The Canned Food Recall

During early 2007, there were massive recalls for different brands of pet foods, in particular, wet pet foods. This drove pet owners like me into a frenzy. Before the recall, many of these pets died from kidney failure. This mainly came from these pets consuming wet pet foods.

As I was researching the subject on pet foods, there were some pretty disturbing details; details that many pet owners are not aware of. It seems that the more I read about the ingredients, the more appalled I became. These ingredients are in wet pet foods and these pets are eating this junk. This is meat by-products food.

Meat by-products are the canned foods that many cats and dogs eat. For those pet owners who do not know what meat by-products food is, it consists of body parts, such as necks, feet, eggs that are undeveloped, bones, heads, and intestines. This is slaughtered and grounded meat carcass parts. Some of these ingredients may range from meat by-products or digests to meat-and-bone meals, grain by-products to horse meat.

How disgusting is that? Very disgusting. How do we know that before this food becomes "by-products" that the slaughtered animals were not contaminated? From my research on pet foods, many of these ingredients came from 4-D meat sources. These include food animals that were turned down due to it being hazardous for human consumption. The meats were deemed as "Dead, Dying, Diseased, or Disabled." What about these poor little pets? If it is hazardous for human consumption, then it should be hazardous for animal consumption as well.

According to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), its definition states:

"The non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not limited to lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines fried of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth, and hoofs. It share be suitable for use in animal food. If it bears name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond thereto."