Recent pet food recalls have created a large-scale panic to millions of pet owners across the country, undoubtedly concerning you much as it did us. But as the fallout from these recalls begins to settle, chances are your pet has emerged unaffected and otherwise healthy, and for that we at Pet Life are truly grateful. Hopefully these pet recalls will highlight a new and positive focus on pet nutrition, while and at the same time, they should prompt pet owners nationwide to ask new questions of their veterinarians and demand new transparency and accountability from pet food manufacturers.
Coping with the Recall
The immediate reactions of many pet owners have been to re-examine their pet’s diet. Some have made minor changes, such as substituting foods that contain meat in place of meat meal, as meat meal is a catch-all term that includes numerous meat by-products and animal parts not desirable for consumption. Many pet owners have gone a step further by choosing organic foods. Still others have even made the decision to cook their own pet food. We at Pet Life support the choices of pet owners in this regard – in fact we have formed partnerships with a leading organic food company (Life’s Abundance) as well as created the Pet Life Nutrition and Cleansing Plan in order to assist pet owners who have made these choices.
Key Nutrition Questions to Ask Your Vet
But above all, we strongly encourage all pet owners to educate themselves, talk through nutritional issues in depth at their next veterinarian visit, and to follow the instruction of their pet care professional. Your next vet visit is a perfect opportunity to ask some key questions, such as:
Does my pet’s current diet fully meet his or her unique needs?
What helpful nutrients or vitamins might be lacking in my pet’s food?
Does my pet seem to have any food allergies or intolerances?
Your vet should be well-prepared to tackle these questions and provide nutritional guidance. On the off-chance that they are not, it is certainly within your prerogative as a concerned pet owner to encourage your vet to attend lectures on nutrition at continuing education conferences and to have them consult clinical studies, lab results, and certificates of analysis focusing on the needs of pets like yours. In light of recent events, certainly all pet owners and pet care professionals alike should strive to be as knowledgeable as possible about nutrition needs and issues.
Our Call for Oversight and Accountability
At the same time, pet food manufacturers need to be asked some key questions and should provide some straight answers. Some major questions we at Pet Life ask the industry to truthfully answer are:
How carefully do pet food companies scrutinize the raw ingredients that go into their food and the suppliers that provide them?
Why can many major pet food manufacturers not provide clinical studies, lab reports or accessible certificates of analysis to back up claims?
What is really meant by “animal quality” compared to “human quality” food, and why is a lower standard for our pets okay?
Why is the pet food industry allowed to be self-regulating through the industry-controlled Pet Food Institute, with no pre-market approvals from the FDA required for manufacturers?
Why are pet food companies and the FDA both unwilling to allow watchdog groups or members of the media to tour manufacturing facilities?
We would like to see the industry adopt many of the same practices that our company has had in place since our founding – using FDA Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) in production and having detailed Certificates of Analysis posted to prove the purity and efficacy of the ingredients in all of their products.
Just as you shouldn’t have to worry about what is in your own food, the same should be true of anything you feed to your pet as well.
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* These statements have not been evaluated by
the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to
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