Somebody, please, tell me this isn't true...

[conuly]

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/petfood1.html

Tell me it's sponsored by PETA or something, because I'm not about to check.

Comments

[catsluvdmb.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of animals that perform cannibalism naturally. Generally carniverous/omnivorous animals are not going to have the same problems with eating meat as herbivores. Pigs if you don't remove their tails will begin to eat each other starting with that body part first. Chickens will cannibalize their fallen comrades. Lions oftentimes are known to eat their young and wolves will eat the weaker of their pack in strapped times.

As for human mad cow, I'd have to see the writeup on that one since the only case of mad cow transferrence I ever heard of turned out to be a misdiagnosis later.

[conuly]

I'll look it up later, because I have to go now. It's not called mad cow in humans, though, it's called something else. Starts with a C, ends with a -jacobs.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Human variant CJD? I forget the full name ;0)

From memory, BSE is (was?) thought to have arisen thanks to feeding cows dead sheep that had died from a specific disease. I want to say Foot and Mouth, but I'm not 100% on that.

[parashiggy.livejournal.com]

Creusefeld-Jacobs...or something similarish

[conuly]

And cats don't tend to be cannibals. Even if they did, it makes no difference. Companies should be honest on the packaging about what the foods contain. There's a reason humans don't buy their cats "canned mouse", even though it's a lot closer to what cats eat in nature than beef or lamb. I doubt people would be willing to buy "canned cat that was killed with chemicals that may still linger in the meat" for their animals.

[catsluvdmb.livejournal.com]

But they're not being dishonest either. The packaging says animal biproducts or animal protein most of the time. As far as the animals being killed by chemicals, the gases used to euthanize animals dissipate in a short period of time and are oftentimes "non-toxic" such as the CO2 we use at my work.

I think if people are truly concerned about whether their dog food contains chicken breast or chicken embryos, they should just make their own dog food or buy the several non-vegetarian organic brands that have come out on the market recently. It's going to cost you the same as human food, if not more, but you're also going to be feeding your animal human grade food.