A Discussion of Sustainable Choices in Foods for Pets
As a Green store, we of course are dedicated to sustainability, but that can be a real challenge with pet food.
The larger a company is, the more difficult and expensive it is for them to source the most sustainable ingredients on a large enough scale to meet national demand. One might expect that we would source only Organic foods, but this is more of a challenge than you might expect – many pet foods that are certified organic are not, in our opinion, necessarily suitable nutritionally for carnivores; organic meats are expensive, and often a very large percentage of the protein is derived from less expensive organic grains.
We dropped one line of “organic” pet food (Castor and Pollux) because we found out that they were using farmed salmon in their foods, one of the most ecologically harmful, least organic ingredients you could use (enormous amounts of antibiotics and other chemicals used, extremely polluting, and a big risk to wild salmon populations) as well as being so high in PCBs that humans are recommended to not eat it more than once a month due to risk of cancer – what about much smaller animals that eat it every meal of every day? We don’t like farmed salmon, and we were upset that a food that touts the benefits of organic foods (more humane to the animals, more sustainable, lack of chemicals used to raise/grow products, etc) would not stand up publicly against this very un-organic ingredient, let alone allow it in their foods.
Most of our food companies use pastured, antibiotic and hormone free meats, as well as sustainable fisheries and cage free chickens, though not all. Commercial raw foods for pets almost always score higher in sustainability – Some of our most sustainable foods are found in our freezers; brands like Rad Cat and Small Batch are our favorites, as they use locally sourced ingredients, pastured meats, and organic fruits and veggies, and are both produced in or near Portland.
GMO ingredients are more and more pervasive though both in human foods and pet foods, and are very difficult to avoid, especially because they are not labelled. We realize that they of course occur in many commercially made foods, so it is impressive when a company steps forward to make foods that are largely GMO free. Two kibble companies that are doing this are KLN (Natural Planet Organics, Pure Vita, and Nutrisource) and Champion (Orijen/Acana).
What is GMO?
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) refer to plants and animals with an altered genetic make-up. GMOS are created by changing an organism’s genetic composition by artificial means, often involving the transfer of specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a plant or animal of an entirely different species.
According to Gracelinks.org, nearly 400 million acres of farmland worldwide are now used to grow GE crops such as cotton, corn, soybeans and rice. In the United States, GE soybeans, corn and cotton make up 93%, 88% and 94% of the total acreage of the respective crops. The majority of genetically engineered crops grown today are engineered to be resistant to pesticides and/or herbicides so that they can withstand being sprayed with weed killer while the rest of the plants in the field die.
Proponents claim genetically engineered crops are designed to use fewer pesticides than non-GE crops, when in reality GE plants can require even heavier use of chemicals. This is because weeds and insects can and do become resistant to pesticides, leading farmers to spray an ever increasing volume of chemicals on their crops, and eventually are having to resort to more and more toxic chemicals to fight these “superweeds” and “superbugs”. This pollutes the environment, depletes the soil, exposes food to higher levels of toxins, and creates greater safety concerns for farmers, farm workers, and people living adjacent to these farming operations. Pollen from GMO plants can spread and contaminate other crops (a real risk for organic crops).
There have been very few credible studies on GM food safety. Nevertheless, the available findings already give cause for concern. Opinion polls show that up to 90% of Americans want GMO ingredients to be labeled as such, but so far, efforts in the U.S. have failed. Many other countries in the world (more than 60) have already passed laws labeling GMO foods for the consumer. Meanwhile, our country just passed the Monsanto Protection Act, effectively protects biotech companies Like Monsanto from federal courts should any evidence come to light about negative health side effects to the crops.
What you can do:
* Look for foods that are labelled GMO free.
* Choose Certified Organic products – USDA regulations prohibit organic foods from containing GE ingredients, and organic meats cannot come from animals that were fed GE crops. So eating organic is a surefire way to avoid GE foods.
* Support efforts to label GMO ingredients for human consumption
* Avoid soybeans, canola, corn, and sugar from sugar beets as these crops can have a high prevalence of GMO
* Making your pet’s food at home allows you to control the quality and sourcing for all of your ingredients, but make sure you do it right! Here are our favorite resources to help you make food at home that’s safe and balanced. Dogs: http://www.dogaware.com/diet/homemade.html Cats: http://catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood
GMO Resources:
The Center for Food Safety – This network aims to educate consumers about the dangers of genetically engineered food. Their True Food Shoppers Guide lists brand-name foods that contain GMOs and those that are GE free
JustLabelIt This coalition strives to educate consumers about GE foods and to urge the FDA to label GE foods.
A summary of some of the environmental impact problems with GMO – click here
One of the craziest things happening in the GMO debate right now: we are on the verge of the approval of the first Genetically Modified animal: salmon that have been genetically altered to grow twice as fast. Act today to tell the FDA that it is unacceptable to approve this project without reliable safety testing and more complete research on environmental impact. If nothing else, it’s an enormous risk to wild salmon populations.
We all love our pets as members of our families and want to do the very best we can to keep them healthy and happy, but many of us overlook the very foundation of health for our pets – their nutrition. Just as our own health is affected by our daily nutrition habits, dogs and cats can develop chronic health issues like diabetes, skin allergies, inflammation issues such as arthritis, yeast overgrowth, bowel issues, urinary infections or crystals, and even cancer. We often don’t realize that chronic issues are developing at a cellular level, and of course many pets seem “fine” until a crisis occurs. Of course, the very best way to support our own health and the health of our companion animals is for us to eat more whole foods and cut out processed foods as much as we can. However, processed kibbles have come quite a long way in the past 10 years, and there is a great disparity between what you might find on the pet aisle of your local grocery store and what might be available at your local independent pet retailer. It is not legally required (or even allowed) for manufacturers to use language on a pet food label that would help a consumer to know if the quality of the ingredients on a label are similar to the ingredients you might use to cook your own dinners or are simply waste products that were inappropriate for use in human foods, though there are some things to look out for on kibble labels that will give you a good idea. I hope to empower you to recognize some of these “red flag” and “green flag” ingredients that might help you to determine the quality of the ingredients you’re feeding to your pets.
