FILTHY DEADLY PET FOOD IN AMERICA, ALMOST AS BAD AS CHINA
o The pet food industry -- a billion-dollar, unregulated operation -- feeds on the garbage that otherwise would wind up in landfills or be transformed into fertilizer. The hidden ingredients in a can of commercial pet food may include roadkill and the rendered remains of cats and dogs. The pet food industry claims that its products constitute a "complete and balanced diet" but, in reality, commercial pet food is unfit for human or animal consumption."
OPRAH'S FRIEND THE MAD COWBOY (HOWARD LYMAN HAS A WEBSITE that rats out the MEAT INDUSTRY! Remember how Oprah and Rancher Howie were SUED by the MEAT INDUSTRY a decade ago for their televised ALLEGATIONS OF FILTHY DEADLY MEAT... and they WON! She had to LIVE IN TEXAS while the lawsuit was in courts and that's how she met DOCTOR PHIL! Phil was treating her for stress! http://www.madcowboy.com/ is Howard's site related to MEAT YOU EAT and the piece on filthy canned dog and cat food came from his second page, URL is http://www.madcowboy.com/02_VeganPets.html and you can click on it mow and go there. THE PAGE in CYBERSPACE has all the LIVE LINKS (here I couldn't do that,) BUT I DO GIVE YOU THE TEXT ON THAT PAGE. The links you can't see here... but they will turn clickable when you go there, giving diverse avenues for further research but here's the text without live links. You can get the gist. Turn to this above URL or webpage, get the rest.
o "What's Really in Pet Food," (Animal Protection Institute): "What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered "unfit for human consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and possibly diseased and cancerous animal parts." [excellent, detailed, good starting point]* WHAT IS RENDERING?
o "A Look Inside a Rendering Plant" (by GS): "Rendering has been called "the silent industry." Each year in the US, 286 rendering plants quietly dispose of more than 12.5 million tons of dead animals, fat and meat wastes. As the public relations watchdog newsletter PR Watch observes, renderers "are thankful that most people remain blissfully unaware of their existence."
o "Food not Fit for a Pet" (by Dr. Wendell O. Belfield): "Some of these dead pets -- those euthanized by veterinarians -- already contain pentobarbital before treatment with the denaturing process. According to University of Minnesota researchers, the sodium pentobarbital used to euthanize pets "survives rendering without undergoing degradation." [Short, but powerful article by an expert]
o "Mad cow outbreak may have been caused by animal rendering plants" (NY Times News Service): "Renderers in the United States pick up 100 million pounds of waste material every day -- a witch's brew of feet, heads, stomachs, intestines, hooves, spinal cords, tails, grease, feathers and bones. Half of every butchered cow and a third of every pig is not consumed by humans. An estimated six million to seven million dogs and cats are killed in animal shelters each year, said Jeff Frace, a spokesman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York City."
o "Rendering: the "Invisible Industry" Gets a Green Facelift" (PR Watch): "In 1990, the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, CMF&Z deployed a greenwashing theme to portray the renderer as "socially responsible" and "dedicated to environmental responsiveness."
o "The Rendering Industry: Big Business in By-Products" (by Kieran Mulvaney): "Processed cow fats are sometimes used to make cookies and salty snacks taste rich and to make lipsticks glide smoothly. Cow proteins show up in shampoo. Collagen, extracted from the inner layer of cattle hide, is used to balm wounds and cosmetically puff up lips. Gelatin, refined from cattle hide and bones, is found in such foods as ice cream, gummy candies and marshmallows--as well as the capsules encasing drugs."
o "How Dead Pets, Bad Brains, and Free Speech Landed Me in Amarillo" (by Van Smith): "We were at once aghast, amused, and skeptical. "No, really, it's true," they said blandly, sensing our doubts. "We pick up dead pets from the SPCA and take them to the plant. The plant cooks up the carcasses and other things to make stuff that goes into pet food. Honest."
o "Pet Food: Our Pets are Dying for It" (by Sandra Brigola): "Every time a pet trustingly eats another bowl of high sugar pet food, he is being brought that much closer to diabetes, hypoglycemia, overweight, nervousness, cataracts, allergy and death."
o "Beauty, Pride and Pig Grease" (by Sandi Mitchell): "The great majority of the product is sold for women's makeup, especially to manufacturers of lipstick and eye makeup. Some of the most prestigious cosmetic companies in the country are the chief customers of rendering plants."
o "On Rendering" (from the UK BSE Inquiry Report)
o "FAO Standard for Fats and Oils from Animal Sources"
o "The Animal Protein Producers Industry" (website)
o "The NRA [National Renders Association] is an American Trade Association, whose business is to promote the interests of it's members. Members of this association are all in the business of rendering, i.e. transforming waste from the meat industry into useable products for animal feeds and technical use."
o "US Rendering Statistics 1998-2002"
o "Render Magazine: The rendering industry processes or "recycles" animal by-products such as animal fat, bone, hide, offal, feathers, and blood into beneficial commodities including tallow, grease, and protein meals."<=== BACK TO THE HOLISTIC PET WEBSITE