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.
)
