Comments on: Blog roundup, recall edition

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:41:24 +0000

I emailed Natura on Tuesday asking them to confirm or deny that Menu Foods made some food for them. Here is the email response I received from them on Thursday afternoon.
Definitely NOT good enough for me either.

From: Customer Service [mailto:custserv@naturapet.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 1:22 PM
To: ‘Kim Duke’
Subject: RE: Menu Foods makes your food?

Natura Pet Products owns and operates two manufacturing facilities, including a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Fremont, Nebraska. Our plants are AIB Certified “Superior”, Organic Certified, USDA APHIS Registered and ISO 9001:2001 compliant. Natura does utilize Menu Foods to manufacture canned products; however, Natura maintains final review and strict approval of all formulation designs, including the types and quality of ingredients included. Menu Foods is responsible for quality control in its facilities, based upon their Good Manufacturing Practice process; a copy of which is on file in our offices. Natura has a complete and documented Product Quality reference on hand detailing the quality standards for each formula and can size produced under Natura’s labels. Each of our canned products are routinely reviewed and compared to the standards set out in this reference material. It is important to emphasize that: 1) the Menu Foods recall is specific to “cuts and gravy” products WHICH NATURA DOES NOT SELL, and; 2) Natura’s canned products are made at a facility which has NOT BEEN IMPLICATED IN THE RECALL. Since being notified of the recall, Natura has been in direct contact with Menu Foods management and have a 100% confidence level that our canned products in the market are healthful and safe.

By: catmanager

catmanager — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:21:09 +0000

Nikki, Thank you for that bit of research! I was (obviously) not aware of that fact. Now that I think about it, in presentations I’ve heard from Natura, they do only talk about the manufacture of their dry foods.

By: Nikki

Nikki — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:53:03 +0000

Catmanager wrote: “…the only ones that really impressed us were the Natura products. They produce their food in their own factories…”

A phone call by a concerned pet owner to California Natural yielded the following information:

I called the company that makes California Natural, Natura 1-800-532-7261. Their website says they are not affected by the recall.

I was told they make their own dry food, BUT MENU FOODS MAKES THEIR CANNED PRODUCTS!!!

She said their canned food is made at the Nebraska plant, and therefore not affected by the recall. NOT good enough for me.

By: Gwen

Gwen — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:04:21 +0000

I’m glad you mentioned the possible drawbacks to feeding a raw diet, because I’ve heard an awful lot of people mulling over the (reactionary) decision to go raw over the past few days- and a number of others encouraging this.

My biggest beef with the idea of feeding my four a raw diet is the fact that human-grade meats aren’t intended to be consumed raw. (In fact, a few years ago, I had a cat contract food poisoning after stealing some uncooked meat I was planning on fixing for myself.) That and, personally, I don’t trust my ability to ensure that what I’d be making would be nutritionally complete for my cats. I find it hard enough to cook for myself!

Might work for some, but not for me. And, either way, the decision to produce one’s own raw diet is definitely not something to be done on a whim, sans research and an understanding of what you’re doing. (IMHO, anyway.)

By: Therese

Therese — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:37:30 +0000

Your post made perfect sense just the way it was. Although I didn’t think you were implying we were recommending the foods, I re-read my post, and saw how it could have been misinterpreted. I went back and made some changes to clarify. We need to work together to get through this crisis, so thank you!

By: catmanager

catmanager — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:13:19 +0000

Therese: Thank you for clarifying. I didn’t mean to imply that your blog was recommending any or all of the foods, but I see how what I wrote could be interpreted that way.

Elderta: My wife suspects that the food will probably be incinerated. I’ll see if I can contact our Royal Canin rep tomorrow to see what he knows.

By: catmanager

catmanager — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:08:28 +0000

Dogs are omnivores like you and me. They don’t necessarily need carrots, rice, and grains, but then neither do we necessarily need those things. Eating them certainly doesn’t do harm to either of us. Cats, on the other hand, are obligate carnivores. In general they can’t digest vegetables (when they eat mice, they’re getting small amounts of predigested vegetable matter that probably does provide necessary vitamins and minerals), but that doesn’t mean raw food is necessarily best for them (excepting food that they hunt for themselves; note that when they hunt they eat the entire body: meat and bones enough). I know some veterinarians recommend raw diets, but my wife’s not one of them and I tend to respect her opinion on the matter. Until someone figures out how to sell mouse-in-a-can (and by “figure out” I mainly mean figure out how to market it to a squeamish public), we won’t have a perfect canned diet for cats. Many diets now available are, in my wife’s opinion, far, far from perfect (they include all sorts of ingredients cats don’t eat in the wild without solid science to indicate that those ingredients won’t cause long-term harm). But we do have some good diets available that are far better (i.e., more nutritionally complete, more palatable, less likely to be contaminated during the preparation process) than what most people can achieve with home-prepared (including raw) diets. If you’re cat can’t catch its own food, a raw diet really isn’t the answer. Remember that any meat you buy at the supermarket has not been handled to be eaten raw. Cats in the wild kill and immediately (or within a very short time) consume their prey. If you are going to feed raw, are you sure you can mimic this? (If you can’t, then there are significant risks for food poisoning—both to your pet and to you.)

At my wife’s clinic we recommend Innova EVO and California Natural (made by Natura), Science Diet, and Max Cat dry (from Nutro). We looked for a long time for a high quality maintenance diet and the only ones that really impressed us were the Natura products. They produce their food in their own factories, they select all their own ingredients, and they avoid filling EVO and California Natural with nonsensical, faddish ingredients like carrots and blueberries (which in other foods are there primarily to appeal to you, the consumer). Neither food has wheat, which is a known allergen in cats. Innova EVO has no grain whatsover, and California Natural dry is a limited-ingredient diet containing chicken, brown rice, vitamins, minerals, and that’s about it.

Having said all that: a lot (an awful lot) is still not understood about animal nutrition, so thoughtful, well-meaning people will disagree about what is “best” for our pets. To catmanager’s knowledge, though, most board certified veterinary nutritionists recommend against feeding raw diets, as does the Companion Animal Parasite Council (a group whose main concern is the spread of parasites from animals to human beings). The American Veterinary Medical Association cautions that unless you are an expert in animal nutrition, it will be very difficult to home-prepare nutritionally appropriate food for your pet. If you are certain you want to try home-formulated food, proceed with caution and please consult with your veterinarian. Home-formulated diets and supplements need to be formulated on an individual basis for each of your animals.

By: Elderta

Elderta — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 03:55:19 +0000

Also, I have a question: What is going to happen to all of the food that is being recalled? How is the company going to effectively destroy it? I know you probably don’t have an answer, but it’s something I thought of today. It’s an ecological nightmare.

By: Elderta

Elderta — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 03:53:17 +0000

Thanks for including the link to Tanya’s Feline CRF Information Centre. I shared the link with you. I just wanted to state that the site is not mine, though my name is Tanya. The site is named after the site owner’s cat who suffered from CRF. It’s a great resource for this recall and for CRF in general.

By the way, thanks for all the hard work you’ve been doing.

By: Therese

Therese — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 03:38:21 +0000

I absolutely agree with you that people should do some research and consult their veterinarians if necessary before switching pet foods.

The list of foods on our blog – PetsitUSA.com – is by no means a recommendation to feed any of the products. As you mentioned, it is a list of foods reported *by the manufacturers* as being safe. It came about because of the many emails and phone calls asking if we knew what products were safe. The list is simply a place people can start with their research. I urge everyone with pets to check the recall list repeatedly, and get their pets to the vet if they’ve eaten any of the tainted food and are showing signs of illness.

Personally, there are foods on the list that I wouldn’t feed my pets, but I feed mostly raw, not commercial foods.