Here’s the pet food version of the ‘How Hard Did Aging Hit You’ 10 Year Challenge.
In 2010 (I couldn’t find a 2009 image of the site on WayBack Machine) – TruthaboutPetFood.com looked a lot different than it does today.
In 2010 we had a strong statement about on the homepage…
“Pet Food is…
The ONLY industry in the United States legally allowed to lie to Consumers!
The ONLY food industry in the United States allowed to violate Federal food safety law!”
Unfortunately this statement remains true ten years later. All regulatory authorities (FDA and each State Department of Agriculture) allows pet food to lie to consumers through misleading images and marketing claims and the industry is still allowed to violate federal (and state) law.
Ten Years of Pet Food Sales
The global top 5 pet food manufacturers per sales has seen some changes in pet food in the past ten years..
Ten Years of Pet Food Advertising
In 2009 Friskies Cat Food was selling pet food with plastic purple fish and green crabs…
And in 2017 Friskies was selling pet food using plastic chickens…
Ten Years of Illegal Ingredients
In 2009, Jerry E. provided TruthaboutPetFood.com with his personal experiences from a pet food ingredient rendering facility. Jerry E. was a pest control specialist whose company was hired by multiple pet food and rendering facilities. Quoting just a few of the excerpts from his story…
“As you might imagine, this area was loaded with flies; the piles of products were alive with maggots. It made it look like the whole pile of product was alive and moving. Not only were dead animals that died who knows how being rendered, but also live rats, a lot of rat droppings plus all the dirt and concrete fragments that were removed from the rat holes in the pit and piles of maggots. But ‘that was ok’ because it was just going for pet food.
The most sickening thing that I saw was trucks that came from chicken farms; I call them chicken prisons that were supposedly full of dead chickens. When they dumped, 90% of the chickens were dead, however there was always a few that were still alive, if you could call that alive. They were mostly featherless and staggering around obviously sick and dying. They picked them up and threw them into the pit alive to be ground up with the rest of the dump. Most of the cattle from feed lots and farmers had plastic ear tags impregnated with Dursban or other insecticides that were placed there to ward off flies. These tags were not removed, they were ground up with the cattle and the plastic and Styrofoam containers that spoiled and rotten meat from the supermarkets came in. When I asked about the ear tags and the plastic and Styrofoam they said that they could not afford to pay someone to remove them or un-package the spoiled meats from the supermarkets.”
Ten years later we have multiple lawsuits regarding pet foods containing euthanized animals and/or the lethal drug pentobarbital in numerous pet foods. Little to nothing has changed in pet food quality of ingredients in the past ten years. Maggots, rats, diseased chickens and even euthanized animals remain consistent in pet food.
How hard did aging hit pet food over the past 10 years? Minus a few exceptions (such as more brands of human grade pet foods available), pet food looks pretty much the same as it did 10 years ago.
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
Become a member of our pet food consumer Association. Association for Truth in Pet Food is a a stakeholder organization representing the voice of pet food consumers at AAFCO and with FDA. Your membership helps representatives attend meetings and voice consumer concerns with regulatory authorities. Click Here to learn more.
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 5,000 cat foods, dog foods,
and pet treats. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Click Here to preview Petsumer Report. www.PetsumerReport.com
The 2019 List
Susan’s List of trusted pet foods. Click Here to learn more.
Have you read Buyer Beware? Click Here
Cooking pet food made easy, Dinner PAWsible
Find Healthy Pet Foods in Your Area Click Here
Larry bohlen
January 17, 2019 at 2:29 pm
Dear Susan,
Do you have figures for the growth in healthier, alternatives to industrial pet food? Maybe there’ hint of change in those numbers? The human organic food industry started out as just a sliver in the 1970’s but is now something like $40 billion per year. Maybe pet food is on the same trajectory?
Larry
Susan Thixton
January 17, 2019 at 2:33 pm
No, I don’t. I would agree that sales of human grade pet foods have dramatically grown in the past ten years – but I don’t have the numbers.
Pet ~Owner~
January 17, 2019 at 3:27 pm
Great. Many of us won’t be around going at that rate.
Unlike the Seventies, now with social media and the internet having increasing awareness, positive change should be happening exponentially.
Instead of greed.
Martina
January 17, 2019 at 3:33 pm
That is so depressing. Thank god we had a vet twenty years ago that was giving seminars on raw food for pets. Needless to say she wasn’t popular with the other vets, but it changed my mind and I’ve been feeding my dogs and cats raw ever since. One of my kitties just passed away at the age of 22 and my other two are now both 23 years old and still going strong. It has made a world of difference in the health of my dogs and in the number of reduced vet bills. Why people are still buying processed pet food is beyond me. Thanks Susan for all that you do!!
Wishing you all the best for the New Year!
Pam
January 17, 2019 at 3:54 pm
I live in a small independent island in the centre of the uk, but not belonging to it, we’re only 80k strong, but our government is over a thousand years old, and I am the first raw pet food manufacturer to make food on our island for dogs and cats, since I started another one has come along, I am a canine nutritionist and intend to educate our island on dog and cat food and start turning the health of our dogs around, I’m supported by a local vet and another recently on board, we’re changing our little corner, don’t stop fighting guys ?
Debbie D
January 17, 2019 at 5:28 pm
Sickening. This is why I will never buy pet foods ever again. RAW only.