Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food

The last year and a half has been a real journey for me as my childhood cat companion has grown old and sick... He now has restrictive dietary needs. That coupled with my growing need and desire to prolong and improve the quality of his life, I started last year to look for the best cat foods available.Unfortunately, even with a good general biology and nutrition background, wading through the marketing [...] that accompanies most pet foods in the stores was really difficult for me. On the one hand, XYZ pet food company markets a line of products as scientifically formulated for performance, etc. etc., yet the food in the can/bag turns out to be made in nearly the identical way as its general supermarket (well-known and marketed as 'cheap') line. This despite the higher cost, fancy packaging and limited availability (in pet food stores) of the 'performance' or 'premium' product.It seems as though last year there was very little information available online and I never found out about this book. I wish I had. I ended up purchasing a mix of good and not so good foods, which my cats have enjoyed (or so they think) over the last year. I was determined to look further and recently found that there is more information out there than before. About.com's article on cat nutrition led me to this book, which I am now reading. Although there are many other details about ingredients that I wish were covered in this book, I am very happy with the author's research and conclusions. I really feel that her efforts have created a small wave, slowly getting people aware of the issues and helping them to identify and make informed choices about the food they feed to their pets.Although my cats are slightly addicted to the less than desirable ingredients in some of their foods and tend to turn their nose up to whole, natural, healthier ingredients, they will come to appreciate them with patience and time... As a result, I am sure my older cats' health will benefit in the remaining years and any future cats (which I am sure to own) will never have to eat unsafe and even deadly foods.Please read this book and tell other people you know out there who really love their pets but are ignorant (not willfully) about the ills of the pet food industry and about the foundation of what good nutrition for companion animals really is. Don't believe the marketing! I hope one day that consumers will be making informed choices that will affect the market and, in turn, force these companies to reconsider their current practices.And perhaps the improved nutrition will mean that veterinary care is less often needed. The great thing is, is that even though we as humans might lack the disicpline to take care of ourselves and eat healthfully, our pets don't have the control. We can choose good nutrition for them and we'll all be better off for it.[...]It is an excellent discussion of the choices available, what to look for and WHY.

The author warns that commercial pet foods are made with ingredients that most pet owners probably would not knowingly choose to feed to their pets. The U.S. FDA is supposed to regulate the pet food industry, but compliance with the minimal regulations is voluntary and the industry is, essentially, self-regulated. Using the cheapest ingredients enables the industry to achieve economies of scale not otherwise attainable. The list of ingredients permitted in pet food includes rendered road kill, euthanized pets from animal shelters and vet clinics, and other animal waste; processed poultry and ruminant excreta collected from large agri-business operations; mercury-contaminated seafood which has been judged unfit for human consumption. This book offers some fascinating information about the suspected link between rendered animal products and BSE: As of 2002, about 90 cats had died of BSE in Britain; as a result, certain animal products are now banned for use in pet food there. Most veterinary students acquire their nutrition education in elective classes taught by instructors who are paid by pet food companies. The author's suggested home-prepared pet meals are nutritionally superior to the food most parents feed their children. She emphasizes that there are apparently no government agencies that regulate the ingredients which go into commercial pet foods, so consumer beware!This book's theme is reminiscent of the 1973 science-fiction movie, "Soylent Green", which depicts an overpopulated future world where, by necessity, anthropophagy (the human form of cannibalism) has become incorporated into the system. Humanity has decimated most of the earth's food-producing resources, so, when people die, the state secretly renders the corpses into colorful crackers (kibble) which are distributed as low-cost food for the teeming masses. An invisible government rules, and the people are completely unaware of what is really happening and what their food is made of.

I cannot recommend the first part of this book enough. Even if you do not take everything the author writes at face value (which I do not knowing that there are always 2 sides of every story), there are still wonderful pieces of very useful information provided when trying to interpret ingredients and food labels. The first half of this book will make you more aware of what you are feeding your pets, which I think is the ultimate goal regardless of which diet you eventually decide on.The 2nd half of the book was an utter and total disappointment (why I did not rate it 5 stars). The author discusses home-cooked diets, supplements and provides an entire chapter on receipes. This is all very fine but does not belong in a book entitled FOOD PETS DIE FOR: SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT PET FOOD. This is not why I bought the book, and indeed, I felt quite alienated by the author's attempt to push me towards this type of diet.I greatly respect the author's viewpoint on the pet food industry because she had spent 7 years investigating the subject--she should have stuck to this topic for the whole of her book instead of dedicating such a large part of the book to opinions better left to pet nutritionalists who have an expertise on the subject of specific diets that I do not think the author does. For this purpose, the author should have written a different book, not include it in this one.Although I absolutely HATED the 2nd part of the book, it does not negate the merits of the 1st part. However, in my opinion, the book would have been better as a whole if she had not included all that stuff about home-cooked diets (which I am NOT opposed to but just feel it inappropriate for this book).