Pet Food Recall

[tobagotwo]

You have to wonder what human foods that wheat gluten might have gone into as well.

I understand needing to keep costs reasonable, but importing food products and drugs from countries that are uninterested in monitoring quality or even basic safety is raw, uncaring greed. These companies didn't do this to lower the price of their foods to the general public. They were just turning a quick buck by using cheap, untested ingredients where they thought no one would notice, under the tragically flawed recent business notion that everything is interchangeable ("Gluten is gluten: it doesn't matter where we get it from"). And it probably wasn't even all that much money saved in the end. I imagine owners of the deceased animals would be horrified to know how cheaply their pets' lives were sold.

This can of soup has wheat gluten as a thickener. Where'd they get that from? Did this other company use cheapest bidder wheat in their pasta? Do growers use rat poison in rice paddies? Could this be linked to the puzzling general rise in pancreatic cancers?

I know I want a label that shows what countries the ingredients in my food and my pets' food are from, effective yesterday. And drugs, too. I don't want to guess whether the pills I get at the pharmacy have been properly inspected. I don't want to poison my dog with fake Top Spot. I want to know they've been manufactured by the company on the label, not by three guys in a shed who greased a local official.

Harrumph...Okay...off my soapbox again...

Best wishes,

 

[EVELYN]

Nutro email

Nutro email

Hi All

I just received this email at home from Nutro Foods in response to an email I had written them a few days ago. Just in case anyone on this list is still feeding this food......here it is:

"We have just been made aware that Menu Foods has expanded the date range of their recall. NO New Products are being added and we ask all Nutro customers that have any wet "cuts & gravy style" pet foods product, regardless of the "best by date," to no longer feed these products to their pets and to return them for a full refund. This action is being taken to avoid customers' confusion in reading specific "best by dates" on individual cans and pouches."

Hopefully, no one is even feeding Nutro foods. I know I returned ALL my cases to the store.....I'm not taking any chances......Scary to say the least.

Evelyn

 

[Susan BAV]

You have to wonder what human foods that wheat gluten might have gone into as well.

I understand needing to keep costs reasonable, but importing food products and drugs from countries that are uninterested in monitoring quality or even basic safety is raw, uncaring greed. These companies didn't do this to lower the price of their foods to the general public. They were just turning a quick buck by using cheap, untested ingredients where they thought no one would notice, under the tragically flawed recent business notion that everything is interchangeable ("Gluten is gluten: it doesn't matter where we get it from). And it probably wasn't even all that much money saved in the end. I imagine owners of the deceased animals would be horrified to know how cheaply their pets' lives were sold.

This can of soup has wheat gluten as a thickener. Where'd they get that from? Did this other company use cheapest bidder wheat in their pasta? Do growers use rat poison in rice paddies? Could this be linked to the puzzling general rise in pancreatic cancers?

I know I want a label that shows what countries the ingredients in my food and my pets' food are from, effective yesterday. And drugs, too. I don't want to guess whether the pills I get at the pharmacy have been properly inspected. I don't want to poison my dog with fake Top Spot. I want to know they've been manufactured by the company on the label, not by three guys in a shed who greased a local official.

Harrumph...Okay...off my soapbox again...

Best wishes,

That's a (nother) good soapbox issue and I'm glad you mentioned it, horrifying as it may be. Something I certainly hadn't considered and it bears repeating (so I clicked the quote).

Bob, I have thought several times that you should be in one of those "think tanks."

 

[Nancy]

I had a little cat die , maybe 6 months ago or so, in a lingering sort of way. And I took him to two vets, one the regular one, and the other a specialist. neither could save him, and neither could give me a cause of death. I am suspicious now that this pet food stuff has been going on longer than we have been told. Both vets agreed that some sort of systemic failure was going on and he was very healthy prior. By the time I got to the specialist, he was too far gone to continue on with extensive testing, and had to be put down.

At that time I had included some of the banned foods in the diet. I changed because the cats didn't like it, except for the one that died.

I hope more investigation is going to be done.

I am always worried about buying produce from foreign countries. Now reading tobago's post, I am concerned about other people food products from foreign sources.

 

[geebee]

I am on Eukanuba's email list and received this email yesterday. Lots of backpeddling going on:

P&G Pet Care Update
March 22, 2007

We want to provide an update on the recent recall of ?wet? pet foods produced by Menu Foods, Inc.

We are deeply saddened by this situation. We know it has caused a lot of concern and has touched pet lovers throughout North America, including our own employees. We?ve received a lot of questions, so we want to give you the latest information.

First, we want to assure you that this recall affects only a small portion of our ?wet? pet food products manufactured at the Menu Foods plant in Emporia, Kansas. We have a variety of canned wet food products that are currently available on store shelves that are not affected in any way by this recall.

We also want to assure you that our Iams and Eukanuba dry foods are not affected by the recall, and are readily available in stores. These foods are not part of the recall ? there are no concerns at all about dry food. P&G manufactures Iams and Eukanuba dry foods at our own plants, not at Menu Foods.

You may wonder why some ?wet? food was produced at Menu Foods. In fact, virtually every pet food company commonly uses outside partners for special or small volume items. Nonetheless, the different branded products made by Menu are not ?the same?. Our Iams and Eukanuba pet foods have unique recipes and important ingredient differences that distinguish them from other pet food brands.

Because of our concern for pets and their well-being, we took immediate action to voluntarily participate in Menu Foods? ?wet? food product recall and to work with retailers to get the small portion of our ?wet? products affected by the recall off all store shelves in the U.S. and Canada.

Until the root cause of this pet health issue is found, we will not produce any more of these products at the Emporia plant. We?ll keep you updated when we have more information.

Pets are an important part of all of our families. P&G Pet Care employees share your concerns and are firmly committed to you and the health of your pet. We are working hard to respond to your questions, and provide the information and help you need. We value your trust and confidence during this extremely difficult time.

P&G Pet Care

The other interesting thing is I heard on some news report that the tainted food came from Canada but this email indicates it came from Kansas. Wonder what the real truth is in all this.

 

[Bina]

Gina, I agree.....lots of back pedaling going on.
Menu foods is desperate to emphasize that Iams and Eukanuba dry products are safe; these 2 brands are HUGE money makers!!

The recall products were indeed produced in Kansas, under the direction of Menu Foods Inc. offices in ontario.

 

[Bridgette]

Of course, one way to avoid worrying about what is in that pet food you buy is to avoid buying it - instead feed your pet on leftovers etc from your meals

My dad is a vet, and his Jack Russell dog (aged 8 months) has porridge with a little bit of milk (not too much) for breakfast, and for tea (dinner) he has rice with a bit of whatever meat they had that night (lamb, chicken, beef, or fish) plus vegetables. Occasionally for a snack during the day he might have a bit of toast with Marmite or Vegemite (not sure if you have that in the States).
He is a very active young dog who spends a lot of time running around their ten acre farmlet, and the carbs he eats provide him with that much needed energy. He is in very good shape, not carrying any extra weight. There is nothing worse than seeing obese, panting pets whose owners are killing them with kindness - all those little treats and fatty dog rolls and canned dinners - we see it all the time in our clinic. The stress on the pet's heart and joints from carrying that extra weight cannot be overstated.
Someone earlier in this thread said that "dry food is for convenience" - well, all manufactured pet food is "convenient" if you want to look at it that way, and that definitely includes canned food.
My cat came from the Rescue Shelter where they only fed dried food (for convenience sake - understandable in a shelter housing scores of cats) so that is all she eats and I feed her high quality food (Hills). She also catches mice and birds. My dog eats Eukanuba Senior dry food, plus leftovers occasionally from our meals. She is a 14 year old Fox Terrier, in very good shape for her advanced years.
Anyway, what I am saying is that there are options out there if you are worried about manufactured pet foods

Bridgette

 

[geebee]

Gina, I agree.....lots of back pedaling going on.
Menu foods is desperate to emphasize that Iams and Eukanuba dry products are safe; these 2 brands are HUGE money makers!!

The recall products were indeed produced in Kansas, under the direction of Menu Foods Inc. offices in ontario.

I realize that the news programs were saying the food was made by a Canadian company so I guess the offices being in Ontario makes that a correct statement. Thanks for the info.

 

[Bina]

I also like to use a good quality dry food and supplement with bits of my own healthy foods; no salt, no pepper, no junk foods either.

My cat and dog enjoy eggs, cheese, yogurt, whole grain cereals, potatoes, rice, veggies, chicken, lean beef, salmon, etc.
(my labrador is 12 1/2)

It's nice to see so many of us are animal lovers

 

[tobagotwo]

If I have this right (and I may not), Menu Foods is a Canadian company (Ontario), and the Kansas and New Jersey link is because that's where the factories are which processed the tainted food. The wheat gluten that is believed to be the problem contained a form of rat poison made from a cancer drug, which is illegal to use on crops in the US (and probably Canada, perhaps Europe as well). I understood that the wheat gluten had been purchased from China.

The likelihood is that Menu Foods was entirely unaware that there was dangerous material in the product they purchased. I don't personally believe they ever would have knowingly purchased it if they had been aware of the risk. This is similar to the beginnings of serious American trade with South America for winter fruit. Many years ago, when that trade began, American consumers gradually became aware that growers in Chile and other largely unregulated countries used highly toxic insecticides that wouldn't wash off the fruit with normal rinsing (it was grapes, I think). This led to those countries banning these persistant pesticides in order to keep trading with US consumers.

We in the US and Canada have become complacent with the inspections and health requirements in our countries, which are reflected in Europe and many other places as well. However, in the big hoopla over Globalism, we forget that when we bring in brand new trading partners, particularly in developing nations, they don't necessarily have the same rules or ability to monitor that we have, and that a few don't even have the same basic value of human life, much less animal life. Trading partners who use their own fields as bathroom facilites, or who are ignorant about the downstream effects of the chemicals they use are fine when you're purchasing toasters and plastic items, but letting them into your food chain is an entirely different matter.

It's time for our governments to put a moratorium on food products coming from these poorly regulated countries. Economic sanctions don't seem to work very well to keep weapons away from people, but they do seem to work to bring progress to dangerous farming practices and food handling in countries that want to sell their food products.

I would not hesitate at all to believe that there are tainted products in our food processing right now, from other sources that have not yet been discovered, or which are delayed or not obvious in the way that they affect people. Or they may be things that most of us don't eat enough of to make us immediately sick. Does "natural" on the label help? I don't think so. A number of the animal food products in this recall had that moniker in their names. Inspection and regulation help rejection of unregulated goods helps.

We are even beginning to label each piece of beef to show what steer and farm it came from. Nations that are so far along that they are finetuning their food system to ban trans fatty acids as being an unhealthy choice should not put themselves in the position of also having to ask whether their base food items might in fact be deadly, due to our own naive buying habits.

Nothing can make everything safe in life. But there are some simple and basic things we can do with out food supply to ensure we're not taking risks when we don't know it.

Best wishes,

 

[geebee]

I have decided I am going to start cooking for my cats just like I cook for me and my SO. I am so picky about where my food comes from and avoid additives and things like "mystery meat". I am embarassed that I wasn't as picky for my loved ones with 4 paws.

I am hoping their tests are all negative and I can make this up to them for a long time to come.

BTW - I have been shocked at all the products out there with wheat gluten in them both pet and human foods. Scary and what about all the things we don't know about? I have decided not to get panicky about this but my eyes will be open a lot wider now.

 

[hensylee]

tobago, well said. I wonder why cleanliness in our own fields has not been addressed by somebody. Often very little or none is provided in our fields for toilet use, washing hands after, etc. - so where do we think they go? I believe that this is how some of our diseases are brought into our foods - like lettuce!

We get sick when we go to some countries because we have been so used to cleanliness in our own country. Now we are getting sick here, too. Think about it.

 

[Bina]

The tainted pet food saga continues....melamine, commonly used to make plastics, but also used in Asia as fertilizer, has been found in the urine of one and in the kidney of another dead pet. Testing continues, and the American supplier of the deadly wheat gluten has not been named; legal action will be taken. Concerns include whether any of this gluten has been used in the production of the dry foods as well.
I'm choosing not to use wet OR dry foods under those 90 name brands produced from Dec through March 6.

My favourite motto: "When in doubt, throw it out."

 

[EVELYN]

I Just Called Nutro And Asked Specifically About The Dry Food. I Was Told That None Of Their Dry Food Is Subcontracted Out To Menufoods And Their Dry Food Was Not Involved In Any Problem With Specifically Dry Foods.

I'm Seriously Thinking Of Switching To An Holistic Food....sojourners. If Anyone Has Heard Of It, I'd Really Appreciate Your Opinion.

Thanks. Evelyn

 

[Susan BAV]

I'm beginning to wonder and worry about how big this thing may get. The current news says that the recall has expanded and extended to some dry foods also. But when I clicked on the cat and dog food recall lists, just now, they don't list any dry foods yet. You just have to read the entire article and hope they have listed all of the recalled dry foods within the article. The communications for this thing are ridiculous.

 

[Nancy]

Hill's dry food

Hill's dry food

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/31/america/NA-GEN-US-Pet-Food-Recall.php

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/n...=28c13adc-c25e-46c8-a56d-c88d05830635&k=53034

 

[Bina]

According to current info. The latest recall now involves one dry food:

Hills prescription M/D feline dry. (wheat gluten from same supplier)

I, personally, would not touch the Hills products for awhile....there are some much better brands out there from smaller companies who probably would not be using the same big name supplier.

 

[Susan BAV]

Thank you Nancy and Bina.

 

[geebee]

I have thrown out all food with wheat gluten whether on the recall list or not. I am amazed at all the ones using this product.

BTW - my cat's bloodwork came back a little odd - high creatinen (sp?) levels, low salt level and high triglycerides. The vet doesn't think he is in any danger of liver or kidney issues but I am worried nonetheless.

I have some cat foods here that do not contain wheat gluten and the dry food they love has corn gluten but not wheat so I am hoping that is okay.

 

[Bina]

Good gina....throw it out!
I guess you just need to watch your cat for any signs....we clean our litter box every day, that way it's easy to keep track of daily urination.