The Friskies cat food commercial currently running on television features a cat dreaming of his perfect food; the tag line of the commercial is ‘feed the senses’. It’s puzzling however, that any cat would dream about purple plastic turkeys, green plastic crabs, and red plastic cows.
It’s clear to see what the Friskies Cat Food commercial is trying to imply, Friskies Cat Food stimulates a cat’s senses. What’s not clear is why any cat would be stimulated by plastic colored turkeys, fish, cows, and crabs.
Complements of YouTube, here is the Friskies television commercial (the commercial originally published by Friskies was removed from YouTube, this is a similar published on YouTube in 2009):
When you watch the commercial, the cat is ‘real’, the grass and water are ‘real’; however all of the implied cat food ingredients are plastic and ‘not real’. What was Friskies thinking?
Here is the ingredient list for Friskies Gourmet Poultry Flavors Dry Cat Food, one of the foods featured in the commercial…
Ingredients: Ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), corn germ meal, soybean meal, turkey by-product meal, brewers dried yeast, phosphoric acid, animal digest, tetra sodium pyrophosphate, potassium chloride, salt, dried chicken liver, added color (Red 40, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Blue 2 and other color), choline chloride, taurine, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, Vitamin E supplement, niacin, manganese sulfate, calcium carbonate, Vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate (Vitamin B-1), copper sulfate, riboflavin supplement (Vitamin B-2), Vitamin B-12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (Vitamin B-6), folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite.
Here is some information regarding the ingredients in the Friskies Cat Food…
The official definition of chicken by-product meal – according to AAFCO – is “the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.”
‘Meat and bone meal’, ‘animal fat’, and ‘animal digest’ are considered by the FDA as pet food ingredients that are probable to contain pentobarbital; the drug used to euthanize animals. Although the FDA didn’t bother to test cat foods, we can assume that meat and bone meal and animal fat used in cat foods could as well contain pentobarbital. Thus, according to the FDA, Friskies cat food and other pet foods that contain either of these ingredients could contain a lethal drug and the remains of a euthanized animal.
From the FDA website: “There appear to be associations between rendered or hydrolyzed ingredients and the presence of pentobarbital in dog food. The ingredients Meat and Bone Meal (MBM), Beef and Bone Meal (BBM), Animal Fat (AF), and Animal Digest (AD) are rendered or hydrolyzed from animal sources that could include euthanized animals.” http://www.fda.gov/cvm/FOI/DFappend.htm
Perhaps, if cats really do visualize purple plastic turkeys and red plastic cows, it’s because they are eating too much pentobarbital and the euthanized animals the drug killed. Perhaps one day the FDA will realize that pets’ consuming a lethal drug in their food turns them into creatures similar to crack cocaine addicted people; hallucinating cats and dogs dreaming of purple plastic turkeys and red plastic cows. No pet food should be allowed to contain any euthanized animal; no pet food should be a dumping ground for waste.
By the way, Federal law prohibits ANY food (animal and human) to contain a diseased animal or an animal that has died other than by slaughter. Do pet foods that contain ‘meat and bone meal, beef and bone meal, animal fat, and animal digest’ violate Federal law? Technically, yes. However, thanks to our friends at the FDA, a ‘policy’ has been provided to pet food to allow it. FDA policy does not over ride Federal law, but no one seems to care.
If you notice your cat or dog dreaming of purple plastic turkeys, red plastic cows, and green plastic crabs, please check the ingredient list of his/her food. Rehab is only a few steps away in a pet food containing real meat, the same grade/quality you’d give any other member of your family. Intervention is in your hands.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author, Buyer Beware
Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
PetsumerReport.com
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