The truth about pet foods article

[mississippifarmboy]

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Gosh welsummerchicks, I think you're gonna be my new hero. I might not always agree with ya on all points, but you do get me thinking....
(Plus, I think like me, you just sorta like to argue..

)



I'm gonna go eat my dog now.....

 

[welsummerchicks]

I don't believe, that after animal remains are processed into 'animal products', that it really is 'cat meat' or 'dog meat'. It is so processed, that it's not like that.

No, I don't like to argue, you don't understand me at all. Arguing is a waste of time, and it is usually done to push someone down or to try to make them agree.

I wrote that to ask why people dislike pet food with pets in it. I explained how I felt, and my assumptions, very clearly. Then others responded. I read each response with interest.

I learned why people feel animal products are unsafe. They appear to have logical reasons. And the reasons make good scientific sense. Diseases tend to affect one species, and they are not comfortable that the processing animals get, makes the animal products safe from species specific diseases. OTHER diseases cross species lines, and they are concerned about those diseases too. I'm impressed. I WAS comfortable that these products are safe, but I no longer feel the same assurance.

It is true that the market provides choices. I can, at this point, buy an expensive chicken feed, or dog or cat feed, that states it does not contain those ingredients. But in inexpensive feeds, there is much less range of choice.

So can someone respond to this: In the US, to an extent, the 'marketplace makes the choices'. If people don't buy enough of a product to make it profitable, it goes off the market. Enough people buy feeds with animal products that they are still on the market. Do people just want choices, more inexpensive choices, or do they want certain products not to appear in ANY feeds sold in the US, and not have such products processed here? If that happened, what would be done with animal remains? No one has weighed in on that issue yet, I hope someone does.

To work on the issue, I have to not only learn exactly how animal products are processed, but also, what it takes to kill a prion disease.

I have to work out how, if we know how to 'kill'* prions, there are issues with cattle prion diseases getting into humans. I read about it some years ago, and I thought the cases of human infection were from slaughterhouses and direct (and incorrect) contact with raw tissue, but are there other cases, I can't recall.

I do know, from history, that the people that slaughter animals, are exposed to infectious agents in ways very, very few other people in the population are. They basically stand on the 'frontline' of the edge of animal-human contamination.

I also have to see if there's anything new about prions. They are very, very odd things. I've read a little about them - they are almost just a protein or a part of a protein. In other words, even weirder than viruses, and viruses are plenty weird.

The major known human prion disease was stopped from getting into more humans by stopping....ah...cannibalism.

I have to get some idea about how 'reliable' animal processing is. I'm not sure how to study it. There might be a government office that tracks complaints and outbreaks of disease due to animal products. They might have some information about how they do what they do.

I have a feeling that an industry can only guarantee so much. People make mistakes. Problems will occur.

Not because it isn't POSSIBLE to process animal products into something safe, but because it's very difficult to guarantee it's always done properly. 'Always' is pretty danged often.

I DO know that some processes are in principle safe, but not performing well in the real world. Cheap shortcuts in construction, shoddy supervision, payoffs in inspections....these can make something that is in PRINCIPLE safe, unsafe. Or from the view of the public, not safe enough. What's safe enough? What can reasonably be guaranteed? What are the tradeoffs?

THAT is why I posted that. To find out what people think, and how they got there.

People take the side they do for good reasons - experience, principles, goals, information they've read.

*You can't kill them because they aren't alive, but they can be well...pulled apart, denatured. Cooking and pressure does danture them.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Been catching up with the latest on prion diseases. Amazing, incredible. Don't have time right now to post about the details but oh...my....goodness. Fascinating.

 

[Brindlebtch]

Have you heard about folks that slaughter pigs developing a specific neurological issue?

 

[mississippifarmboy]

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I didn't mean what I said in a bad way, really I didn't, I was just sorta tounge-in-cheek in how I stated it. Your post are always so concise and detailed. they are always well thought out and lots of times on subjects I just don't think much about. Like with all the billions of pets where do you dispose of them?

So don't be mad at me, It was a genuine compliment.

 

[welsummerchicks]

No prob mississippi.

At one point, when I read about CJ disease and then prions in general, I surveyed the research for any/all know species-human prion info. And I can't remember any swine/human issues, but I should read through again. I might get a chance to look today, if I forget, go upside my head and remind me.

Where I started, was with scrapie, a prion disease of sheep. But for some reason erisipelas (sp???) a disease of hogs keeps popping up in my brain. Probably a defective neuron in MY brain dude. I thought that was a virus.

A good source of info is the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center. Their focus is more on how this affects humans, but it is a good source of information for that. They test tissue samples for prion diseases, among other things.

But the thing people need to realize is that the news media has almost completely misrepresented prion diseases. They have perpetrated so much misunderstanding and terror it's amazing.

My friend had an old Frank Zappa album cover with a graphic picture and the title, 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh!' and every time a prion disease news article came up, he'd hold that up and start pantomiming being attacked by weasels.

Um. Well I guess you had to be there.

It was funny.

To me.

ANYWAY....

The other news is - yup, it looks like a huge leap has been made in TREATING prion diseases. Yup. Got to go now but will try to add more later today.

 

[True Grit]

The petfood industry doesn't currently allow rendered "companion animals" to be added to the meat and bone meal they purchase to use in their products. In fact the suppliers may have to sign a "companion animal certificate" to the effect that they don't include that raw material. Where does it go? Poultry feed and aquatic feed.

Quote from welsummer chicks "So can someone respond to this: In the US, to an extent, the 'marketplace makes the choices'. If people don't buy enough of a product to make it profitable, it goes off the market. Enough people buy feeds with animal products that they are still on the market. Do people just want choices, more inexpensive choices, or do they want certain products not to appear in ANY feeds sold in the US, and not have such products processed here? If that happened, what would be done with animal remains? No one has weighed in on that issue yet, I hope someone does."

It would go to export markets, much as beef meat and bone meal has gone. We will still render animal remains. As a last resort, as happened in the UK, it would become biomass to be used for energy creation. That would be probably the lowest return end use for the product.

welsummer I completely agree about the weasels.

 

[True Grit]

lil'turkeymama :

I'm not suprised at all.Protein for pet food has to come from somewhere.I wonder why in the world horse slaughter houses were outlawed.We all knew growing up that Ole Grey would someday go to the glue/dogfood factory.Just a fact of life.Now someone decided for us that horses are not to be consumed.Whats next?Someone could decide cows and pigs and chickens are too special to eat and make it illegal to butcher them.We used to be able to buy real meat dog food that contained horsemeat.Can't do that anymore.I am a horse owner.I have 9 horses at this time.Half are over 20 years old.They will live out their lives here.I will bury them on my farm.I love my horses very much.But,there are so many horses in the US that are suffering.Old used up horses.Horses with old injuries that have belly aches from the medicine used to treat them.Mean ole horses that will try to kill a person.Young horses with bad confirmation that can't be used for ridding or anything.Wild mustangs that have been born and raised free now confined to large lots waiting for some kind of release from the cruel world they're trapped in.I hope folks will think about such things more and really see how things are and maybe help things be right.I don't think we should feed dogs and cats to dogs and cats no more than I believe we should feed chickens and cows to chickens and cows.It just ain't right.I can't fuss about my dogfood when there is so much wasted meat taking up space.I'm sure lots of folks don't like to think about eating a horse but then we're maybe feeding dogs to our dogs?I would rather my dogs have real meat,even if it is horse.I'm sure I couldn't eat a dog but I could eat horse.Very large,lean-meated animal.I'd think even horse-lovers would see its better and more humane to use an animal,that is truly livestock,for dog food than just be forced to care for it until it died of old age.Anybody thats ever worked alot with horses has seen at least one that made you wonder why it hasn't hurt somebody really bad already.Maybe articles like that will help folks think more with their heads and less with their hearts.Compassion is great but common sense is even better.

lil'turkeymama, I could not agree more. I couldn't believe they would pass that law. I wonder how many horses have quietly starved to death because they weren't worth the dollars to feed them. Some of the horses slaughtered in Canada were exported to Europe as human food because consumers wanted it. There was a market for unwanted horses so no horse needed to suffer past the time when he should have been humanely put down.​

 

[duckluck]

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I believe every bit of it...I have seen a mink farm skin the minks and turn the bodies back into mink food. How this does not result in some form of a deadly disease, this cannibalism, is beyond me.