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Are you horrified about the long list of "fake" food and chemicals in your pet's food? You should be.

The recalls of major “quality” brands of pet food in 2007 emphasized what many people have said for a long time: commercial pet food companies are putting bad things into the food that you give to your companion animal.

Could there be any worse betrayal than that? You love your dog. You love your cat. You’d do anything for them – and probably have! You’ll go all the way across town to get the food you know they like – and they show their appreciation and love for your efforts in more ways than you can count. You give them the best you can buy, but your trust in the companies that make pet food has been misused.

Although commercial pet food companies claim their products provide complete and balanced nutrition, veterinarians and experts on animal nutrition say that this is not the case. Companies can make this claim legally, but they rely on research studies that are not as thorough as they could be. The studies generally examine only a few nutrients by themselves, rather than the whole food product that is sold.

And it isn’t just the lack of complete nutrition, commercial pet foods include preservatives – man-made chemicals – designed to improve the product’s “shelf life.” It seems that pet food makers are more interested in “shelf life” than your pet’s life.

Are you going to trust commercial pet food companies again?

Of course, the really scandalous thing about the recent pet food recall of more than 100 brands of dog and cat food was the discovery that big-brand companies, which advertised themselves as caring about quality, actually use products manufactured in China where there is minimal oversight and little regulation of how the food is made or what actually goes into it. When you pay that extra money for a brand you think is the best, you’re actually getting some cut-rate product made overseas.

In the recent recalls, the offending ingredient was melamine, commonly used in foods processed in China. In April 2007, the New York Times reported that melamine, a chemical that is made from coal, is routinely added to animal food as a “fake protein.” It seems that the chemical looks like protein on tests to determine the quality of the product, but it has no nutritional value. Adding this cheap material to pet food allows the companies that make it to use less real protein, thereby reducing the costs of manufacture.

Melamine is not highly toxic in general, and it is used in the making of cleaning products, stain-resistant laminates, flame-retardant foam, soundproofing materials, and plastic household products. At high doses, however, it causes a diuretic effect in dogs and cats and encourages the development of crystals in their urine, says Dr. Steven Hansen, veterinary toxicologist and senior vice president of the ASPCA. He manages the Animal Poison Control Center of the ASPCA’s Midwest Office.

While the pet food recall started with suspicions about the wheat gluten added to pet foods from a single Chinese supplier. Some 60 million packages of pet food were recalled after melamine was found in the wheat gluten linked to pet deaths in the United States. The recall quickly spread to concerns about corn gluten and rice gluten from a separate Chinese company. And then the safety of the entire food-processing industry, including companies that provide food for humans, was called into question.

Melamine was not used by accident. It was put into your pet’s food on purpose – to raise the profits of commercial suppliers.

I can help you avoid the worry and potential emotional devastation associated with the illness or death of a pet with my two e-books: 50 Fantastic Dog Food Recipes and 50 Fantastic Cat Food Recipes.

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