By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
For frantic pet owners, it's getting to be a crapshoot coming up with commercial pet food guaranteed not to poison Fluffy or Fido.
First off the mark in the current poison pet food scare was Menu Foods Investment Fund. (Some PR company wasn't doing its job when Menu came up with that name). Next came Hills Diet m/d Feline Dry Food, Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food from Nestle Purina PetCare and Jerky Treats Beef Flavor Dog Snacks, Gravy Train Beef Sticks Dog Snacks and Pounce Meaty Morsels Moist Chicken Flavor Cat Treats from Del Monte Pet Products.
With all the big names off the shelf, Catnip must be looking pretty good to Fluffy these days.
We all count on those big names providing safe wholesome pet food. What could be more heartbreaking than knowing the food you poured into a dish for your beloved pet was the cause of its suffering and death?
But pet food companies have been falling like the proverbial dominos.
Menu Foods recalled 60 million containers of cat and dog food last month when pets died of kidney failure after eating the Toronto area company's products.
It came on like a lot of life unpleasant things, a shock.
First authorities told a worried John Q. Public it was rat poison. Soon they were pointing the finger of blame on a chemical used to make plastics.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it found melamine in samples of the Menu Foods pet food, as well as in wheat gluten used as an ingredient.
According to Menu Foods they replaced a supplier whose name they refuse to reveal.
Something smells in this story.
Are all major pet food companies importing wheat gluten from Communist China?
If not, where are the advertisements from pet food manufacturers, who don't assuring the public, "Absolutely no wheat gluten in this product"?
Some scientists insist that melamine is benign. Others, who first blamed rat poison, are not convinced it isn't rat poison.
Where does that leave the worried consumer?
Now there's a new twist to the story. Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company Ltd., named in a notice issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the source of wheat gluten containing a chemical found in plastics and pesticide, begs to differ.
"Geng Ziujuan, Xuzhou Aying's sales manager, said the company was aware of the notice and was looking into the accusation that large concentrations of melamine had been found in its wheat gluten, a protein sources used as an ingredient in the pet food." (TheStar.com, April 2, 2007). "However, Geng said the company based in the eastern province of Jiangsu had not manufactured the gluten but had instead bought it from companies in neighboring provinces. She said Xuzhou Anying sold it onward to another Jiangsu company, Suzhoiu Textile Import and Export Co."
"There are many other exporters and I don't see why they would just blame us," Geng said.
Sounds a bit like another Canadian pet food company stating that it had replaced one supplier with another without naming the one that had to be replaced.
"Pebble, pebble, who's got the pebble?"
Pet owners just want to be able to feed their pets a pet food that nourishes rather than kills them.
Both Canada and the United States are wheat rich. The Chinese gluten being used in North American pet food apparently is shipped through the Netherlands along with other gluten before export to North America. That's getting your gluten from a world away. From a strictly business perspective, there must be a better source.
Among us, the three main players here at Canada Free Press, Associate Editor Arthur Weinreb, IT manager Brian Thompson and Yours Truly have four pets. Weinreb has mouse meister, savvy, cool cat "Mr. Scribbs". Thompson is human companion to the aged but beloved Egyptian feline Ra, and the shy and graceful Bast. To the dog walkers in my home community, I'm "Kiko's mom".
Kiko, the only canine in the group, is CFP's mascot.
So far, Bast and Kiko don't seem to be affected in any way in the poison pet food scare, but we're all of us worried about Scribbs and Ra.
Scribbs, recently diagnosed with Diabetes, has been eating veterinarian-prescribed Hills Prescription Diet w/d Feline Dry for months. After today, you can cross Del Monte Pounce treats off his diet. A little plump when he first went on the diet kibble, Scribbs is now skin and bones. Make that a lovable skin and bones.
Ra is up in years, but Thompson has been worried ever since finding out that his regular Hills Science Diet Dry Food is on recall.
Kiko, on Pedigree kibble, is fed people food at dinnertime. People food meaning a fairy size dish of veggies and rice mixed with a little bit of chicken or beef. This has been his wet food diet ever since I once found squirming things in the canned dog food I had been feeding him.
Bast is on Purina products, some of which are on current recall.
The recalled pet foods are happening at such a fast and worrisome pace that Weinreb suggested a three-person pool to buoy our flagging spirits. The three of us threw in a fixed amount of money and as Weinreb puts it, "the last one standing with a pet food not on recall wins the jackpot."
We started the pool today because we know the pet food scare is bound to get worse.
Meanwhile, if any sideline entrepreneurs have been toying with going into the pet food business, there's no better time than right now.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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