宠物食品里有什么？（what's really in pet food?） - 达人(dogvv)

2005/09/16 | 宠物食品里有什么？（what's really in pet food?）
类别(狗生琐事 Life) | 评论(0) | 阅读(514) | 发表于 09:36: 宠物食品里到底有些什么？

美国动物保护研究所(API)分析报告

——英子译

饱满的整鸡肉，精选牛肉片，新鲜的谷类，以及您的狗或猫所需要的全部营养物质。

这就是宠物食品生产厂家通过媒体和广告所宣传的宠物食品形象，也是每年110亿美元销售额的宠物食品生产业希望消费者在购买时所相信的事情。

本报吿阐述了消费者认为他们所买到的产品和实际上他们买到的产品之间的差异，以最容易买到的品牌（即在超市和折扣商店最常见的品牌）的综合性指标为侧重点。

大部分消费者并不知道，宠物食品工业其实是人类食品生产业的延伸。宠物食品为屠宰场剩的下水、被认为“不适合人类食用的”谷物和其他类似的废料提供了市场，使其变成利润。这些废料包括动物的肠、乳腺、食管，以及可能患病或得癌的动物的内脏。

美国五大宠物食品公司中有三家是大型跨国食品公司的子公司，从商业的角度来讲，跨国食品公司拥有宠物食品制造公司是一种理想的关系状态。跨国公司拥有内部控制的市场，能把其生产废料变成资本；而宠物食品生产商又有可靠的货源，能购进大量的原料。

在美国，可以买到上百种宠物食品。尽管市场上许多宠物食品看起来都差不多，但并不是所有的宠物食品公司都使用低质量并具有潜在危险性的配料。

配料

虽然宠物食品的价格不能代表其质量是好是坏，但售价通常可作为其品质的参考。9.95美元40磅的普通狗食中是不可能含有上等的蛋白质和谷物的。上等配料的价格要远远高于宠物食品本身的售价。

宠物食品中的蛋白质来源广泛。牛、猪、鸡、羊或其他的禽畜被屠宰时，瘦肉被剔下来供人类食用。然而，肉用禽畜身体的大约50%是不能为人类食用的。剔剩下来的骨头、血、肠、肺、韧带，以及其他所有通常不被人食用的其他部分，就被用来制造宠物食品。这些“其他部分”被冠之以“副产品”或其他的名字出现在宠物食品标签上。那些模棱两可的标签标出了配料，但是并不提供这些配料的定义。

宠物食品制造商的行业协会——宠物食品研究所承认，宠物食品中副产品的使用为农产品加工者和农民提供了额外收入：“宠物食品工业的增长不仅为养宠物的人提供更高品质的宠物食品，而且也给美国农产品、副产品如畜肉加工、禽肉和其他供人类消费的食品生产业提供了可额外赢利的市场。”

大部分的残余物是否能给动物提供充足的营养还是个问题。畜肉和家禽副产品、粗谷的营养品质有着很大的不同。加州大学兽药学院分子生物学系的詹姆斯·莫里斯和昆顿·罗杰斯两位教授宣称：“就宠物食品中的常用食谱成分而言，实质上并没有生物适应性方面的资料。这些成分通常是畜肉、禽肉、鱼类的副产品，它们潜在地会存在多种不同的营养物质。目前，以‘美国饲养控制官员协会（AAFCO）营养容许误差’为基础的宠物食品营养完整性的声明并不提供营养完整性的保证；直至配料经过分析并与生物适应性相结合，才能做出上述保证。”

畜肉碎和禽肉碎、副产品和带骨碎肉是宠物食品的常用成分。“肉碎”意即这些物质不是新鲜的肉，而是经过提炼的。提炼是什么意思呢？如韦氏字典所说：“为了工业用途的加工：将牲畜屠宰后，以熔化的方式将油脂从肥肉、脂肪中分离出来。”家里做的鸡汤在冷却后，表面会形成一层厚厚的油脂，这就是一个微型的提炼过程。提炼的过程把油溶性物质和水溶性物质分离固化并杀死病菌，但也有可能改变或破坏原始成分中的酶和蛋白质。

把这样的产品喂给宠物好不好？有的兽医指出，用屠宰场的废料饲喂宠物会增加宠物得癌症和衰退性疾病的危险。宠物食品生产商所使用的加工方法——如提炼和挤压（通过加热加压把干性食物做成饼状或块状）——并不能破坏用于使牲畜增肥和增加奶产量的荷尔蒙、抗生素类药物、以及用来麻醉牲畜的巴比妥等。

畜类及禽类脂肪

刚刚打开一袋新鲜的宠物食品时，你会闻到一股独特、刺鼻的味道——这好闻的味道是从哪儿来的呢？通常是提炼过的动物脂肪、厨房油脂和其他对人类来说太难闻或不宜食用的油类。

在过去的十五年里，厨房油脂变成了一种用于饲喂动物的主要物质。这种油脂常常是装在50加仑的大桶里，在室外放上好几个星期。它被暴露在温差极大的环境中，没人会在意它将来的用途是什么。之后，脂肪搅拌或提炼公司会拿走这些用过的油脂并把不同类型的油脂混和在一起，加入强力抗氧化剂以使其保持稳定，然后把它卖给宠物食品公司。

这些油脂被直接抹在干性饲料块或挤压成形的颗粒上，以使本来没什么味道或难闻的产品变得可口。生产商还把这些油脂用作粘合剂，再加入其他的香味剂。宠物食品科学家发现，动物喜欢这种涂抹在干粮表面的油脂味道。如何让狗或猫把鼻子伸到它们爱闻的食物上，生产商可是这方面的专家！

麦类、黄豆、玉米、花生壳及其他植物蛋白质

在过去十年里，谷物在宠物食品中的比重有所增加。麦片和谷类产品一旦成为宠物食品工业的主要填加料，就以很大的比重取代了第一代商业宠物食品所使用的肉类。从谷类产品中可获得的营养物质取决于谷类的可消化性。宠物食品中碳水化合物的数量和类型决定了动物实际得到的营养物质的量。狗和猫几乎可以从某些谷类食物中吸收全部碳水化合物，如白米饭。其他谷物大约有20%的营养物质不能被吸收。小麦、豆类和燕麦中可被吸收的营养物质比例则非常小。土豆和玉米中可被吸收的营养物质要比米饭差很多。有些配料，如花生壳，是用作填充料或提供植物纤维，并没有特别的营养价值。

宠物食品——特别是干性食品——最主要的三种成分中的两种，通常是谷物的某种形式，如宝路狗粮就标明碎玉米、鸡的副产品和玉米麸是其最主要的三种成分。有一种猫粮标明碎黄玉米、玉米麸和禽类副产品是其最主要的三种成分。由于猫是全肉食动物——它必须要食用肉类以满足其生理需要，有人会感到奇怪，为什么我们要给它吃以谷物为主的饲料。答案就是玉米比肉要便宜得多。

某品牌狗粮四种最主要的成分——鸡肉、碎黄玉米、碎麦粒和玉米麸中有两种是玉米类饲料，其实都出自一种东西。这种做法在业界中叫做“分类”。同一种谷物配料，将各个部分分开标示（如碎玉米和玉米麸），可以给人一种玉米成分少于鸡肉成分的感觉，但是玉米成分可能要比鸡肉成分还多。

1995年，某宠物食品公司将几千吨狗粮撤下了货架，因为消费者投诉说，他们的狗吃了这种狗粮后呕吐、食欲丧失。该公司的损失高达两千万美元。问题出在一种真菌生成的催吐剂（一种黄曲霉素，由霉产生的有毒物质）使小麦受了污染。1999年，另一种有毒的真菌影响到其他分厂出品的狗干粮，包括了54个牌子。这一次，有毒的物质使25条狗致死。

尽管催吐剂使许多狗呕吐、食欲丧失、腹泻，但相对而言，它还是一种比较温和的毒素。更危险的真菌毒素能引起体重减轻、肝脏受损、腿瘸，甚至象上述案件那样导致死亡。“自然食谱”事件促使食品和药品局（FDA）出面。北达科他州州长艾德·沙佛尔的农业政策顾问迪娜·布彻的结论是：在该种狗粮中发现的催吐剂对人类来说并不会构成危害，“因为用于宠物食品的谷物并不是高品质的农产品。”

黄豆作为蛋白质和能量的来源，是宠物食品中另一种比较常用的配料。生产商还用黄豆增加宠物食品的体积，动物在食用含有黄豆的饲料时会更有饱腻感。虽然有的狗吃了黄豆以后会放屁，但有些狗却很喜欢吃黄豆。素食狗粮用黄豆作为蛋白质的来源。

添加剂和防腐剂

宠物食品中加有很多化学制剂用来增强其味道、凝固性、特色或食品的外观。添加剂毫无营养价值。添加剂包括防止油水分离的乳化剂、防止脂肪变质的抭氧化剂；还有人工色素和香味剂，能使产品看上去更诱人，对消费者的动物伴侣来说也更好吃。

在食品中加入化学成分（香料、天然防腐剂和催熟剂）可追溯到几千年前，但在最近的四十年中，食品添加剂的用量极大地增加了。

所有的商业宠物食品中都含有防腐剂。有些防腐剂是原料供应商加在配料或原料里的，还有一些可能是生产商加入的。生产商要确保干性食品在运输和长期库存后还能在较长时间内可供食用，因而宠物食品中的脂肪都加入了合成的或“天然”的防腐剂。合成防腐剂包括丁基化羟基茴香醚（BHA）、丁基羟基甲苯（BHT）、丙基酸丙酯、丙二醇（也用作汽车防冻剂，但毒性较弱）和乙氧喹。动物每天食用含有这些防腐剂的宠物食品，这些防腐剂的毒性、安全性、慢性作用也没有文件记载。

BHA、BHT和乙氧喹等可能致癌的物质在食物中允许使用的剂量非常小。人们对在宠物食品中使用这些化学物质并没有进行深入的研究，长期使用这些物质终将非常有害。由于人们对乙氧喹安全性的最初研究数据抱怀疑态度，乙氧喹的制造商Monsanto受命进行一项新的、更精确的研究。此项研究于1996年完成。虽然Monsato并没有发现其产品中有明显的毒性，1997年7月，FDA兽药中心要求生产商主动把产品里的乙氧喹用量减少一半，即75ppm。有些宠物食品批评者和兽医相信，乙氧喹是导致狗生病、皮肤发炎和不育的主要原因，但仍有一些人声称它是宠物食品最安全、最有效、最稳定的防腐剂。在人类食品里，乙氧喹只被允许用做香料（如红椒和辣椒面）的防腐剂，用量是100ppm；但是人们每天辣椒面的食用量绝对低于狗每天食用狗干粮的数量。

有些宠物食品生产商响应消费者的要求，开始使用“天然”防腐剂，如维生素C（抗坏血酸）、维生素E（混合生育酚）、以及迷迭香、丁香或其他香料的油，用来防止宠物食品中的脂肪变质。而其他的配料则单独加入防腐剂。鱼肉和一些加工过的维生素混合物用作宠物食品的补充饲料，这些配料中就含有化学防腐剂。这些成分并不要求都登在产品标签上。但鉴于消费者的压力，用于脂肪的防腐剂要登在标签上。

What's Really in Pet Food

Plump whole chickens, choice cuts of beef, fresh grains, and all the wholesome nutrition your dog or cat will ever need.

These are the images pet food manufacturers promulgate through the media and advertising. This is what the $11 billion per year U.S. pet food industry wants consumers to believe they are buying when they purchase their products.

This report explores the differences between what consumers think they are buying and what they are actually getting. It focuses in very general terms on the most visible name brands -- the pet food labels that are mass-distributed to supermarkets and discount stores -- but there are many highly respected brands that may be guilty of the same offenses.

What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered "unfit for human consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and possibly diseased and cancerous animal parts.

Three of the five major pet food companies in the United States are subsidiaries of major multinational companies: Nestl?(Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston Purina products such as Dog Chow, ProPlan, and Purina One), Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits, Nature's Recipe), Colgate-Palmolive (Hill's Science Diet Pet Food). Other leading companies include Procter & Gamble (Eukanuba and Iams), Mars (Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba, Waltham's), and Nutro. From a business standpoint, multinational companies owning pet food manufacturing companies is an ideal relationship. The multinationals have increased bulk-purchasing power; those that make human food products have a captive market in which to capitalize on their waste products, and pet food divisions have a more reliable capital base and, in many cases, a convenient source of ingredients.

There are hundreds of different pet foods available in this country. And while many of the foods on the market are similar, not all of the pet food manufacturing companies use poor quality or potentially dangerous ingredients.

Ingredients

Although the purchase price of pet food does not always determine whether a pet food is good or bad, the price is often a good indicator of quality. It would be impossible for a company that sells a generic brand of dog food at $9.95 for a 40-lb. bag to use quality protein and grain in its food. The cost of purchasing quality ingredients would be much higher than the selling price.

The protein used in pet food comes from a variety of sources. When cattle, swine, chickens, lambs, or other animals are slaughtered, the choice cuts such as lean muscle tissue are trimmed away from the carcass for human consumption. However, about 50% of every food-producing animal does not get used in human foods. Whatever remains of the carcass -- bones, blood, intestines, lungs, ligaments, and almost all the other parts not generally consumed by humans -- is used in pet food, animal feed, and other products. These "other parts" are known as "by-products," "meat-and-bone-meal," or similar names on pet food labels.

The Pet Food Institute -- the trade association of pet food manufacturers -- acknowledges the use of by-products in pet foods as additional income for processors and farmers: "The growth of the pet food industry not only provided pet owners with better foods for their pets, but also created profitable additional markets for American farm products and for the byproducts of the meat packing, poultry, and other food industries which prepare food for human consumption."1

Many of these remnants provide a questionable source of nourishment for our animals. The nutritional quality of meat and poultry by-products, meals, and digests can vary from batch to batch. James Morris and Quinton Rogers, two professors with the Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of California at Davis Veterinary School of Medicine, assert that, "There is virtually no information on the bioavailability of nutrients for companion animals in many of the common dietary ingredients used in pet foods. These ingredients are generally by-products of the meat, poultry and fishing industries, with the potential for a wide variation in nutrient composition. Claims of nutritional adequacy of pet foods based on the current Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) nutrient allowances ('profiles') do not give assurances of nutritional adequacy and will not until ingredients are analyzed and bioavailability values are incorporated."2

Meat and poultry meals, by-product meals, and meat-and-bone meal are common ingredients in pet foods. The term "meal" means that these materials are not used fresh, but have been rendered. What is rendering? Rendering, as defined by Webster's Dictionary, is "to process as for industrial use: to render livestock carcasses and to extract oil from fat, blubber, etc., by melting." Home-made chicken soup, with its thick layer of fat that forms over the top when the soup is cooled, is a sort of mini-rendering process. Rendering separates fat-soluble from water-soluble and solid materials, removes most of the water, and kills bacterial contaminants, but may alter or destroy some of the natural enzymes and proteins found in the raw ingredients. Meat and poultry by-products, while not rendered, vary widely in composition and quality.

What can the feeding of such products do to your companion animal? Some veterinarians claim that feeding slaughterhouse wastes to animals increases their risk of getting cancer and other degenerative diseases. The cooking methods used by pet food manufacturers -- such as rendering, extruding (a heat-and-pressure system used to "puff" dry foods into nuggets or kibbles), and baking -- do not necessarily destroy the hormones used to fatten livestock or increase milk production, or drugs such as antibiotics or the barbiturates used to euthanize animals.

Animal and Poultry Fat

You may have noticed a unique, pungent odor when you open a new bag of pet food -- what is the source of that delightful smell? It is most often rendered animal fat, restaurant grease, or other oils too rancid or deemed inedible for humans.

Restaurant grease has become a major component of feed grade animal fat over the last fifteen years. This grease, often held in fifty-gallon drums, may be kept outside for weeks, exposed to extreme temperatures with no regard for its future use. "Fat blenders" or rendering companies then pick up this used grease and mix the different types of fat together, stabilize them with powerful antioxidants to retard further spoilage, and then sell the blended products to pet food companies and other end users.

These fats are sprayed directly onto extruded kibbles and pellets to make an otherwise bland or distasteful product palatable. The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add other flavor enhancers such as digests. Pet food scientists have discovered that animals love the taste of these sprayed fats. Manufacturers are masters at getting a dog or a cat to eat something she would normally turn up her nose at.

Wheat, Soy, Corn, Peanut Hulls, and Other Vegetable Protein

The amount of grain products used in pet food has risen over the last decade. Once considered filler by the pet food industry, cereal and grain products now replace a considerable proportion of the meat that was used in the first commercial pet foods. The availability of nutrients in these products is dependent upon the digestibility of the grain. The amount and type of carbohydrate in pet food determines the amount of nutrient value the animal actually gets. Dogs and cats can almost completely absorb carbohydrates from some grains, such as white rice. Up to 20% of the nutritional value of other grains can escape digestion. The availability of nutrients for wheat, beans, and oats is poor. The nutrients in potatoes and corn are far less available than those in rice. Some ingredients, such as peanut hulls, are used for filler or fiber, and have no significant nutritional value.

Two of the top three ingredients in pet foods, particularly dry foods, are almost always some form of grain products. Pedigree Performance Food for Dogs lists Ground Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, and Corn Gluten Meal as its top three ingredients. 9 Lives Crunchy Meals for cats lists Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, and Poultry By-Product Meal as its first three ingredients. Since cats are true carnivores -- they must eat meat to fulfill certain physiological needs -- one may wonder why we are feeding a corn-based product to them. The answer is that corn is a much cheaper "energy source" than meat.

In 1995, Nature's Recipe pulled thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained that their dogs were vomiting and losing their appetite. Nature's Recipe's loss amounted to $20 million. The problem was a fungus that produced vomitoxin (an aflatoxin or "mycotoxin," a toxic substance produced by mold) contaminating the wheat. In 1999, another fungal toxin triggered the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care at one of its plants, including Ol' Roy (Wal-Mart's brand) and 53 other brands. This time, the toxin killed 25 dogs.

Although it caused many dogs to vomit, stop eating, and have diarrhea, vomitoxin is a milder toxin than most. The more dangerous mycotoxins can cause weight loss, liver damage, lameness, and even death as in the Doane case. The Nature's Recipe incident prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to intervene. Dina Butcher, Agriculture Policy Advisor for North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer, concluded that the discovery of vomitoxin in Nature's Recipe wasn't much of a threat to the human population because "the grain that would go into pet food is not a high quality grain."3

Soy is another common ingredient that is sometimes used as a protein and energy source in pet food. Manufacturers also use it to add bulk so that when an animal eats a product containing soy he will feel more sated. While soy has been linked to gas in some dogs, other dogs do quite well with it. Vegetarian dog foods use soy as a protein source.

Additives and Preservatives

Many chemicals are added to commercial pet foods to improve the taste, stability, characteristics, or appearance of the food. Additives provide no nutritional value. Additives include emulsifiers to prevent water and fat from separating, antioxidants to prevent fat from turning rancid, and artificial colors and flavors to make the product more attractive to consumers and more palatable to their companion animals.

Adding chemicals to food originated thousands of years ago with spices, natural preservatives, and ripening agents. In the last 40 years, however, the number of food additives has greatly increased.

All commercial pet foods must be preserved so they stay fresh and appealing to our animal companions. Canning is a preserving process itself, so canned foods contain less preservatives than dry foods. Some preservatives are added to ingredients or raw materials by the suppliers, and others may be added by the manufacturer. Because manufacturers need to ensure that dry foods have a long shelf life to remain edible after shipping and prolonged storage, fats used in pet foods are preserved with either synthetic or "natural" preservatives. Synthetic preservatives include butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), propyl gallate, propylene glycol (also used as a less-toxic version of automotive antifreeze), and ethoxyquin. For these antioxidants, there is little information documenting their toxicity, safety, interactions, or chronic use in pet foods that may be eaten every day for the life of the animal.

Potentially cancer-causing agents such as BHA, BHT, and ethoxyquin are permitted at relatively low levels. The use of these chemicals in pet foods has not been thoroughly studied, and long term build-up of these agents may ultimately be harmful. Due to questionable data in the original study on its safety, ethoxyquin's manufacturer, Monsanto, was required to perform a new, more rigorous study. This was completed in 1996. Even though Monsanto found no significant toxicity associated with its own product, in July 1997, the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine requested that manufacturers voluntarily reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by half, to 75 parts per million. While some pet food critics and veterinarians believe that ethoxyquin is a major cause of disease, skin problems, and infertility in dogs, others claim it is the safest, strongest, most stable preservative available for pet food. Ethoxyquin is approved for use in human food for preserving spices, such as cayenne and chili powder, at a level of 100 ppm -- but it would be very difficult to consume as much chili powder every day as a dog would eat dry food. Ethoxyquin has never been tested for safety in cats.

Some manufacturers have responded to consumer concern, and are now using "natural" preservatives such as Vitamin C (ascorbate), Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols), and oils of rosemary, clove, or other spices, to preserve the fats in their products. Other ingredients, however, may be individually preserved. Most fish meal, and some prepared vitamin-mineral mixtures, contain chemical preservatives. This means that your companion animal may be eating food containing several types of preservatives. Federal law requires preservatives to be disclosed on the label; however, pet food companies only recently started to comply with this law.

Additives in Processed Pet Foods

Anticaking agents
Antimicrobial agents
Antioxidants
Coloring agents
Curing agents
Drying agents
Emulsifiers
Firming agents
Flavor enhancers
Flavoring agents
Flour treating agents
Formulation aids
Humectants
Leavening agents
Lubricants
Nonnutritive sweeteners
Nutritive sweeteners
Oxidizing and reducing agents
pH control agents
Processing aids
Sequestrants
Solvents, vehicles
Stabilizers, thickeners
Surface active agents
Surface finishing agents
Synergists
Texturizers

While the law requires studies of direct toxicity of these additives and preservatives, they have not been tested for their potential synergistic effects on each other once ingested. Some authors have suggested that dangerous interactions occur among some of the common synthetic preservatives.4 Natural preservatives do not provide as long a shelf life as chemical preservatives, but they are safe.

The Manufacturing Process

How Pet Food Is Made

Although feeding trials are no longer required for a food to meet the requirements for labeling a food "complete and balanced," most manufacturers perform palatability studies when developing a new pet food. One set of animals is fed a new food while a "control" group is fed a current formula. The total volume eaten is used as a gauge for the palatability of the food. The larger and more reputable companies do use feeding trials, which are considered to be a much more accurate assessment of the actual nutritional value of the food. They keep large colonies of dogs and cats for this purpose, or use testing laboratories that have their own animals.

Most dry food is made with a machine called an expander or extruder. First, raw materials are blended, sometimes by hand, other times by computer, in accordance with a recipe developed by animal nutritionists. This mixture is fed into an expander and steam or hot water is added. The mixture is subjected to steam, pressure, and high heat as it is extruded through dies that determine the shape of the final product and puffed like popcorn. The food is allowed to dry, and then is usually sprayed with fat, digests, or other compounds to make it more palatable. Although the cooking process may kill bacteria in pet food, the final product can lose its sterility during the subsequent drying, fat coating, and packaging process. A few foods are baked at high temperatures rather than extruded. This produces a dense, crunchy kibble that is palatable without the addition of sprayed on palatability enhancers. Animals can be fed about 25% less of a baked food, by volume (but not by weight), than an extruded food.

Ingredients are similar for wet, dry, and semi-moist foods, although the ratios of protein, fat, and fiber may change. A typical can of ordinary cat food reportedly contains about 45-50% meat or poultry by-products. The main difference between the types of food is the water content. It is impossible to directly compare labels from different kinds of food without a mathematical conversion to "dry matter basis."5 Wet or canned food begins with ground ingredients mixed with additives. If chunks are required, a special extruder forms them. Then the mixture is cooked and canned. The sealed cans are then put into containers resembling pressure cookers and commercial sterilization takes place. Some manufacturers cook the food right in the can.

There are special labeling requirements for pet food, all of which are contained in the annually revised Official Publication of AAFCO.6 The use of the terms "all" or "100%" cannot be used "if the product contains more than one ingredient, not including water sufficient for processing, decharacterizing agents, or trace amounts of preservatives and condiments." Products containing multiple ingredients are covered by AAFCO Regulation PF3(b) and (c). The "95% rule" applies when the ingredient(s) derived from animals, poultry, or fish constitutes at least 95% or more of the total weight of the product (or 70% excluding water for processing).

Because all-meat diets are usually not nutritionally balanced, they fell out of favor for many years. However, due to rising consumer interest in high quality meat products, several companies are now promoting 95% and 100% canned meats as a supplemental feeding option.

The "dinner" product is defined by the 25% Rule, which applies when "an ingredient or a combination of ingredients constitutes at least 25% of the weight of the product" (excluding water sufficient for processing) as long as the ingredient(s) shall constitute at least 10% of the total product weight; and a descriptor that implies other ingredients are included in the product formula is used on the label. Such descriptors include "recipe," "platter," "entree," and "formula." A combination of ingredients included in the product name is permissible when each ingredient comprises at least 3% of the product weight, excluding water for processing, and the ingredient names appear in descending order by weight.

The "with" rule allows an ingredient name to appear on the label, such as "with real chicken," as long as each such ingredient constitutes at least 3% of the food by weight, excluding water for processing.

The "flavor" rule allows a food to be designated as a certain flavor as long as the ingredient(s) are sufficient to "impart a distinctive characteristic" to the food. Thus, a "beef flavor" food may contain a small quantity of digest or other extract of tissues from cattle, without containing any actual beef meat at all.

What Happened to the Nutrients?

Dr. Randy L. Wysong is a veterinarian and produces his own line of pet foods. A long-time critic of pet food industry practices, he said, "Processing is the wild card in nutritional value that is, by and large, simply ignored. Heating, cooking, rendering, freezing, dehydrating, canning, extruding, pelleting, baking, and so forth, are so commonplace that they are simply thought of as synonymous with food itself."7 Processing meat and by-products used in pet food can greatly diminish their nutritional value, but cooking increases the digestibility of cereal grains.

To make pet food nutritious, pet food manufacturers must "fortify" it with vitamins and minerals. Why? Because the ingredients they are using are not wholesome, their quality may be extremely variable, and the harsh manufacturing practices destroy many of the nutrients the food had to begin with.

Contaminants

Commercially manufactured or rendered meat meals and by-product meals are frequently highly contaminated with bacteria because their source is not always slaughtered animals. Animals that have died because of disease, injury, or natural causes are a source of meat for meat meal. The dead animal might not be rendered until days after its death. Therefore the carcass is often contaminated with bacteria such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli. Dangerous E. Coli bacteria are estimated to contaminate more than 50% of meat meals. While the cooking process may kill bacteria, it does not eliminate the endotoxins some bacteria produce during their growth and are released when they die. These toxins can cause sickness and disease. Pet food manufacturers do not test their products for endotoxins.

Mycotoxins -- These toxins comes from mold or fungi, such as vomitoxin in the Nature's Recipe case, and aflatoxin in Doane's food. Poor farming practices and improper drying and storage of crops can cause mold growth. Ingredients that are most likely to be contaminated with mycotoxins are grains such as wheat and corn, cottonseed meal, peanut meal, and fish meal.

Labeling

The National Research Council (NRC) of the Academy of Sciences set the nutritional standards for pet food that were used by the pet food industry until the late 1980s. The NRC standards, which still exist and are being revised as of 2001, were based on purified diets, and required feeding trials for pet foods claimed to be "complete" and "balanced." The pet food industry found the feeding trials too restrictive and expensive, so AAFCO designed an alternate procedure for claiming the nutritional adequacy of pet food, by testing the food for compliance with "Nutrient Profiles." AAFCO also created "expert committees" for canine and feline nutrition, which developed separate canine and feline standards. While feeding trials can still be done, a standard chemical analysis may be also be used to determine if a food meets the profiles.

Chemical analysis, however, does not address the palatability, digestibility, or biological availability of nutrients in pet food. Thus it is unreliable for determining whether a food will provide an animal with sufficient nutrients.

To compensate for the limitations of chemical analysis, AAFCO added a "safety factor," which was to exceed the minimum amount of nutrients required to meet the complete and balanced requirements.

The digestibility and availability of nutrients is not listed on pet food labels.

The 100% Myth -- Problems Caused by Inadequate Nutrition

The idea of one pet food providing all the nutrition a companion animal will ever need for its entire life is a myth.

Cereal grains are the primary ingredients in most commercial pet foods. Many people select one pet food and feed it to their dogs and cats for a prolonged period of time. Therefore, companion dogs and cats eat a primarily carbohydrate diet with little variety. Today, the diets of cats and dogs are a far cry from the primarily protein diets with a lot of variety that their ancestors ate. The problems associated with a commercial diet are seen every day at veterinary establishments. Chronic digestive problems, such as chronic vomiting, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease are among the most frequent illnesses treated. These are often the result of an allergy or intolerance to pet food ingredients. The market for "limited antigen" or "novel protein" diets is now a multi-million dollar business. These diets were formulated to address the increasing intolerance to commercial foods that animals have developed. The newest twist is the truly "hypoallergenic" food that has had all its proteins artificially chopped into pieces smaller than can be recognized and reacted to by the immune system.

Dry commercial pet food is often contaminated with bacteria, which may or may not cause problems. Improper food storage and some feeding practices may result in the multiplication of this bacteria. For example, adding water or milk to moisten pet food and then leaving it at room temperature causes bacteria to multiply.8 Yet this practice is suggested on the back of packages of some kitten and puppy foods.

Pet food formulas and the practice of feeding that manufacturers recommend have increased other digestive problems. Feeding only one meal per day can cause the irritation of the esophagus by stomach acid. Feeding two smaller meals is better.

Feeding recommendations or instructions on the packaging are sometimes inflated so that the consumer will end up purchasing more food. However, Procter & Gamble allegedly took the opposite tack with its Iams and Eukanuba lines, reducing the feeding amounts in order to claim that its foods were less expensive to feed. Independent studies commissioned by a competing manufacturer suggested that these reduced levels were inadequate to maintain health. Procter & Gamble has since sued and been countersued by that competing manufacturer, and a consumer complaint has also been filed seeking class-action status for harm caused to dogs by the revised feeding instructions.

Urinary tract disease is directly related to diet in both cats and dogs. Plugs, crystals, and stones in cat bladders are often triggered or aggravated by commercial pet food formulas. One type of stone found in cats is less common now, but another more dangerous type has become more common. Manipulation of manufactured cat food formulas to alter the acidity of urine and the amount of some minerals has directly affected these diseases. Dogs also form stones as a result of their diet.

History has shown that commercial pet food products can cause disease. An often-fatal heart disease in cats and some dogs is now known to be caused by a deficiency of the amino acid taurine. Blindness is another symptom of taurine deficiency. This deficiency was due to inadequate amounts of taurine in cat food formulas, which itself occurred because of decreased amounts of animal proteins and increased reliance on carbohydrates. Cat foods are now supplemented with taurine. New research suggests that supplementing taurine may also be helpful for dogs, but as yet few manufacturers are adding extra taurine to dog food. Inadequate potassium in certain feline diets also caused kidney failure in young cats; potassium is now added in greater amounts to all cat foods.

Rapid growth in large breed puppies has been shown to contribute to bone and joint disease. Excess calories and calcium in some manufactured puppy foods promoted rapid growth. There are now special puppy foods for large breed dogs. But this recent change will not help the countless dogs who lived and died with hip and elbow disease.

There is also evidence that hyperthyroidism in cats may be related to excess iodine in commercial pet food diets.9 This is a new disease that first surfaced in the 1970s, when canned food products appeared on the market. The exact cause and effect are not yet known. This is a serious and sometimes terminal disease, and treatment is expensive.

Many nutritional problems appeared with the popularity of cereal-based commercial pet foods. Some have occurred because the diet was incomplete. Although several ingredients are now supplemented, we do not know what ingredients future researchers may discover that should have been supplemented in pet foods all along. Other problems may result from reactions to additives. Others are a result of contamination with bacteria, mold, drugs, or other toxins. In some diseases the role of commercial pet food is understood; in others, it is not. The bottom line is that diets composed primarily of low quality cereals and rendered meat meals are not as nutritious or safe as you should expect for your cat or dog.

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