Cows are fed "protein concentrates" made from rendered (ground-up) dead horses, dogs, cats, chickens and turkeys, as well as blood and fecal matter of their own species (6), and cattle too sick for human consumption. Maggot-infested grains, food contaminated by roaches, rodents, and bird excreta (59), outdated moldy meats, dogs and cats euthanized by vets and animal shelters; roadkill; noncommercial parts of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses—including offals, heads, and hooves; whole skunks; rats, raccoons, possums, deer, foxes, snakes, and even elephants end up in a pile on the floor of rendering plants, their decomposing carcasses swarming with maggots, covered with rat dung, waiting to be made into animal food. On top of that is added dehydrated food garbage, fats emptied from restaurant fryers and grease traps, cement-kiln dust, newsprint and cardboard, as well as cattle and hog manure. Chicken manure is popular, because it’s cheaper than alfalfa and hay (5, 20). Human sewage sludge is even used in some countries (19). The fur is not removed and the dead animals are cooked at 115°C for 20 minutes (5, 7, 19, 20). And this can legally go into your pet food.
"When you read pet-food labels and it says meat or bone meal, that's what it is--cooked and converted animals, including some dogs and cats," said Eileen Layne, of the California Veterinary Medical Association. Federal regulations mandate that brain and other nerve tissue be removed from cattle after they are slaughtered for human food, but nerve tissue is allowable in pet food. On the label it's listed as meat byproducts (1). One of the serious consequences of this practice is when Mad Cow Disease or a form of it in another animal is present in this cycle, it can be passed on to everything that follows in the food chain. Tara Parker-Pope, staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal, points out that, "it's possible that a cow with Mad Cow Disease could be fed to a pig or chicken that is, in turn, fed back to other cows, that are eventually eaten by people." (84) The FDA allows rendered materials from animals that have a mad cow type disease to be used in pet food, pig, chicken, and fish feed, simply requiring it to be labeled, ‘Do not feed to cattle and other ruminants’ (53). However, in spite of an FDA ban, the rendered cows and other ruminants, as well as the remains of other animals, are still being fed directly back to cattle. Quietly, behind the scenes, out of public view, this story is unfolding in the U.S. and around the world.
Continue to the Next Section --> What's All the Fuss About?
|Introduction|Rendering|Controversy|Causes|Prions|Conclusion|References|
