What's in Your Pet's Food Bowl?

Diana S. Bokhari

Carcasses of euthanized dogs and cats complete with ID tags and flea collars, dead skunks, rats and raccoons, road-kill, bovine and equine heads and hooves, recalled and condemned meats from supermarkets with their plastic and styrofoam packaging, expired rotting fish, diseased poultry and livestock unfit for human consumption, laboratory animals as well as animal materials used for examination at food labs and veterinary institutes, slaughterhouse sludge and sieve remains along with other floor sweepings, and leftovers from restaurants (including used, rancid oils and fats).  This list is not complete (and doesn’t even begin to mention the toxic preservatives, pesticides, or hormones), but quite revealing of what most pet owners do not know.  The pet food industry is self-regulating, therefore it is not bound by any federal laws to disclose exactly what their sources of raw materials are.  These ingredients are rendered into mostly pet food, although some even make their way into cosmetics, livestock feed, and fertilizer.  If you are buying pet foods which are not guaranteed human-grade, you risk allowing your pet to be the means of disposal for toxic human waste.  What are your choices?  Educate yourself.  There is much recorded data from veterinarians, various health experts, and fellow consumers who did the research.  Ann N. Martin’s Food Pets Die For, and Protect Your Pet are a great place to start, as well as Quebec’s own Charles Danten’s Un Veterinaire En Colere (French), and visit http://www.angryvet.org/francais/index.html, and http://www.api4animals.org/ (Anglais).  You owe yourself and your pets at least that much.

Naturalanimal & Pawtisserie Holistic Pet Center Inc.
www.naturalanimal.net

514-488-4729