Fed Up Friday

As I was preparing to post an article here about how cat food is prepared and what actually goes into it, I read on the Cat Blogosphere about yesterday's additional recalls. Enough is enough! I no longer feel safe feeding my babies ANY commercial food of any kind, and I'm developing serious concerns about what I might be feeding myself and my family.

Thank goodness I feed my kitties primarily homemade cat food. But I have been adding some (supposedly) high quality commercial food to it in order to give them a variety of taste and nutrients. I've switched from one food to another as the recalls expand, and most recently have been giving them canned and dry Spa Select. Now all canned Spa Select has been recalled. No doubt if I switch to another brand, it will eventually be recalled as well.

There needs to be an organized effort to penalize the pet food industry for what essentially comes down to poisoning for profit. I don't have the knowledge to undertake such an effort, but merely refunding us for the affected cat food we have on hand and being reimbursed for veterinarian bills is like punishing a mass murderer with a scolding.

Whether or not you have been purchasing food that has subsequently been recalled, I urge everyone to read the article, Cat Food Uncovered, by Sarah Hartwell, who works for UK's Cats Protection and also adopts and cares for aged cats. It's lengthy, but I think it will make clear why I decided to start making my own cat food. Even if a particular cat food is not contaminated with substances such as melamine, I believe that, at best, what goes into commercial foods is disgusting and, at worst, all commercial foods are harming our pets.

Cat Food Uncovered discusses the pet food industries in the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia and other countries and covers such topics as:

- Where Does Cat Food Come From? - The Rendering Process
- Where Do The Ingredients Come From?
- Pet Food Regulatory Bodies
- Pet Food Labeling
- How is Canned Food and Kibble Made?
- The 'Not-So-Hidden' Ingredients
- Meat Based and Plant Based Ingredients
- Colors, Flavors, Preservatives and Other Additives (such as foreign bodies, road kill, racehorses, zoo animals and euthanized pets)
- Diet-Related Problems
- How is Cat Food Tested?
- Fungal and Bacterial Contaminants
- Hormones, Antibiotics and Euthanasia Chemicals
- Prion Disease