoodTruck

Notice – this trailer, hauling this huge load of scrap pieces of fish – is not refrigerated. Pet food (excuse me…pet feed) regulations do not require raw materials to be transported or warehoused under refrigeration or frozen. In other words – pet feed ingredients such as meat or fish – could be spoiling/rotting for days before it becomes a pet food (feed).

Below is a video put together by Discovery/Science Channel’s How It’s Made. This episode is how kibble is made.

This video is an interesting look into how kibble is manufactured (notice the dirty equipment). At about 38 seconds into the video, you’ll see this image below…

meatmeal3

This is meat meal. This brown powder being added into the pet food is the ‘meat’ source of the pet food.

Here is a picture (provided to me by a pet food manufacturing employee) of meat meal being unloaded at a pet food plant.

meatmeal2

 

If pet food consumers were told the truth on the labels of pet food, this would be the look of most pet foods on store shelves…

petfoodlabel4

petfoodlabel3

But…as we all can guess…the above labels probably wouldn’t sell much pet food would it?

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

What’s in Your Pet’s Food?
Is your dog or cat eating risk ingredients?  Chinese imports?  Petsumer Report tells the ‘rest of the story’ on over 2500 cat foods, dog foods,  and pet treats.  30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. www.PetsumerReport.com

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The 2015 List
Susan’s List of trusted pet foods.  Click Here

 

Have you read Buyer Beware?  Click Here

Cooking for pets made easy, Dinner PAWsible

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29 Comments

29 Comments

  1. Wil Rutar

    February 4, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    Wonder if Hazmat was called to the scene?

    • Susan Thixton

      February 4, 2015 at 1:08 pm

      Good point!

      • Norma

        February 25, 2015 at 4:51 pm

        Dear Susan, Is Pedigree dog food a good dog food choice for my dog

        • Susan Thixton

          February 25, 2015 at 6:29 pm

          The only way I can respond is to tell you that I would not provide my own pets Pedigree dog food. I only give my pets a food grade ingredient food – Pedigree is a feed grade ingredient pet food. You can read more on this site about the difference between feed quality ingredients and food quality ingredients.

        • Ellie

          March 3, 2015 at 11:02 am

          Look at the ingredient list and use your own judgement. If you did not have pet food available is this what you would choose to give your pet? I doubt it.

  2. Terri Janson

    February 4, 2015 at 1:22 pm

    Sickening!!!!

  3. Jude

    February 4, 2015 at 1:40 pm

    Lovely. I can’t seem to make a dent in helping people to understand what’s really in their pet food. I think denial is much easier for them to swallow than accepting that they are giving their pets food that can make them sick or kill them from diseases.

    Very sad.

    • Ellie

      March 3, 2015 at 11:14 am

      They eat poor quality highly processed food as well. Everyone thinks the government is watching out for them. By now it should be very evident that this is not true on many levels.

  4. J King

    February 4, 2015 at 1:49 pm

    Totally disgusting!! But to a suit in an office, apart from sheer volume, this spill isn’t too fundimentally different from road kill. Why do I suspect they just scraped the crap of the asphalt, hired another truck and sent it back on its stinky way? Or am I just getting way, way too cynical?

  5. Kat Trabert

    February 4, 2015 at 1:50 pm

  6. Erica

    February 4, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    Jude,
    Susan posted a great article the other day , called “The Pet Food Consumer’s Mantra: Food, Not Feed”

    truthaboutpetfood.com › Pet Food Ingredients

    It gave the suggestion how to easily explain how bad pet food is to the pet food consumer. In summary it said to explain the difference between food and feed to them. Then explain that many pet foods are really pet feed. same laws a regulations apply to pet food as does pet feed.

  7. anne

    February 4, 2015 at 3:59 pm

    I know a couple who have owned and operated a very high end pet food and supply store for more than a decade. They have many of the top brands available,organic, freeze dried, holistic and raw etc. Yet they feed their own animals home made food, even though they have access to all the top end choices …tells you something, doesn’t it!??

    • Ellie

      March 3, 2015 at 11:23 am

      Even many of what people think are some of the best brands are still highly processed food. No one pays top dollar for fresh foods that are going to go through such an extreme process.
      When foods are processed they lose the original nutritional value so the manufacturer has to add synthetic vitamins in an attempt to bring the product up to speed nutritionally. Any nutritionist will tell you that you cannot replace the real nutrition of fresh food with synthetic vitamins..
      Few people pay attention to nutrition these days. Convince seems to trump common sense.

  8. sage

    February 4, 2015 at 5:10 pm

    Too bad someone with a dash-cam couldn’t follow this fish after it’s picked up to see where it ends up!

    No wonder pets are getting sick and dying in record numbers. It’s not just government regulations (or no regulations) that allow the worst possible ingredients into so called food for pets, but then the already contaminated material can travel with no refrigeration getting more toxic by the minute.

    Actually maybe it’s more amazing that any commercial pet food is safe.

  9. Terri janson

    February 4, 2015 at 9:24 pm

    Yes I too get the looks from people who I tell the truth about what’s really in dog and cat food. Also guinea pig food too. I’m tired of some people thinking I am a nut..bit I will continue to tell all. I will never shut up! They say..well then how can it be on store shelves if it’s not safe. Then they glaze over…of course they don’t understand about GMOS either…..

  10. Lisa Parker

    February 4, 2015 at 9:52 pm

    Oh my. How nauseating. I’m going to keep this email so that I can send these videos to my friends who still feed their animals this so called “pet food”.

    And yes, I agree with the other posters. They probably shoveled it into another truck and sent it on to its original destination. Horrible.

  11. Pat P.

    February 4, 2015 at 10:24 pm

    I read more articles that upset me about pet food, which really makes me want to make it for my cats. Unfortunately, I am not well and can barely manage to feed them any food, let alone make it. I ordered Susan’s 2015 list, and there is only one canned cat food on it, which my cats won’t eat. Neither cat will eat raw, at this time. So both are eating lousy foods that bother me, because I think/know that I am harming them. One has kidney disease, with little appetite, the other has something unknown, with little appetite. I want to assume that the reason that they are both ill is because of the poison that they have been fed. I am at a loss at what to do.
    I have tried to tell others about how bad cat food is, and they won’t listen. I went to a small boutique pet store, today, and mentioned Susan’s study, which the employee was aware of, yet she is still selling the food and feeds their resident cat anything it likes, whether it is crap or not. Although they don’t sell grocery store brands, there are many with poor ingredients and who knows what else. I didn’t ask her what she feeds her own pets.
    It is interesting how the video mentions that pets DON”T LIKE the taste of too much MEAT! Is that a way of justifying the abundance of grains? Of course, the video, also, mentions how pets are, probably, eating better than humans! Well, that may be true with some humans, but not even the worst junk food eaters could be this bad! I lost respect for Discovery and Animal Planet a long time ago.
    The fact that pet food is actually feed is doubly upsetting, in that poor farm animals are fed that garbage, too, and worse! They are abused in every way possible!
    What does a person in my situation do?!

    • Ambree

      February 10, 2015 at 8:14 pm

      Pat, I had a similar problem a while back with my cat. She is very picky and will not eat most of what I put in front of her. I now feed her dry food and wet food alternating. My favorite brand is Halo, the co-owner of the company (the other co-owner is Ellen Degeneres) also wrote a book about pet health and the brand has very good ingredients. I also like Orijen and Evo’s 95% formulas, and if you live in the UK, Lily’s kitchen is another one I recommend. (everything listed here is quite expensive, you get what you pay for). I haven’t bought Susan’s list yet, but might in the near future. If all else fails, at least upgrade your cats to a better dry food if they won’t eat wet. It doesn’t have to be the best, but an upgrade is certainly better than nothing.

    • Ellie

      March 3, 2015 at 11:37 am

      I have my own indoor cats but I also have feral cats that I care for. They all love fresh meat. Salmon, sardines, ground turkey, chicken hearts and gizzards, they love all of it.
      Many pets that have been raised on garbage food are addicted to the flavor enhancers that pet food companies put in the feed in order to entice pets to eat such an unnatural form of food. Sometimes it is difficult to get them off these feeds but it can be done.
      I know of cats that are only 4 and 5 yeas old that already have gum disease and bad teeth. Pet food companies are making canned food for middle aged cats that can only lap their food. This should be evidence enough that these companies know what they are doing to our pets! It is criminal!

  12. Laurie Larson

    February 5, 2015 at 4:41 am

    I remember this ‘accident’ a couple of years ago on I5 when that truck tipped and spilled the fish all over. They said the fish was going to a fertilizer plant… not for pet food. I wonder who’s tell the truth. That’s real nasty if they would make cat and dog food out of this. I want to know how do you know it was headed to a pet food facility.

    • Susan Thixton

      February 5, 2015 at 5:54 am

      In the Seattlepi.com article (linked in my post) it states the fish was destined to be cat food.

  13. Kenneth

    February 5, 2015 at 4:57 am

    I’m so glad after all you show and teach us that I’ve switched to RAW.

    Meat is pretty expensive here in DK, but after about 6 months now, I’ve gotten pretty good a sourcing quality whole cuts of meat cheap, so it’s just around the same price as feeding my cats expensive premium brands and they go NUTS at feeding time, I have to watch my fingers when I put their bowls down hehe.

    Sure, once a month I spend an hour grinding and vacuum packing, but the results when I go to vet checkups and she can’t believe these are the same cats from when they were on commercial food as they are now beaming with health and problems like bad breath, lack of hydration, greasy skin and eye goo (3 Sphynx) is gone, and the peace of mind are priceless.

    Only negative if you could call it that, is that they’ve stopped regarding store bought treats as “food”, they just sniff at them and look at me like “You actually want me to eat that, are you crazy?” and then walks off 🙂

    Never going back.

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  15. Charlie

    February 5, 2015 at 7:46 pm

    the video and article is very indicative of cheap pet food such as purina. I use a grain free, additive free, food made from fresh never frozen and preservative free human quality ingredients. While it is a dry kibble, it does not contain the cheap ingredients shown in the video. I use Orijen.

  16. Helen

    February 7, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    Turns out this is not only happening to pet food alone but is a problem also for food being shipped for human consumption. I googled it and found sites of news reports:
    http://m.wpxi.com/videos/news/150-lbs-of-raw-meat-fish-found-in-unrefrigerated/vCp8Nt/
    and
    http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Sysco-Food-Stored-in-Dirty-Sheds-Served-to-Bay-Area-Restaurants-215759351.html

    No living being is safe. So disgusting.

  17. Ellie

    February 7, 2015 at 1:52 pm

    The video is what I would call a sanitized version of pet food manufacturing. They do not show the scrap pieces of animal bodies that would ordinarily be considered garbage that are used for the pet “feed.” They do not show the large vat that these ingredients go into and are heated to extremely high temps. The same with the rotted, discarded vegetables. The key to using old, rotting ingredients is the high heat processes that they use to kill the harmful bacteria. This high heat also destroys any nutrition that may have originally been present.
    This mass of goo is then mixed with the finely powdered grain and cooked again and again. Nutrition? Very little. The original nutrition that may have been present cannot survive that high heat processing. This is true of processed human food as well and that is why we have a huge synthetic vitamin industry, much of which is processed in China.
    That long list of vitamins tacked at the end of your ingredient list on the pet food package are what brings the pet food up to industry standards.
    Any good nutritionist will tell you that you cannot substitute synthetic vitamins for the natural nutrition of fresh foods but western society has gotten used to ignoring ingredient lists and consuming highly processed foods full of synthetic vitamins. Later when their bodies weaken or become diseased it is off to the doctor for some more pills. No one ever considers the foods that they consume to sustain their lives.
    The human and pet food industry has become focused on two main considerations: profit and convenience. THEIR profit and THEIR convenience.

  18. darlene

    March 3, 2015 at 2:42 am

    i’m surprised the pet food (pet feed) company allowed them to film with the conditions shown in the beginning of the video. i wouldn’t expect a busy production facility to have spotless equipment but the lack of any cleanliness is ridiculous. it appears that they never clean their equipment or even wipe it down. and yet i have to wonder if for the video if they actually had made an attempt to clean the equipment up before the filming crew came. how do these places even stay open? the people who own/run such filthy feed production facilities as well as the fda and whoever else may be involved in the inspections should have to eat meals prepared in equally filthy conditions. i couldn’t even get to the concept of the ingredients as the appearance of the uncleanliness left me nauseated. and this is an opinion from someone who isn’t much of a housekeeper.

  19. Kelly

    May 15, 2015 at 1:05 pm

    AMAZING!!! That Discovery Channel video does not mention MEAT one time in the processing of kibble. Wonder why that is??? Probably they don’t want to tell the truth about pet food because the meats they use would not pass the human/consumer’s approval of the type of meats they are using (3D & 4D-dead, diseased, downed dying). #thetruthaboutpetfood

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