The Dangers of Commercial Pet Food - Especially Dry Food
With regard to the safety of raw meat diets, you will no doubt hear varying opinions on this issue. Many of my colleagues are adamantly opposed to the feeding of raw meat yet they think nothing of supporting the common practice of leaving bowls of dry food sitting out for pets to free-feed from and supporting the feeding of treats which can be contaminated with fungal mycotoxins, bacteria, or chemicals. It is very frustrating to witness this narrow-mindedness and lack of knowledge as it pertains to the contamination issues regarding dry food and treats.
I would like to see my colleagues stop reflexively telling their clients that all raw meat diets are dangerous and understand that there are ways to prepare this diet that will actually make it safer than the commercial foods that they continue to recommend without any thought as to feline illnesses that these foods contribute to, and to the contamination issues.
I don't think that a single cat or dog caregiver in the US is not aware of the thousands of cats and dogs that suffered tremendously and died - or have been left with failing kidneys and a shortened lifespan/diminished quality of life - due to the contamination of commercial foods processed by Menu Foods in the summer of 2007.
While the Menu Foods recall was the largest pet food recall in the history of commercial pet food, make no mistake in thinking that this was the first time that many cats and dogs have died after consuming commercial pet foods that have been contaminated with chemicals, bacteria, and bacterial or mold toxins.
However, keep in mind that the vast majority of these contamination disasters (outside of the Menu Foods tragedy) have involved dry food or treats - not canned food. Therefore, if you decide that you don't want to make your cat's food, please feed canned food and keep the dry food out of your cat's food bowl.
Dry food is simply not a healthy or safe diet to be feeding to any cat.
There have been many instances of mold toxin-related deaths of pets after eating contaminated commercial dry food. I have listed a few below but these tragedies are too numerous to list all of them.
The regulatory body for the commercial pet food industry does allow a certain level of mold toxins (found in grains) to be present in your pets' food. For me, this is unacceptable - especially when feeding cats - since grains have no business in their diet to begin with.
With regard to the extremely dangerous and life-threatening fungal toxins found in commercial dry food, this issue will never be a worry when feeding a grain-free diet - either in the form of canned food or the diet discussed on this page.
And if mold toxins and bacteria in dry food are not enough to cause us worry, please consider the fact that the fats contained in dry food become rancid over time - even with the preservatives that are added to the food. Heat, oxygen and light are all factors involved in fats becoming rancid. Keeping dry food in the refrigerator will help with the issue of heat but that still leaves the oxidation issue unaddressed.
Dry foods that are fed to pets sit in warm warehouses and pet food stores before they even reach our pets' bowls - promoting rancidity of fats, bacterial growth, mold growth, and toxin formation, and proliferation of storage mites.
See this link for an abstract that discusses the issue of storage mites that were found in 9 out of 10 bags of tested dry food.
This link will take you to an article on a website maintained by the pet food industry. This article discusses the use of ethanol by-products in pet foods.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that many cats and dogs have died as a result of consuming commercial pet foods. These deaths include the various illnesses (diabetes, etc.) that manifest themselves due to the species-inappropriate composition (composition = percentage of calories coming from proteins/fats/carbohydrates) of the diet, as well as out-and-out contamination issues as discussed above and below in the Pet Food Recalls section.
Unfortunately, humans just don't recognize these illogical and unsafe diets as the cause of the pet's illness. Humans - including veterinarians - often fail to put 2 + 2 together in many instances of ill health or death. Food is often the last thing to even be considered as a cause or contributing factor in the event of an illness or death.
It never ceases to amaze me when I hear people (both lay people and veterinarians) caution people about the hazards of raw meat diets but then ignore the bowls of kibble sitting out in many homes. Dry food is far from safe and pathogen-free. Both food forms - raw diets and dry kibble - carry risk. However, I feel much safer feeding the diet that I prepare myself versus any dry food in terms of cleanliness and overall safety.
As stated above, we all must work within our comfort zone. If you find that you are not comfortable feeding a raw meat - or lightly cooked - diet even when implementing the tips in my safety section, then please feed a high quality canned food and remove all dry kibble from your cat's diet. Although my cats primarily eat a carefully prepared raw (or lightly cooked) meat and bones diet, I do feed some canned food on occasion (a few times a year) as a treat since some of my cats really like canned food.
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