by Julie Hall

Whenever we walk through the “pet” food aisle at the market my daughter coos at the adorable kitten and puppy faces on the labels. Like most things in our world these days what you see is not what you get—or, in this gruesome instance, it is what you get. Yeah, some pet food makers add euthanized cats and dogs to their animal food products. First reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and confirmed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, many pets euthanized with the poison sodium pentobarbital are rendered for use in pet food and feed for pigs and vegetarian animals such as horses and cows, who in turn consume the euthanization poison themselves in smaller doses.

Gravy Train

The Animal Protection Institute reports that, along with poisoned animals, myriad other indigestible materials deemed “unfit for human consumption” (a pretty low standard to begin with), including rancid oils, moldy grains, chemical-laden milling byproducts, urine, feces, and filthy slaughterhouse waste, end up in the so-called food we feed our animal companions. But the processing may be the most damaging part of all. The fetid concoction is heated, frozen, dehydrated, pelleted, and extruded beyond recognition, and then sprayed with synthetic fat flavor to make it more palatable. This garbage “food” matter is provided in ample supply to pet food companies by agribusinesses in a mutually beneficial financial arrangement that adds up to questionable nutritional value at best and immoral cancer-causing planetary scourge at worst.

Not in my brand of pet food, you think? If they put it in baby formula, you can bet it’s in your cat or dog food, no matter how cute or “natural”-sounding the label.

Cook for Your Hairy Friends!

So, what can you do? Sure you can buy higher quality processed food for your animal buddies. That’s a start, but you still don’t know how safe, fresh, and nutritious it really is. A better plan is to cook them real food. It wasn’t until the 1950s that processed and packaged kibble even existed. Before that, and still in many parts of the world, people fed their animals home cooked food and leftovers. I cook for my dogs and cats, and they are satisfied, calm, happy, not overweight, and atypically long-lived. Imagine eating the exact same substandard factory-processed dry cereal (without milk) each day of your entire life. For an animal with a sense of smell far more refined than ours and virtually no other source of nourishment, such a foul and bleak food life is truly a crime against nature.

Of course, cooking for cats and dogs is more work than opening a can and dumping it in a dish. Like most things in life, you get back what you give. So if you want healthy and happy animal companions in your life, you have to put some effort in to give them the nourishment they need. I began cooking for my canines in the 1990s using as my guide one of the first books on the subject, Natural Health for Dogs and Cats by Richard and Susan Pitcairn. Now there are numerous books available filled with recipes and helpful information about canine and feline nutrition. So get cooking! Your best friends will love you for it.

Photos by Julie Hall.

©2009 ProgressiveKid

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