Shared by a pet owner, the following is laboratory analysis of Answers Straight Beef and Detailed Beef Dog Food.
Gentamicin is an antibiotic, illegal for use in cattle (due to residues remaining in the animal). Federal regulations allow for minimal residues of gentamicin in other livestock animals…
…but again gentamicin is not allowed to be administered to cattle and should never be present in a beef based pet food.
Another issue of concern is the significantly high levels found. The Straight Beef product tested at 320 ppm, the Detailed Beef product tested at 72 ppm – significantly above the 0.1 ppm allowed level in muscle tissues from poultry and swine.
To our knowledge, Answers Pet Food has not responded to these lab results.
It is unknown if a recall will be issued on these products. Multiple pets became very ill (but thankfully survived). Should we be provided with more information, it will be shared.
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
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Linda M Kelly
April 22, 2025 at 2:51 pm
I said that is an old drug used in the beef/dairy industry. So someone had it handy and used it on a probably very sick animal and I bet it was in dairy! Not a good thing!
The pet food industry is such a lucrative money maker for corporations yet very poorly organized and “not transparent”!
Hope Williams
April 22, 2025 at 3:49 pm
What were the symptoms of the ill dogs that resulted from eating these Answers formulas? Happy they survived but sorry they and their humans needed to suffer. I’m sure others would want to know the symptoms too. Hope
Angela
April 22, 2025 at 3:53 pm
I never heard of this dog food but when I looked them up, it appears Answers Pet Food had issues with salmonella and listeria and withdrew the offending food last year. I didn’t find anything about the abxs.
Carol Conway
April 22, 2025 at 3:56 pm
Jeez, I thought this company was one of the better/best pet food companies. Did they “cheap” out using a cheaper/different beef supplier? I never thought about rendering until my dog was poisoned by an AWFUL lying company! I have learned so much thanks to Susan!! I give my dog Answers goats milk daily, I hope there’s nothing to be concerned with there.
T Allen
April 22, 2025 at 5:56 pm
Unfortunately there could be issues. Same as here, if it’s not for human consumption there is something wrong with it. Human grade is more expensive for a reason. It’s been inspected and tested at least periodically. Rejects are sent to the animal feed business. Dairy animals are more more to infection than meat animals, so more prone to contan trace amounts of antibiotics in the milk if the milk wasn’t dumped for the correct amount of time after treatment. Did you catch the word “dumped”? Yes, dumped somewhere, ie not sold. That’s the reason you find abx residue in milk, and meat.
Carol Conway
April 27, 2025 at 9:48 pm
Makes sense, “reject” and “dump” are words we don’t want associated with the food we give our pets. Really sad the pet food industry is so corrupt, even the few regulations are not really enforced as I sadly found out when my dog was poisoned with pentobarbital in a can of “dog food” So, I guess that’s the end of giving my dog Answers or primal goats milk, they both say not for human consumption.
Mischa Recko
April 22, 2025 at 9:26 pm
We feed Answers Straight Beef. In the posted CoA, there is no uniquely identifying details of the batch. The UPC is the same for all Straight cartons and the purchase date does not help narrow it down. Is there any way to get the expiration date of the sample from the lab?
Concerned Pet Parents
susan
April 23, 2025 at 3:29 am
Another reason to make ones’ own dog food from human grade ingredients. Theoretically, there are many ways a dog food company can claim that they use only human grade ingredients and then sneak in substandard ones anyway. There are also a number of expensive, human grade ingredient dog food companies that use little to zero skeletal muscle meat and instead use only organ meat resulting in “balanced” meals that contain very high levels of copper (way higher than in a whole prey model diet). Make your own dog food!
CK
April 25, 2025 at 9:01 am
ARE THERE ANY ‘EUROPEAN’ BRANDS OF CAT FOOD READILY AVAILABLE HERE IN
THE USA?
Very Different: US Pet Food and EU Pet Food https://truthaboutpetfood.com/very-different-us-pet-food-and-eu-pet-food/
The European Union (EU) pet food/animal feed regulations are about the same as in the US; the BIG difference is that the EU has learned from past disease outbreaks. The EU enforces law. The US (FDA and each State Department of Agriculture) does not.
Maggie
May 6, 2025 at 2:30 pm
CK, Farmina is an Italian brand of kibble and canned food that is widely sold in the U.S. Buuuuuut…..Farmina uses Euro-sourced boar in some formulas and if you research the still-present effects of Chernobyl in Central Europe, you’ll see that hunted boar meat is not supposed to be consumed by humans because it is still concentrating radiation, all these years later…so why would farmed be any better? And there have been some serious quality issues reported with Farmina over the years, particularly with food made in its Serbian plant. I looked at their food years ago and couldn’t get comfortable with it.
M. Recko
April 25, 2025 at 3:08 pm
Please ask your source to come forward with the Expiration Date for the Straight Beef analysis. Listing the purchased date does no good for issuing a recall or for pet parents to check what they have on stock. I tried contacting the lab and only the person that submitted for the test can release that information. Kind of odd they listed an expiration date for one which is trackable, but a purchased date on the other helps no one. If the “purchased date” was meant to be “expiration date” then the product tested was over a year old. Would make a difference in the test results, I don’t know? But also, who keeps track of purchased dates from over a year ago but doesn’t have the actual expiration date of the product?
M. Recko
April 25, 2025 at 5:49 pm
Has the lab report been fact checked? I reached out to the lab to get the expiration date of the Straight Beef carton, since it was very odd that the Detailed carton has an expiration date which could lead to the tracking of the batch, but the Straight carton does not. The Straight only has a purchase date from a year ago. Who tracks purchase dates and not expiration dates? There is no way to track a purchase date to have the company issue a recall. The lab will only give information to the client who submitted. As a pet owner that feeds this food and has an IBD dog that has only done well on this food, I am extremely concerned to see information like this, but also question the source and truth of what’s been posted.