Food Pets Die For - Shocking Facts About Pet Food

The health of your pets depends so much on what you feed them. I cannot stress that enough. That is why you need to read this book, Food Pets Die For; Shocking Facts About Pet Foods by Ann N. Martin (2008). This book is a real eye-opener when it comes to the commercial foods we feed our pets. This book is well-organized, well-documented and full of facts you need to know as a pet owner.

Ann Martin, internationally recognized as an authority on commercial pet food, has been investigating the multi-billion-dollar commercial pet food industry since 1990. Sonoma State University's School of Journalism's "Project Censored" recognized her investigative writing on the pet food industry as one of the most important yet under-reported news stories. She has exposed the truth behind what is contained in many commercial pet foods. She also documents the ongoing animal experimentation funded by many major pet food companies in the name of nutritious pet food.

She first began to question the pet food industry twenty years ago after her two dogs, a Newfoundland and a Saint Bernard, got severely ill after eating dry dog food. She had the food tested at an independent lab and results showed a zinc level twenty times higher than the daily recommended dose of 50 parts per million (ppm). Zinc levels in excess of 1,000 ppm can be toxic to dogs.

She quickly learned that this multi-billion dollar industry in many ways is self-regulated. She "also learned that there are many deplorable ingredients that legally can be used in pet foods as sources of protein -- in particular, euthanized cats and dogs, diseased cattle and horses, road kill, dead zoo animals, and meat not fit for human consumption. In addition, fiber sources in many foods are composed of the leftovers from the food chain, including beet pulp, the residue of sugar beets, peanut hulls, and even sawdust sweepings from the floor of the rendering plant!" She talks about how researchers found traces of Pentobarbital in pet foods as far back as 1998. Pentobarbital is used for euthanizing animals. "The researchers surmised that Pentobarbital was finding its way into commercial pet foods through animals who had been euthanized with Pentobarbital and later rendered for 'meat meal'  in pet food", she stated. Research done in 1995 concluded that sodium Pentobarbital "survived rendering without undergoing degradation". 

Not only that, but while researching the latest information on the 2007 pet food recall, she came across disturbing information that indicates rendered cat and dog carcasses could be entering the human food chain. She found "evidence that leads to the strong possibility that shrimp, fish and eel grown on fish farms in China and other Asian countries could be eating 'tankage' shipped form renderers in California."  And speaking of the pet food recall of 2007, (which by the way, killed over 8,000 pets) you are aware of that one because it was so big and so many different foods were involved. She lists in detail several other examples of pet food recalls going back to 1995. I currently get notices of pet food recalls on a fairly regular basis.

She gives a detailed explanation of what all the ingredients are in pets foods, how they are processed and tested, what the laws and regulations are, what studies have been done and more! This lady has really done the research! She tells you how to read the labels, what to look for (or look out for!) in the ingredients. She has a list of recommended natural pet food companies and tells you about each one. She has recipes for home cooked meals for cats and dogs. She also has a chapter about bloat: a canine killer, a chapter on designer dogs and pet scams on the internet and newspapers. This book is full of information. Information you need to know as a pet owner. Available on Amazon and bookstores.