Study show pet food lacks consistency – Truth about Pet Food

A cat diet study discovered something unexpected; they found that commercial cat foods did not consistently use the ingredients listed on the label or in consistent amounts.

If you’ve ever baked a cake from a recipe, you’ve probably learned that should you vary the recipe even slightly your cake doesn’t turn out as you planned. The recipe called for 3 eggs, and you only had 2. It will be ok, right? Wrong. Your cake didn’t rise and certainly didn’t taste like it should.

Pet foods have specific recipes too. However, pet foods have recipes for much more important reasons than taste. Pet food recipes are necessary to make certain the pet food is as the label claims – “Complete and Balanced” – providing all of the required nutrients a cat or dog needs and in the proper levels. Thus when a pet food manufacturer doesn’t follow their recipe, nutritional failures can happen that can adversely effect the pet consuming the food.

A recent study from North Carolina State University and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences depended on pet food manufacturers consistently following a recipe, depended on pet foods providing pets consistent nutrition. But as it turned out, the researchers found that the pet foods were far from consistent.

From ScienceDaily.com the study is explained: “A common way to understand the composition of animal diets is to collect samples of fur, nails, or blood from an animal and analyze its carbon and nitrogen isotopes. All organic materials contain isotopes of elements that get locked into body tissues, following the basic principle that you are what you eat. For example, the ratios of nitrogen isotopes present in carnivores are dependably distinct from those of plant eaters.”

“For this study, researchers collected isotopes from things a cat might eat, including different brands and flavors of cat foods. They predicted cats that only ate from their food bowls would have an identical isotopic match to the food, while differences between cat and pet food would indicate a cat supplementing its diet with wild prey.”

“We really thought this was going to be an ideal application of the isotope methodology,” says Roland Kays, a co-author of the study and scientist at NC State and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.”

“This assumes that cat food producers use consistent types and amounts of ingredients. As it turns out, that is not the case.“

From the study: “The high level of variation between different cat food, including many of the flavors produced by the same manufacturers, was quite surprising.”

“The samples received from participants and the wet food purchased from stores in the Raleigh, NC area made up a total of 27 brands, and 55 individual flavors of food. Purina™ was the most frequent brand of cat food received and was made up of 14 different flavors of cat food. Some isotopic variation between flavors would be expected here, but surprisingly, δ¹³C values varied more than 5‰  across Purina™ dry foods. Even foods within the same flavor could be variable, for example, samples of Meow Mix™ Original Choice flavor varied 2‰  in δ¹³C values. This suggests that large scale pet food manufacturers vary the ingredients over time.”

Regulatory authorities from FDA and each state should be holding manufacturers accountable to consistent nutritional requirements. Unfortunately, this study and multiple other studies in the past (DNA analysis studies proving protein label claims do not match analysis) proves they are not. With no enforcement – and as shown by this study – many pet food manufacturers do as they please, changing ingredients and the nutritional values of pet food with no concern for the pet consuming the food.

Pet owners should not hesitate to email FDA (AskCVM@fda.hhs.gov) and/or their State pet food regulatory authorities (locate here) asking them to properly monitor pet food nutritional values. Provide them a link to this study (https://peerj.com/articles/8337/) and asking them to explain why pet food manufacturers are allowed to be so inconsistent.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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