What's getting into your pets?
Part 1
Reporter: Jamie Allman, News 4
November 8, 2001 10:00 PM
Their names are Blacky, Scoop, Puffy, and Diamond. Some are just a few years or a few months old. They are mostly dogs and a couple of cats.
"It's the most undesirable part of our job," says one city pound worker.
This sunny morning in the city pound is the last day of their lives. It is a cruel but necessary routine played out every morning at the pound. A dozen or more former pets are put to death because no one wants them -- alive that is.
Unwanted by their owners, their bodies are in high demand. Loaded into a city refuse truck, they are taken five miles across the river to Illinois to a rendering plant in Millstadt. Along with dead cows and road kill, they will be piled into a vat and boiled, turned into raw tankage or protein.
We were asked to leave the property before we could ask where it all eventually goes. But it soon became evident as a tanker truck made its way into the plant to be filled. The truck was from a southern Missouri company, its mission spelled out on the tank itself: "serving the pet food industry."
"It may be objectionable. People may not want to know what goes in there," says Don Aird of the Food and Drug Administration.
But the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees pet food ingredients, allows dead dogs and cats in pet food, saying disease or the drugs used to sedate the animals dissipates through cooking.
"Well, we don't believe it's going to cause problems for the animals. If we did, we would not allow it to happen," Aird says.
However, the Pet Food Institute, which represents major pet food labels such as Purina and Alpo, says it strictly forbids member companies from using materials from dead companion animals in pet food.
As for other pet food companies, well, there's no requirement they divulge exactly what's in their product or where they get the raw ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration says legally, it's none of your business.
"That's what keeps the prices down and I think it keeps the health down," says Dr. Christine Crosley, a veterinarian.
Crosley insists companion animal parts are unhealthy as are the other things allowed in pet food like scraps from slaughter houses, ground up chicken beaks and feathers, and recycled grease from Chinese restaurants and fried chicken stands.
"It is food. I guess it's food by definition. It goes in the mouth and out the other end. But, it's not nutritious," she says.
Crosley advocates feeding your pets what you eat. Some of her clients swear by it.
"So we started steaming vegetables for her and brown rice and chicken broth. She didn't leave any dandruff residue and her skin wasn't dry anymore and she wasn't always scratching at herself," says Karen Heyden, a pet owner.
If you do choose commercial pet food, Crosley suggests you reject food with animal by products or bone meal or meat meal in them and choose foods that have natural products in them.
"Flash frozen green beans and half of a good dry food. That's much better than this package," Crosley says.
None of the pet food companies we talked to would sit down and be interviewed for this story. The company that owns the truck you saw at the rendering plant refuses to tell us who buys from them. We talked about other things you could feed your dogs, but remember cats are carnivores and feeding them just vegetables and grains will not be good for them. Foods containing real fish and other meats are recommended.
What's in your food?
Part 2
Reporter: Jamie Allman, News 4
November 9, 2001 10:00 PM
At your local Schnucks store, you might not have noticed that the eggs are different. The labels say no animal by products were used in the chicken feed. It happened quietly. It happened fast and it happened for a reason.
"I don't think it was ever a case that these products were unsafe, but they may be termed, as you said, unsavory," says Victor Rikterink of Rose Acre Farms.
Rose Acre Farms supplies the Schnucks eggs. It says it made the decision to feed the chicken all vegetarian diets because it could no longer guarantee what's in the feed it gets from generic feed producers. Government regulators can't keep up with all the feed manufacturers out there. Right now, the Food and Drug Administration allows euthanized dogs and cats to be turned into food for animals we eventually eat, or which create products we eventually eat. Should we be concerened?
"Not now, but science changes. It may find out this is something we should have been watching for, but we don't believe it is right now," says Don Aird of the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA admits allowing dead shelter animals into the human food chain has its risks. For instance, researchers are just discovering that cats can carry the feline form of mad cow disease the brain wasting bacteria that has reaked havoc in Europe. To protect cattle herds and humans, the FDA has already banned cattle from eating feed created in part from rendering other cattle. A ban on cats may be next.
"I know the cats have a transmissible -- one of these TSCs -- also and the concern would be that rendering them down, some of it could get into the food supply and cause a problem like the mad cow and we are concerned. We are monitoring that," Aird says.
The FDA says it will continue researching the use of other animals in animal feed. In the mean time, pigs and poultry and even fish we all eat are still allowed to be fed food from rendered dogs and cats, scrapings for the floors of slaughter houses and even manure. The FDA say as long as the processing is done right, humans consuming those animal products are safe. However, records show the FDA hasn't even visited a Millstadt, Ill., rendering plant since 1998. As far as the folks at Rose Acre Farms are concerned, that's a gamble consumers shouldn't have to take.
"These are moral issues. These are political issues and our job as a food producers is to produce the food of the type the consumer wants to purchase," Rikterink says.
Chickens that only lay eggs are eventually turned into human food. Usually their meat is used to make things like chicken nuggets or it's put into soups. As far as the chickens you buy in the store, Tyson says it does not feed its chickens anything that comes from rendering plants. You simply need to ask your favorite chicken maker what it does.
When it comes to beef, proteins from shelter animals and manure will be used more often to feed cattle because of the ban on feeding cow parts to cows.
