The rendering industry calls itself the ‘original recyclers’; they are a necessary evil. Although the rendering industry provides ingredients for pet foods, soaps, and even children’s crayons, very little information has been provided to the public about what happens behind closed doors at a rendering facility. This is a first hand private tour of a rendering plant that processed ingredients for pet food.
The Rendering Industry provides pet food manufacturers with many common ingredients; by-product meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat and animal digest are the most common. These common pet food ingredients don’t sound too offensive, however, the problem is that we (pet owners) don’t know the real truth about these rendered ingredients.
The last public account of a rendering plant was provided by journalist Van Smith of the Baltimore City Paper in 1995. His article, ‘What’s Cookin’?, shocked Baltimore and the world. Smith’s Rendering Facility story provided photos of barrels full of dead dogs and cats waiting to be rendered, and a Valley Proteins employee with a hand full of meat and bone meal, one of the end products from the rendering process. The article is still available on the Baltimore City Paper website; http://www.citypaper.com/about/vansmith.asp.
In 2004, the Congressional Research Center provided our elected officials in Congress a detailed report on the rendering industry; the Congressional Report advised our elected officials that diseased, disabled, and euthanized animals are rendered and become common ingredients in everything from pet foods, soaps, and even crayons. http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/permalink/meta-crs-9085:1
What Congress probably doesn’t know however, is what the inside of a rendering plant is like. In December 2008, TruthaboutPetFood.com published an article providing information about the Rendering Industry report to Congress; shortly after, I received an email from Jerry E. From reading his brief email, his personal experience with a rendering facility, those little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I’m not ignorant of the ‘things’ that go on in these places, however, after speaking just a few minutes to Jerry, I learned that what I knew to be as horrible pet food ingredients, just got ten times worse.
I told Jerry that his story, his personal experiences, needs to be shared with every single pet owner. Those millions of pet owners who continue to turn a blind eye to the truth need to hear this; those millions of pet owners that keep buying popular pet foods that contain Rendering Industry ingredients (by-product meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat, and animal digest) need to know what it’s really like.
The following is Jerry’s story; a real life, first hand experience at one rendering plant that provided ingredients to pet food. If you continue to believe the pet food companies that use by-product meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat, and animal digest ingredients, read Jerry’s story. If you have a stubborn friend or relative that continues to feed their dog or cat a pet food that contains these inferior ingredients, forward them this real life story.
Furthermore, as you are reading the ‘truth’ Jerry provides us, remember that Federal law prohibits these ingredients in ANY food, including pet food. However, our friends at the FDA and the Center for Veterinary Management (CVM, subcategory of the FDA) provided pet food manufacturers a ‘policy’ giving them permission to include diseased, disabled, dying, and euthanized rendered animals into our pet foods. It remains illegal despite FDA policy, yet no one of authority seems to care.
As you’ll discover, Jerry cares.
Next…Jerry’s story. Click Here
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