What have we been feeding our pets?

So it's been confirmed that rat poison was behind the confirmed dealths of at least 16 pets in North America. They are still investigating as to how that poison got into the manufacturing plants, which led to the massive recall of about 100 different brands of cat and dog food. Among the list was Iams and Science Diet, both of which I used to feed my cats. I only fed them the packaged dry food, and the contamination was supposedly only for wet canned and the foil pouches. But I was still worried, so I decided to do some research on the net. I read some articles about pet food, and read pet owners' forums and discussions. What I learned has made me switch to organic, holistic cat food. These were what I found out:

• Most pet food companies use meat by-products as one of their main ingredients. So basically, the parts that are swept off the floor of slaughterhouses. Whatever cannot be put into human food, they put into pet food. This includes hoofs, lips, hair, feathers, beaks, etc. I also read an article that said it may even contain roadkill, dead zoo animal carcasses, and fecal matter! YUCK!! What the hell have I been paying for???
• I also read an article that said every year, the SPCA has to put down about 10,000 animals. A percentage of those dead animals are buried, another percentage is cremated, but 40% is sold to petfood companies, they are then put into a grinder and voila! another ingredient! WTH! First of all, they had to inject a lethal solution to put down those animals. Second of all, those animals would have diseases, tumors, etc. All those would ultimately land into the pet food!
• Cats and dogs, are in fact, carnivores. They need a lot of meat protein. Their systems have a hard time digesting ingredients like corn, soy, wheat gluten, etc. I looked at the ingredients of most pet food and the main ingredients are these grains and fillers. So the food just passes through their digestive tract and results in a wet, stinky stool.
  
• There is no quality control in the manufacturing of pet food. One writer wrote that he saw how those factories were operated. Workers don't even remove the meat from the styrofoam, they throw everything in the grinder, packaging and all!

I felt horrified by what I read. This is the result of commercialism and capitalism. I fell hook line sinker into the marketing strategy of Science Diet's Nature's Best. I remember paying top dollar for their cat food cos the packaging was so nice, it showed fresh meat, veggies and grains. Even the food itself looked so nice, each ingredient had a different shaped and colored little pellet. Brown tiny bone for chicken, red tiny fish for seafood, green heart shape for grains, etc. I looked at the ingredients, and it had the same fillers as the cheaper brands.

So I had several options now, based on the research I did. Technically, the best diet for cats and dogs is raw meat. There are a lot of people who buy meat by the bulk, grind them and freeze them as pet food. There's also a company called The Honest Kitchen, and they sold dehydrated raw food in big containers. To feed your pet, you would scoop a cup of this and mix it with water to re-hydrate. Both of those seem to be too much work, since most mornings I'm rushing just to get to work on time =) So I found a few brands that sold organic pet food. They were smaller companies, but they use human-grade meat as their main ingredient, usually free-range chicken and other poultry. No by-products, no preservatives. They are not sold in the supermarkets, or even big corporations like Petcetera, but through smaller, healthy pet supply stores. This goes to show that if you want better quality these days, you need to go to the smaller companies rather than the big chains and corporations.

Tisol Pet Nutrition & Supply, is pretty close to home, so I'll be going there from now on. I went there last Friday and got a pack of Felidae Dry Cat Formula. The ingredients right away list chicken, turkey, lamb and herring, rather than the crap filler stuff. I also got them some Greenie's Dental Treats in Tempting Tuna. It was so cute, the dog version of those dental treats were in the shape of small toothbrushes =) As soon as I got home, Tigger and Mittens started sniffing the bags, and they took to the new stuff right away. They're a bit more expensive, but totally worth it in the long run, if they can lead long, healthy lives. I might also try Solid Gold Katz-n-Flocken Cat Food, lamb is their main ingredient, and my sister's puppy Brody eats their line of dog food.

I'm pretty glad that I did all this research. I mean, I would not feed a child McDonald's crap everyday, so why would I feed crap to my cats? If it's not good enough for humans to consume, it ain't good enough for my babies.