Pet food scare has many worried, wondering

Kim Campbell Thornton • E-mail

Meat by-products. Wheat meal. Rat poison? Plastic chemicals?

OK, so just what’s in pet food, anyway? Thousands of pet owners have been asking themselves that question — especially after last week’s mysterious revelation by scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory that the Menu Foods pet-food recall was linked to aminopterin, a toxin used as rat poison in some countries. Matters got even more confusing on Friday when the FDA announced that while it didn't detect rat poison, the agency did find melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, in the recalled food.

When even national brands with a reputation for quality are caught up in a recall of this magnitude, it’s hard for a pet owner to know what to do. If you’re among those who have been anxious about where your dog or cat’s next meal is coming from, this Q&A may be helpful for you.

What exactly is in pet food?
Common ingredients in pet foods include grains such as corn, wheat and rice; chicken, beef, seafood, other meats or meat by-products or meals; and grain by-products such as wheat gluten, which is suspected to have been contaminated by rat poison in the recall.

How high is the quality of those ingredients?
It’s hard to say because labeling requirements don’t have much bite.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pet-food labeling, terms such as “gourmet,” “premium” and “natural” don’t have any official standing. Foods labeled as such aren’t required to contain any different or higher-quality ingredients or to meet any higher nutritional standards than any other complete and balanced pet food. And the famously secretive pet food industry is no different than, say, Coca-Cola when it comes to protecting its recipes, ingredients and manufacturing processes. It is, after all, a multibillion-dollar business.

What should I look for when reading the pet-food label?
Pet-food labels are easily manipulated, but here are some things to watch for:

According to the FDA, ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight. Meat and poultry are heavy ingredients that contain about 60 percent water, so it doesn’t take much to land them at the top of the ingredient list. They might be followed by wheat, wheat middlings and wheat meal run. That sounds like three different ingredients, but it’s all wheat. If you removed the water from the meat and then weighed the meat against the various grain products in the food, surprise! The food contains a lot more grain than it does meat.

Choose a food with meat as the first ingredient. Look for meat with a name — chicken, lamb, turkey — rather than the generic term “meat.” You should also see meat or other high-quality nongrain proteins such as eggs or cottage cheese listed later on the label.

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