March 19, 2007

Pet Food Recall This is probably just for USian pets, but Menu Foods Income Fund, which is apparently the name of a pet food manufacturer that contracts for many different brands has recalled a large number of dog & cat foods. Visit the list to make sure you don't have any in your pantry. This is also probably as good a time as any to remind you that your dog wants steak.
posted by pete_best 17 years ago
  • Holy cow, that's a lot of brands. I thought it was all store brands until I saw Iams, Eukanuba and Science Diet in there.
  • Their press release is such a piece of crap! What a load of wonder weasels. They're recalling hundreds of thousands of pounds of animal food when their labs haven't found a thing wrong, and there have been only a "small number of customer complaints". It's all a coincidence, and it's all the fault of their supplier, anyway. I hope these jerks wind up twisting in the wind. The same sort of deal happened here in Idaho with a horse feed that was contaminated with cattle feed. Certain types of cattle feed can cause mares to abort or even kill horses, and feed manufacturers are well aware of that. Contaminated feed was causing the death of hundreds of horses, and the company flat out LIED about it. Eventually one of the local horsebreeders assisted in filing a class action suit as well as filed on their own behalf. They won. It won't bring back their horses, and most people will get some "compensation" but it's never enough to replace what the horse was worth.
  • This is the vaguest fucking recall I have ever seen.
  • ('scuse the language)
  • Reminds me of the circumstances around the Royal Canin recall that led me to post this thread. Our kitty got sick from an overdose of vitamin D3, and we're still giving her subcutaneous saline injections three times a week. Waltham's (who I guess owns Royal Canin) did the right thing, however; not only did they pay for tests to determine if their food was at fault, but they reimbursed us all of the vet bills we incurred, and continue to pay all expenses related to her condition. Yay, Walthams! I checked the list; her new diet is thankfully not part of the recall.
  • KoKo, I'm glad they stepped up and did the right thing. Sure hope you wrote them a letter telling them so. Ethical handling of a situation is rare in the corporate world. ethiks? wot ethiks? we got no ethiks 'round here.
  • Monkeyfilter: What a load of wonder weasels. I knew GramMa would be too modest to tagline herself...
  • Sort-of-on-topic, I was talking the other day to my friend the Dog Behaviourist (who I'm trying to persuade to join us here, cos she has a lot of useful things to say) about switching my doggies to a raw diet. I've always been very sceptical of the idea, but she's been feeding it to her own three dogs for a while now and has had great success with it... Lemme see if I can get her to sign up and talk about it more knowledgeably than I can...
  • Yes please. What is a "raw diet"? Cause while I don't subject the criminal quadrapeds to my vegetablarian ways, I'm probably not gonna butcher a hog or nothin' for 'em. Also, I was thinking I shoulda just listed the brands here, for you lazy pet owners: Recall Information 1-866-895-2708 1. Americas Choice, Preferred Pets 2. Authority 3. Award 4. Best Choice 5. Big Bet 6. Big Red 7. Bloom 8. Wegmans Bruiser 9. Cadillac 10. Companion 11. Demoulas Market Basket 12. Eukanuba 13. Food Lion 14. Giant Companion 15. Great Choice 16. Hannaford 17. Hill Country Fare 18. Hy-Vee 19. Iams 20. Laura Lynn 21. Loving Meals 22. Meijers Main Choice 23. Mighty Dog Pouch 24. Mixables 25. Nutriplan 26. Nutro Max 27. Nutro Natural Choice 28. Nutro Ultra 29. Nutro 30. Ol'Roy Canada 31. Ol'Roy US 32. Paws 33. Pet Essentials 34. Pet Pride - Good n Meaty 35. Presidents Choice 36. Price Chopper 37. Priority Canada 38. Priority US 39. Publix 40. Roche Brothers 41. Save-A-Lot 42. Schnucks 43. Shep Dog 44. Springsfield Prize 45. Sprout 46. Stater Brothers 47. Weis Total Pet 48. Western Family US 49. White Rose 50. Winn Dixie 51. Your Pet
  • (The above is the dog foods, below are the cat foods recalled) 1. Americas Choice, Preferred Pets 2. Authority 3. Best Choice 4. Companion 5. Compliments 6. Demoulas Market Basket 7. Eukanuba 8. Fine Feline Cat 9. Food Lion 10. Foodtown 11. Giant Companion 12. Hannaford 13. Hill Country Fare 14. Hy-Vee 15. Iams 16. Laura Lynn 17. Li'l Red 18. Loving Meals 19. Meijer's Main Choice 20. Nutriplan 21. Nutro Max Gourmet Classics 22. Nutro Natural Choice 23. Paws 24. Pet Pride 25. Presidents Choice 26. Price Chopper 27. Priority US 28. Save-A-Lot 29. Schnucks 30. Science Diet Feline Savory Cuts Cans 31. Sophistacat 32. Special Kitty Canada 33. Special Kitty US 34. Springfield Prize 35. Sprout 36. Stop & Shop Companion 37. Tops Companion 38. Wegmans 39. Weis Total Pet 40. Western Family US 41. White Rose 42. Winn Dixie
  • A raw diet is chunks of raw meat, and occasionally liquidized raw vegetables. My friend buys lumps of raw chicken in a deal with her local butcher, freezes them, and then just hands them out to the dogs to chew on. There is more to it than that, obviously, and lots of information as to why this is a good thing to do, none of which I understand well enough to write about. I've mailed her a link to this thread which will hopefully entice her in...
  • Shouldn't dogs be on something like a 67:33, veg/grain:meat ratio?
  • Alls I know is the first ingredient shouldn't be "corn". Or it's better when the first ingredient is pork anus. Meat. When the first ingredient is meat.
  • The recall affects specific batches of the above-mentioned brands, not their entire lines. Best to follow links for more pertinent details, you lazy sunzabitches.
  • Thank you for the apt clarification ya big ape.
  • I had my dogs on a raw diet for a while. I would buy 50-pound boxes of chicken necks from a local chicken processing plant and feed each dog 6-8 necks each day, and a raw egg. Some raw vegetables once in a while but not much. Crunch, crunch crunch. They loved it, it was at my vet's suggestion (that's what she feeds her dogs) and it almost completely eliminates dental problems. Some rules of the road: One, you need to have dogs that are accustomed to being fed once per day. You really don't want to leave raw chicken necks laying around. Two, the cats get jealous. Three, often dogs enjoy straying away from their bowl with a bloody chicken bone in their mouth to have a nice, relaxing chew on the living room carpet. Not a good thing.
  • See also.
  • Thanks RTD, I probably missed that thread due to the overabundance of barf in it. I'm enjoying it, although I have to wonder at how long I'll have to read about BARF before I begin to think that barfworld.com was a good domain name.
  • A $50-million class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Toronto against Royal Canin - a multibillion-dollar French company that supplies the Canadian pet-food market. The lawsuit seeks compensation for anyone who has purchased Royal Canin dog or cat food since Aug. 1, 2004. Zut!
  • I would guess I'm excempt from that, considering I've already accepted compensation.
  • "that their bitches managed their pregnancies better..." I have nothing against rap music, but must this type of jargon infiltrate all of our language?
  • Turns out that we had a whole box of teh deadly pouch food in the pantry. Thanks for the alert. Spot cats now think petebest numbah one.
  • Hooray!! goetter, you dodged a big bullet there, let me tell you.
  • Wh00t! Well . . . my job here is done. *flicks cigarette away, throws trenchcoat over shoulder, walks off slowly into foggy sidebar, whistles*
  • That picture goes beyond teh squeeeeee. Glad they're safe! Huzzah for petebest!
  • Oh for fucks sake, the exact same thing goes with your shoes. And your arse wipe paper, especially the brands with aloe vera. And those prepackaged chilli meals. Holy butter balls, no one today in the west actually thinks their supermarket's own brand is made by the supermarket? Do they? Can you fucking imagine how many square kilometers of land it would take if every damn brand in the world had its own factory? A dyson sphere might cover it. Fuck the pets, there are people going without water.
  • ('scuse the language)
  • What's your point, exactly?
  • Ahh there's my leopardkinds. Whoozgy-woogee-woo*OW* Heh. Ah, ya beautiful killers ya. Good stuff.
  • What grand beauts!! Why, they look so soft that I just reached out and hugged my monitor! *adjusts squelch knob to filter out idiocy
  • You mean the dogs got juicey raw chicken necks and the cats had to make do with kibble? I bet you got your ankles bit more than once during that episode!
  • News headline just flashed on my screen, no actual story yet. FDA finds rat poison in tainted pet foods.
  • New chemical identified in recalled pet food Cornell University scientists also found melamine -- used to produce plastic kitchen wares and used in Asia as a fertilizer -- in the urine of sick cats, as well as in the kidney of one cat that died after eating the company's wet food. . . . The new finding comes a week after scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory identified a rat poison and cancer drug called aminopterin as the likely culprit in the pet food. The FDA said it could not confirm that finding. Please note that the recall website lists other types of dog food besides the cuts-and-gravy pouches (i.e. cans) and that there is an effort to include dry food in the recall (see article). I'm printing out the list for the next trip to Ma Hubbard's cupboard.
  • According to the Iams website: We want to assure you that our Iams and Eukanuba DRY foods are not affected by the recall, and are readily available in stores. These foods are not part of the recall – there are no concerns at all about Iams and Eukanuba dry foods. P&G manufactures Iams and Eukanuba dry foods at our own plants, not at Menu Foods.
  • ... and we all know Procter and Gamble wouldn't want to cause any animal suffering!
  • Good point. Also, after I posted I read that part of the article again and realized they were talking about a different company receiving a shipment of wheat gluten (not Menu Foods). So, just disregard my post, please.
  • ... and we all know Procter and Gamble wouldn't want to cause any animal suffering! *bam!* werdup fishy. minda25 what company was the article you mentioned referring to? Is there a different pet food recall besides Menu Foods?
  • It's this part of the article, petebest: In a news conference, FDA officials said that the apparently melamine-contaminated wheat gluten also was shipped to a company that manufactures dry pet food, but they would not name the company.
  • Well crap! What pet food is that then?!? That's it, everybody's only eatin' Twinkies until this gets sorted out
  • Exactly. Why is it that we can't know what food might be poisoning our animals as they eat it? Hmm... now that I've thought about it more, I think it's time for a call to the FDA. This is unacceptable.
  • According to a representative of veterinary medicine at the FDA, we'll have that information today. I decided not to start an argument, but I view that statement as pure b.s.
  • *checks inbox, drums fingers, checks again*
  • Did you e-mail the FDA? You'll get through very quickly if you call. It's 1-888-463-6332 (888-INFOFDA). I can't remember the exact buttons to push after that, though.
  • Wheat gluten imported from China, folks. I've gotten downright paranoid when it comes to the onslaught of products imported from China. Lead contaminated lunch bags started my new phobia. And it seems that I hear about one thing after another. Cheap labor, cheap products, profit! Yet, at a cost...
  • NY Times has a few more details on the new dry food development.
  • “We are in the plant right now,” said Michael Rogers, director of the division of field investigations in the office of regulatory affairs for the F.D.A. “At this time, we’re not certain any dry food was made with that wheat gluten. As soon as we find out what dry food, if any, was manufactured, we will announce it publicly.” That's nice. Meanwhile, I don't know what to feed my kitties. Sam is 18 years old. Her little old kidneys can't handle anything bad. You can bet if this was human food, it'd all be recalled already, on just the hint of a suspicion that it could be tainted.
  • (sorry, I should have pointed out that the above is a dry food)
  • Whoopsie, meant to link to this comment, not my profile.
  • Now that is a domain name. Also: ChemNutra and 792 metric tons are interesting details to the story.
  • Officials say 38 Oregon pet deaths could be tied to recall Another 66 cases that did not result in death could also be linked to contaminated pet food, according to Dr. Emilio DeBess, Oregon's public health veterinarian. His office emphasized the link is only suspected at this point, and a confirmed case would require more extensive testing.
  • Pet food recall expands to Canada-made products. Among the products covered by the expanded recall is Royal Canin Canada's Medi-Cal Feline Dissolution Formula canned diet, made by Menu Foods and sold only through veterinarians.
  • Heard my first friend-of-a-friend's-pet-died because of tainted pet food story. :( .
  • Sold 14,000 shares when he found out eh? In Canada's Globe and Mail, Wiens called it a "horrible coincidence." Yeah, well it's horrible anyway.
  • If true, he should be strung up from his cowardly testes and hung over a pack of starving animals.
  • sick fuck.
  • What SMT & dxlifer said.
  • US Senate agriculture appropriations committee meeting discusses the state of pet food. Because only about 30 percent of pet food plants are inspected every three years, quality control is based largely on self-regulation. Mmmmm the heady aroma of Reaganesque deregulation. Although it has yet to be found amongst the wreckage of any major scandal, such as the Savings & Loan scandal or Enron, its gamey tang excites even the most mundane profit-driven capitalist.
  • Let's see, 30% every three years *calculates* Shit and double shit; no wonder it's what's in the food. I'm considering my critters to have been lucky.
  • The nationwide pet food recall was expanded Wednesday to include products containing rice protein laced with melamine, a toxic agent, the Food and Drug Administration said. Dang. After consumer complaints to Natural Balance of Pacoima, California, reporting kidney failure in several cats and dogs after eating the company's venison products, the firm issued a nationwide recall of its venison and brown rice canned and bagged dog foods and treats, and venison and green pea dry cat food, the FDA said. (The FDA's list of recalled pet food)
  • This whole issue is a gigantic suckfest. Not right that people should have pets die because these people are greedy f**cks. And that jerk CEO should be fined the total profit of his stock sales.
  • *runs to plant more veggie seeds out back*
  • First we were told that none of the adulterated wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate had made its way into the human food supply, and then we were informed that a mere 6,000 hogs had eaten feed contaminated by "salvaged" pet food. Next it was chickens. 3 million of them. Slaughtered, butchered and eaten by unsuspecting Americans. Then 20 million more chickens, and today another 50,000 hogs... not to mention the God-knows-how-many fish in the US and Canada raised on farms now known to have received Canadian fish meal manufactured from contaminated Chinese flours. Sheesh I didn't know the numbers were that big, or that the connection was direct. I do know a way to avoid such things though. But it's a secret.
  • You only eat your toenail clippings? But seriously, has this tainted wheat gluten and rice protein only made way into meats? I'm wondering if there are tofurkeys burgers laced with melamine lurking around out there??
  • The manager of the Chinese company suspected of selling tainted wheat flour to the United States has been detained for nearly two weeks U.S. food authorities suspect melamine and cyuranic acid -- a chemical used in swimming pools -- were mixed into the flour because the nitrogen-rich compounds would make it appear that the flour contained more protein than it really did. *continues to feed paranoia of anything exported from China*
  • Unsafe Food Additives Across Asia Feed Fears Formaldehyde, Sudan Red and boric acid to name a few...
  • It's hard to believe this isn't in the news more. From what I can see (which is web-only, I have no t.v.), this is not reported on anymore, but it keeps getting bigger. Perhaps people just don't want to hear it, seeing as how it's an obscure ingredient in entirely too many food types. I always thought modern society would be taken down by some sort of plague, or at least a world war including nukes. Now I'm starting to wonder if it'll be at the hands of greedy food manufacturers.
  • "I know! We'll put poison in the food - and no one will be the wiser! Ha ha!"
  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating a Texas laboratory's finding of acetaminophen in dog and cat food The pain medication is the fifth contaminant found in pet foods during the past 2 1/2 months and can be toxic or lethal to pets, especially cats... The contaminants were found in foods that are not among the more than 150 brands recalled since March 16... The highest level of acetaminophen found by the Texas lab -- 2 milligrams per gram of dog food -- is a large amount. That is eight times what a 10-pound cat could safely consume... ASPCA Pet Food Recall Resource Center Didn't hear anything about this in the news, but during my recent trip to an ASPCA shelter, they pointed it out to me.
  • W. T. F. China?
  • It makes me really wonder about any food imports from China. I love to shop at my local Chinese market, but I think twice about going there now. I know regs are different for pet food than human food, but I also know that every package that comes into the US isn't checked. I feel like a total xenophobe, and always pick on people who won't eat "that foreign food". But I can't help being paranoid.
  • My China-manufactured goods paranoia continues... Just as I was reading Koko's link above, my wife called me to inform me that several of my 3 year-old Thomas & Friends wooden railway cars are on a recall list. Big surprise, many of the cars manufactured in China were painted with lead paints. *sigh* *begins boycott of Chinese-manufactured goods* *realizes that I cannot purchase anything* C'mon, toothpaste at the dollar store! I'm surprised it isn't made with pulverized chicken bones. That's another thing I'm boycotting, the friggin' dollar stores....
  • W.T.F. China? Part II NYT - may require reg.
  • That's horrible. Especially if it wasn't intentional, which some sources claim. (Of course, that just means that lead paint is legal in some countries, and they accidentally used the paint from those countries for US toys. Kids in the lead-pain-legal countries are still in danger, though.)
  • Melamine makes it way into 'White Rabbit' brand candies distributed to the U.S. The kids had some of this shite in their goody bags from a recent bday party And in other news, what products from China DO NOT contain melamine? I'm starting to think that they just produce evertything on 3D printers with a melamine-starch base...
  • Yeah, the stats are scary too -- labs are frantically testing melamine levels in NZ, Australia and the US and determining a standard safe level (having never had to do so before). Melamine does occasionally leach into food products from plastic packaging, but in infinitesimally small quantities. Most tested products have something around 100-200 parts per million, but those candies have something like 500-600ppm. Crazy. (I'm recalling all this from a news story last night and having trouble googling the test results for definite numbers.)
  • But, but, but... Hommie, it's NECESSARY to have corn syrup in everything we eat! It's absolutely necessary for corporations to make a indecent profit and for our capitalist kleptocracy democracy to survive. Oh, won't someone think of the high fructose corn syrup industry!
  • You know, if they ever ban HFCS, suddenly everything we eat will taste subtly different. My biggest HFCS surprise so far has been: Wheat Thins.