WARNING… GRAPHIC AND DISGUSTING POST.

Hey All! As some of you know I am a devoted dog owner.

I had heard good things about a certain brand of dog food (which I will not mention because I am not writing an ad for them) so I went through my research routine to figure out if it was good stuff.

It occurred to me that many folks might not know what goes into pet food.

The painful bottom line is that many feeds are slickly packaged to convince us that we are doing the best for beloved pets. However, there is an unbelievable range of ingredients that gets used. High end foods have things in them that do not start out as waste products and try to balance out the nutritional needs of pets in a way that will not lead to obesity. The low end foods like Alpo and Purina are ways of getting rid of waste from slaughter houses (if you are lucky) and even euthanized pets.

Even brands that are very strongly recommended like Nutro or Science Diet are not so great (though much better than bottom tier).

It also unfortunately goes without saying that you should not buy feed from China.

Here is a list of definitions.

braypets.com

Here is an article

dogfoodadvisor.com

“The rendering plant floor is piled high with “raw product”… Thousands of dead dogs and cats; heads and hooves from cattle, sheep, pigs and horses; whole skunks; rats and raccoons… all waiting to be processed. In the ninety degree heat, the piles of dead animals seem to have a life of their own as millions of maggots swarm over the carcasses.

“Two bandanna-masked men begin operating Bobcat mini-dozers, loading the “raw” into a ten-foot deep stainless steel pit. They are undocumented workers from Mexico doing a dirty job. A giant auger at the bottom of the pit begins to turn. Popping bones and squeezing flesh are sounds from a nightmare you will never forget.

“Rendering is the process of cooking raw animal material to remove the moisture and fat. The rendering plant works like a giant kitchen. The cooker, or “chef”, blends the raw product in order to maintain a certain ratio between the carcasses of pets, livestock, poultry waste and supermarket rejects.

“Once the mass is cut into small pieces, it is transported to another auger for fine shredding. It is then cooked at 280 degrees for one hour. The continuous batch cooking process goes on non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week as meat is melted away from bones in the hot “soup”. During this cooking process, the “soup” produces a fat of yellow grease or tallow that rises to the top and is skimmed off. The cooked meat and bone are sent to a hammer-mill press, which squeezes out the remaining moisture and pulverizes the product into a gritty powder. Shaker screens sift out excess hair and large bone chips. Once the batch is finished, all that is left is yellow grease, meat and bone meal.”