Comments on: Pet food recall: USA Today reports on FDA wheat gluten alert

By: nancy

nancy — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 04:30:17 +0000

Dr. Pitcairn’s book on Natural Health for Dogs and Cats is a terrific resource - have used his recipes in the past. One suggestion if you go that route - cook the meat. Pitcairn is into raw & that can be iffy. I whipped up big batches and froze it in 1-2 day portions. Not that big a deal - all ingredients are readily available at health food stores.
I’m with those of you who are concerned about this crap showing up in people food too. Our Safeway pulled all store brands of bread products on 4/1. When I contacted them for an explanation, I got a world class line of BS (including “the shelves were empty because we sold it all”), but eventually an admission that they pulled bread that day all the way from Eugene, OR to Seattle, WA because of a “potential problem” in their regional bakery. Do I smell a little wheat gluten problem?

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:34:03 +0000

>My question is: Is there really not enough wheat
>in the United States that we need to import it
>from China???

The answer is simply that they can get is cheaper from there. It doesn’t matter whether or not we can provide it, they want it cheap cheap cheap. The problem is that countries like China do not have the same sanitation and food handling standards that we are required to do here in the US. Because of this, we are all at risk. The FDA can’t oversee 1,000,000 cans of food on a boat. If they do check, they would only do sample tests which will not be very much of the shipment. This means that if most of the shipment is garbage and they open up and pass it, we get garbage in the store. I think we should boycott companies that are risking the health of our animals, and our health as well because of flat out greed.

By: j

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:22:04 +0000

The middle man seems to be Canada, and the U.S. knows it!!

shock yourself by how many wheat products come from Canada!

Now I know why I have dark urine after eating Canadian wheat cereal!

By: Janice

Janice — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:12:09 +0000

I just bought Dr. Pitcairn’s book on Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. It has a lot of good advice on pet nutrition. I heartily recommend it!!!!

By: fern

fern — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 20:26:29 +0000

*** TO LOIS C. & ANYONE ELSE LOOKING FOR A LIST OF BRANDS:

Here’s an even better & more comprehensive list of brands: http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210 They’ve not only got verified information about most brands of pet food, but they go into impressive detail about each one.

That’s the list to check!!

By: fern

fern — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:54:49 +0000

*****REPLY TO LOIS C.*****

I’ve been feeding my cats Evanger wet food since the recall and they’ve been pretty happy with it.

From what I’ve gleaned over the last little while, I think the only TRULY safe brands (i.e. unrelated to Menu Foods in ANY way) are:
1) Evanger
2) Merrick
3) Nature’s Balance
4) Ziwi Peak (?)

Here are a couple places to read up on each brand:
— http://www.mudbay.us/recall/statements.htm
— http://www.thecatsite.com/foru.....p?t=120147
— And of course, this great site right here :)

By: Sue Dunn

Sue Dunn — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:13:47 +0000

Cargill, the second largest (agri) US Corp. and a private corporation, has a Purina feed mill in NanJing (capital of Jiangsu, China, where Xuzhou Anying Biological is located) and also a Cargill facility in the Netherlands. At Cargill’s website they state activities at their Netherland location include ‘production and sales of glucose, starch and starch derivatives’ and ‘transport and logistics’. In addition to Archer Daniels Midland, they are another potential but unconfirmed source.

By: Serijna

Serijna — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:56:18 +0000

I agree with Jeanette on corn. I have multiple cats in the house and one 12 year old healthy tabby loves corn on the cob when we have it for dinner and gets his own ear. Each of my(19) house cats eats different. Some eat wet and dry. Some only dry. One absolutely refuses to eat any cat food , wet or dry. She only eats baked chicken. She is healthy and her vet. says not to worry. Might be allergic to many things, and this cat knows it. I have been buying fresh chicken quarters in 10 lb bags at Wal-Mart for many years as a supplement to their commercial cat food.. A bargain at 39 cents a lb. I have stopped however, with any cat food that has wheat gluten in their ingredients, regardless who makes it. I donot feed the top premium brands(too expensive on my limited budget), most are Purina One varieties. The one time that I bought from my Vet. Hill’s prescription diet dry food, none of them would eat it and one of them even pee’d on it.As to tainted wheat gluten in people’s food. For years , we have been eating with and from Melamine products. Undoubtedly ingested some of it with our food with no apparently ill effects. However I did have one melamine pet food dish that I have now replaced with a stainless steel one, like all the others.
None of my cats are sick or sickly, including the 25 strays/ferals I feed outside. Sofar lucked out on any of the recalled foods.

By: TC

TC — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:01:14 +0000

I just started my cat on dry Felidae. I like the ingredient list, the cat really likes it; however, I wish I could tell you I have confidence that I am doing the right thing, and that this food won’t be next on some recall list. But I have little trust and can’t do that.

Let me say that of what is available, it seems to be a good product. (If my cat would eat the home cooked things the dogs are, I would be doing that instead. But cat feeding is more complex, and my cat has had real problems with food issues in the distant past).

By: Lois C.

Lois C. — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:10:45 +0000

Thanks Lisa C. I will put check out that food. Halo Spots Stew and Instinctive Choice. Has anybody ever heard of Felidae? (specifically Felidae Platinum)?