Author: Mark Syme
Dog Health Food – Are You Accidentally Poisoning Your Best Friend?
Dog health food is fast becoming a mainstream choice for
many dog owners as more dog food recalls are issued. Many
people are losing faith in dog food manufacturers being
able to reliably supply food that is always going to be
free from contaminants. Some people are making their own
food, while most are looking much more carefully at what is
really going into their dog's food.
Now there's a whole range of reasons for dog food to be
recalled and some of them are exactly the same reasons as
why some human food recalls occur. In at least one case
there was a fungal infection on the production line, which
contaminated the food. This would make me ask the question:
What sort of hygiene procedures are in place that allowed
this to occur?
The FDA is responsible for keeping tabs on the dog food
industry, which is enormous and growing at a staggering
rate. And so we'd like to think that dog food conforms to
the same standards as human food, but all too often this is
far from the truth.
The FDA is growing increasingly under funded and
understandably puts most of its resources into ensuring
that human food production is kept to the required hygiene
standards. That said, plenty of products still slip
through when you think about how often you see food recalls
at the supermarket. So where does that leave the pet food
industry?
Well, the lack of official oversight means that they are
mainly self-regulating. While in a perfect world this
wouldn't be a problem, I have my doubts when it comes to
the sort of money that is being made from dog food today.
In most cases, in the battle between increased profits and
better quality, profits come out on top.
And who could forget the wide-ranging pet food recalls in
2007? This was eventually traced back to contaminated rice
protein and wheat gluten produced in China. One more way
that a cheaply sourced ingredient is added that has little
nutritional value anyway. This means that even if the
standards of the US manufacturer are fantastic, it won't
help if they're using tainted ingredients?
So we need to asking the hard questions of where our dog
food really comes from, what's really in the food that our
best friends are gobbling up and what are the long term
effects on their health going to be?
Many pet owner are turning to some form of dog health food
as a practical way to ensure that their pets get not only
the best nutrition but also keep them safe from any pet
food company blunders. At the end of the day, it's up to us
to give our pets healthy and safe food but we can't always
believe what the large pet food companies are telling us.
About the Author:
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