Posted on 04/18/2007 7:59:23 PM PDT by nmh
...
The chemical, melamine, is believed to have contaminated rice protein concentrate used to make a variety of Natural Balance Pet Foods products for both dogs and cats, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate wheat gluten used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers.
Both ingredients were imported from China, though by different companies and from different manufacturers.
A lawmaker said Wednesday the Chinese have refused to grant visas to FDA inspectors seeking to visit the plants where the ingredients were made. An FDA spokesman later said the visas were not refused but that the agency had not received the necessary invitation letter to get visas.
"It troubles me greatly the Chinese are making it more difficult to understand what led to this pet food crisis," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Associated Press after meeting with the FDA commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.
A message left Wednesday with the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
There is a supplemement called DINOVITE that you can sprinkle on their food, contains some natural vitamins as well as Human Grade Diatomaceous Earth -- DE cleans them out so they don't get worms and don't need working... There is some great lists on yahoo for people working through the process... k9nutrition as well as k9kitchen are both excellent.
And Natural Balance is made by Diamond also — and like I said before Diamond had a huge recall a year ago for contaminated corn killing a lot of dogs.
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul. I don’t buy that anymore. I think it was last fall when Diamond had a recall on that! I believe Diamond, the manufacturer is on the latest recall again.
Dry, this time.
Rice gluten, not wheat.
But the real money statement from the media is that all wheat gluten from China has now been banned by the FDA.
The pet food industry was less than 10% of the Chinese wheat gluten export market.
Where did the other 90% go?
Think about it. Think real hard.
I didn’t get the memo explaining the FDA ban, did you? /sarcasm//
This new “problem” concerns contaminated rice gluten exports from China.
I have been reading every box and can of human food I buy, or bought, and none list either wheat or rice gluten as an ingrediant.
Not a big surprise, since none of the pet foods list it either.
Contains rice — rice is behind the Natural Balance recall... and the subject of the latest issue with China.
They’re too busy making videos to download with girls stripping.
You have to watch Natural Balance — at least their Duck brand — if you have one of the breeds prone to copper storage disease.... unfortunately, hard to tell the dog has it until it gets sick, their duck food is high in copper...
Follow the money trail. They are probably getting wheat a little cheaper from China.
Science Diet is crap!
Years ago it was formulated differntly but now it’s crap. Another company bought them out and cheated on ingredients. If you like BY PRODUCTS (junk) and chemicals, then Science Diet is the way to go!
Did you know that eating poo is usually a result of not totally digesting the food they eat, so they eat it again to try and get the missing nutrients the second time around.. we got a dog about 7 years ago that was a terrible copraphagia dog, after a couple of months on raw she stopped all on her own and never did it again.
“what is really in pet food”
We did a remodel on a pet food manufacturing plsnt many years ago and every kind of rotten meat, carcasus, and seafood you can think of goes into it.
This was Perk Foods Co. and they made every brand you can think of from the most expensive to the cheapest and market brands and the only difference was when they changed the labels on the cans on the line.
I had to send men into the freezers to patch the cement walls and even frozen it stunk so bad that I brought them my scuba gear to use to work in them.
Thanks for the tip.
We actually use the Ultra Balance kibble. We do buy the cans, but just add a tiny bit to their kibble, and they’re large dogs. I’ll have to research about the copper storage disease. We have a mutt and a Weim.
Of all the canned foods, they seem to like the one with fish and sweet potatoes the best.
The problem is not rice, but rice gluten. Their statement is that there are no glutens in the product, rice or otherwise.
I bought the beef flavor dry food only. He seems to love it. Can’t get enough of the stuff and according to the directions I can only feed him about 1.5 cups a day! Yikes, no wonder he wanders the house at night looking for food! ; )
Interesting about rice. I fed my cat some IAMS chcken & rice dry for the first time shortly after this pet food poisoning story broke, and she loved it, but barfed it up with voluminous amounts of water hours later.
Never seen her do that before........
What do you cook for your dogs? I would not mind doing some extra cooking on weekends. ; )
That is very (disgusting) informative! Just kidding, not your fault and thanks for sharing the information.
I wanted to switch to Nature’s Logic, but it is not available where I live.
We changed from Purina to Canidae. A lot more pricey but worth it, hopefully.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.