Pets Are Family Too

Since the March 2007 pet food recall, there have been many of our pet family members, our dogs and cats, sickened and killed by tainted pet food made by popular pet food brands. This prompted a large scale pet food recall that seems to grow almost every day. Recently, as of April 19, 2007, American Hog Farms of Stanislaus County in California, discovered tainted melamine in the urine and food samples of it’s pig livestock. Even though, American Hog Farms is a so called “custom slaughterhouse”, who sells meat to individuals for “private consumption”, they have also provided meat to other meat processing facilities, yet to be named. This is where it gets tricky.

Many pet food companies and manufacturers are the same companies who provide food for people to eat. For example, from api4animals.com, a small breakdown of pet food companies that also provide people food are as follows,

* Nestlé’s bought Purina to form Nestlé Purina Petcare Company (Fancy Feast, Alpo, Friskies, Mighty Dog, Dog Chow, Cat Chow, Puppy Chow, Kitten Chow, Beneful, One, ProPlan, DeliCat, HiPro, Kit’n’Kaboodle, Tender Vittles, Purina Veterinary Diets).
* Del Monte gobbled up Heinz (MeowMix, Gravy Train, Kibbles ’n Bits, Wagwells, 9Lives, Cycle, Skippy, Nature’s Recipe, and pet treats Milk Bone, Pup-Peroni, Snausages, Pounce).
* MasterFoods owns Mars, Inc., which consumed Royal Canin (Pedigree, Waltham’s, Cesar, Sheba, Temptations, Goodlife Recipe, Sensible Choice, Excel).

Just to name a few! Is this our canary in the coal mine for people food?

The pet food recall could be to people food, as the canary was to the coal miner in a coal mine. The early warning system for the coal miner in the was the canary. If there was not any oxygen in the mine, the canary would die, alerting the miner that the mine was was filled with gas and should leave immediately! So, is the pet food recall an early warning? Another reason to make homemade dog food recipes, that may have you making homemade food recipes for your table as well!
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