Hello, and welcome to my new series: Pet Food Confidential. I've been doing lots of research on pet food, and over the next several weeks I'll be filling you in on who controls pet food, what the ingredient labels mean, and what the other options are. If you've got questions, leave them in the comments and I'll try to answer them later in the series!

Okay, so, think back to the last pet food commercial you saw. Dog food commercials are all about good buddies, and cat food commercials are about treating feline friends to the very best. Watch those commercials and you'd think, "gee, they're really looking out for us!"

That's what I thought, right up until last year's widespread pet food recalls. Obviously whoever was supposed to be looking out for us then had fallen asleep at the wheel. So who was it? Whose responsibility is it to make sure our food is safe a healthy?

There are three different organizations who split some responsibility for pet food: the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), and the Pet Food Institute (PFI).

FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine
The Center for Veterinary Medicine is the branch of the FDA the deals with all things animal. Well, not all things; actually, they only control drugs, devices and food additives for livestock and companion animals like you and me. That means they're in charge of approving pet food preservatives, coloring and flavorings. They don't have any regulatory control over the source of pet food ingredients, which means that pet food companies can include gross animal "by-products" (like feathers and fur, brains, and other bits that have no nutritional value and may even be bad for us) without fearing interference from the CVM.

CVM investigates pet food in cases of widespread pet illness or death. They also investigate health claims on pet food -- for example, if kitty food says it's good for kitty bladders, CVM has to make sure it's true. The CVM doesn't regularly test pet food to make sure it's safe and healthy. That means that the government's only pet food authority is really no authority at all.

American Association of Feed Control Officials
So if the government isn't regulating pet food, who is? CVM relies on AAFCO, an organization made up of representatives from government, pet food companies, the Pet Food Institute and the rendering industries. AAFCO has no regulatory authority, but state governments rely on them to set model standards which the states can adopt. AAFCO also defines food ingredients; they're the ones who decide what counts as "by-products" in your pet food. AAFCO's definitions are considered standard, but they're not enforced.

Unlike CVM, AAFCO does run some tests on pet food. They analyze new foods to make sure they contain the ratio of protein, fat, fiber and minerals that they state on the label. Like CVM, though, AAFCO doesn't care where that protein, fat, or fiber comes from, or if it's digestible and safe, as long as it's there. They also do feed trials, where new pet foods are fed to animals to make sure they keep the animal healthy--but feed trials are only done for foods labeled as "complete and balanced." And the trials only have to include 8 animals minimum, 25% of them can be removed from the test, and the remaining animals can lose up to 15% of their starting body weight. Boy, I sure am glad they're being so thorough.

Pet Food Institute
The Pet Food Institute is the pet food industry's trade group. They represent the interests of 98 percent of all pet food manufacturers. Their whole job is to represent the pet food industry to the public and the media and lobby Congress on the Industry's behalf. They, along with pet food manufacturers, play a major role in setting AAFCO's standards. They exist to protect the pet food industry, not pets -- talk about the fox guarding the hen house!

State standards
States are the only ones who have any real control over pet food standards, and since they base their standards on AAFCO's recommendations, they're minimal to say the least. The amount of regular testing done on pet food varies from state to state, but state standards are written in such a way that tests are likely to miss major pet food problems -- like, say, the presence of toxic amounts of melamine.

So, who's protecting pets?
Are you seeing the loopholes here? There are almost no pet food regulations, and the regulations that do exist are hardly enforced. Right now, it's up to our people to look out for us -- and considering how little information about pet food is widely available, that's not easy. What we really need are strong government standards for pet food that address everything from raw ingredients to pet food preservatives, and a transparent labeling system to allow our people to choose what's best for us without guessing!

Photo by macb3th. Read full post.