12 JunEpisode 63 | A Pet Food Killed My Dog: Susan Thixton & The Truth About Pet Food
Thirty years ago, a vet told Susan Thixton that dog food had given her dog bone cancer, and the dog had two weeks to live. "That day changed my life," she said. She dove into researching pet food, and found an industry doing its best to keep its practices opaque to pet owners. Too often, she discovered, we are literally feeding our dogs garbage. In the decades since, Susan has become a full time blogger on the subject and a consumer advocate, lobbying to try to improve the quality of the food we feed our pets. She and Annie discuss the difference the precise definitions of terms like "food" and "feed," "with" and "meal," and Susan reveals what she feels is the single most important thing to look for when selecting a pet food. This episode may forever change how you think about dog food.
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Transcript:
Annie Grossman:
Hello, Sue, why don't you just go ahead and introduce yourself.
Susan Thixton:
I'm Susan Thixton. I run the website TruthAboutPetFood.com, and run a consumer stakeholder organization association for truth in pet food, providing food consumers with a voice at pet food regulatory meetings, and with FDA, when they choose to listen to us. It's strictly their ballgame and sometimes they listen to us and sometimes they don't.
Annie:
Now I first found you through your blog Truth About Pet Food. Did the associations start the blog or vice versa?
Susan:
Truth About Pet Food started first and I was going to AFCO meetings and wanted to ask them for an advisory position to where, you know, I could give them consumer opinion more than just being in the audience. And they denied me year after year. And when a president, former president, finally went off the board of directors, he told me that the trick is we didn't want a blogger to be an advisor to AFCO.
So they forced me to start association for truth in pet food. They made me validate that it was a licensed business in the state of Florida, validate that it had a separate bank account, everything separate from Truth About Pet Food. So that's how in order to get a voice at AFCO, we had to start the association.
Annie:
And can you tell people what AFCO is?
Susan:
Association of American Feed Control Officials. It is a private organization that writes a law. Very interesting that a private organization would write law. And they sell the law. The model bills that AFCO writes are accepted into most States, barely over half, but still most States. And most of those laws are not public information. You have to buy copies of the laws from AFCO. So pet owners, veterinarians, if you want to know what the word “flavor” means on a pet food label, or if you want to know what “chicken”–your ingredient list is, chicken, chicken, and pet food is very, very different than chicken in human food. Very, very different. Well AFCO owns all those laws and all those legal definitions, and you have to pay AFCO a hundred dollars, $125 a year to have access to those laws and definitions.
Annie:
Which is something probably zero pet owners ever do.
Susan:
Yeah. Worse yet, know to do. When we look at a label, it says chicken, the label image shows chicken just as we know it, but pet food chicken is allowed to be chicken. As we know it, chicken skin and bones only, no meat, condemned chicken. It can be so many different things. And most pet owners are unaware of that fact. And it's horrible. The labels and the pet food websites are very misleading because they're playing to our familiarity to common ingredients; chicken, beef, those ingredients, every ingredient in a pet food has its own legal definition. That is very different from the same food item and human food.
Annie:
Why is there this discrepancy, in your opinion?
Susan:
Can of worms, we're opening a can of worms. Pet food, to me, this is my bad attitude talking. Most pet foods is waste disposal. So they slaughter millions of animals every year for human consumption, condemned parts of the carcass, condemned carcasses, more than a billion–with a B–pounds of dead animal carcasses have to be disposed of each night.
Annie:
A condemned carcass would be like?
Susan:
Cow dies in a field. These big feedlots with all of these animals. One examples, several years ago, a couple years ago, there was a dramatic flooding in North and South Carolina, where there is a lot of confinement farms for animals. And I'm thinking it was over 5,000 hogs and over 3 million poultry, turkey and chickens, drowned in their barns. You know, the water just rose in there in a confined area, and the animals just drowned.
Well when the waters subsided, those drowned, decomposing carcasses were ground up and sold to pet food. With no disclosure to consumers. That's the part that I'm constantly going, you can't do this. For one, a diseased animal or animal that has died other than by slaughter is a direct violation of US federal law and the FDA. Even though they have no authority to interpret federal law–completely opposite. The term is manifestly contrary. They have no authority to interpret law opposite of the actual words. They do. And they directly tell the pet food industry, go ahead, go ahead. It's okay. Use these dead diseased decomposing animals. And again, with no disclosure to the consumer. Consumers don't know which pet food has it. The only way to know–most pet products, foods, and treats are not food at all. They are feed like cattle feed and chicken feed, feed that was designed to be sold in 50 pound bags and fed on the ground. Not brought into our homes.
Annie:
Is that the definition between feed and food?
Susan:
Well, there's a legal definition of feed, and we pushed them for that to make them legally define feed. It hadn't been before. And the definition says it abides by law unless a regulatory authority has given it permission not to.
Annie:
I'm sorry, the word feed means it is meant for animals who are going to be killed for slaughter?
Susan:
No, not necessarily. Pet food is feed. Most pet foods are feed. Feed means it is a animal food, okay, but it's not food. Crazy thing. It doesn't meet the legal requirements of food. Feed does not meet the legal requirements of food. It's a lesser category. Feed, the legal definition of it states that it abides by law, unless it doesn't, unless FDA or state Department of Agriculture authority allows it not to be.
Annie:
So feed is basically food, except with loopholes that allow it to perhaps not meet all the standards of food–food being something that is meant for human consumption.
Susan:
Well, Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which are the laws that regulate human food and are supposed to regulate all animal foods. The act defines food as that what humans and animals eat. So food should be the same for animals, same quality, the definition is the same as it is for animals. But it is not. The exception to all of this is human grade products. When a pet owner sees a product with the words “human grade” printed on the label, ignore anything on the website, the company website, because nobody, no regulatory authority, scrutinizes pet food websites, they do scrutinize product labels. So if you see that on the label, then you know that this product is a food. It meets all legal requirements of food, manufactured in a licensed food facility, under inspection. All ingredients are edible. Ingredients, raw material and final product was transported and warehouse according to safety standards for food. All the rest of them are feed.
And you know, not all manufacturers use these diseased animals and animals that have died other than by slaughter. But the problem is we don't know. We have no idea. There's no disclosure anywhere as to who uses them or who not, who does not. The only guarantee consumers have is those words, human grade on a label.
Annie:
Is that something we should be looking for then, that it says human grade on the label? As a shortcut?
Susan:
The only way I can answer that is to tell you that I only give my own path. So I've got two dogs and five cats. I only give them human grade. I would not give my own pets or feed grade product. A pet food killed my dog. 30 years ago, almost overnight. I ran a dog obedience, dog training school in Louisville, Kentucky, and my soulmate dog, she was just my best friend, almost overnight, got a tumor on her pelvic bone. And I'd take her to the vet who, this vet, back to then 30 years ago, knew more about pet food than most vets do today. Take her to my vet. And he said, it's bone cancer. And you've got about two weeks to tell her goodbye. And I was crushed. And he said, it's probably the pet food. And there's a preservative that they use in the pet food that causes cancer and it's commonly causes bone cancer. So my guess is that's what it was. And I went preservative? I had no idea what a preservative was 30 years ago. And he explained it extends the shelf while still didn't understand what shelf life was.
And so 30 years ago I made a phone call to this pet food company, my first phone call ever to a pet food company. And I asked them what the shelf life was for this dog food. And they very proudly told me the food would stay fresh for 25 years.
Annie:
And was that canned food or dry food?
Susan:
It was a dry food.
Annie:
Wow.
Susan:
Yeah.
Annie:
What was the dog food and what was the preservative?
Susan:
Well, I don't want to say the dog food, but the preservative was ethoxyquin. And if you think back 30 years ago, there was really only one pet food on the market. You can probably guess who that pet food was, was the leading bad food 30 years ago. And is still.
Annie:
And why can't you say which it is?
Susan:
Because there's a big enough target on my back is the risk.
Annie:
Okay. Understood. Okay. And the preservative was…
Susan:
Ethoxyquin. And it's still used today. E T H O X Y Q U I N. You probably won't see it in the ingredient panel. It is very commonly used. If your pet food has a meal ingredient, most commonly used with a fish meal ingredient. But if you see fishmeal, for certain, you need to call the manufacturer and ask them what the fishmeal was preserved with. Regulations; because the fishmeal supplier is who preserved it, added the ethoxyquin, the food manufacturer is not required to put that ingredient that preservative on the pet food label.
Annie:
Perhaps a dumb question, and again, going back to confusing words, we've talked about food. We've talked about feed. What is meal?
Susan:
Meal is a rendered, cooked ingredient. You'll see on product labels, chicken meal, lamb meal fish meal. Meal means that we’ll use the example of chicken meal. So it can be whole carcasses of chicken, USDA inspected and approved. Or it can be, and this is common in pet food, spent hens. Poultry, when they're done laying eggs, they only lay eggs for a few years. When they're done laying eggs, the poultry, the egg farmer has no further need for these hens. And it is common for the barn–they bring, it's called an emaciator, I believe–it's like a big vacuum with a blade at the end of it. And they come in and just suck all the birds out of the whole entire barn. And they're ground alive. That material, dead chickens can go into this. They're ground, cooked. And this is going to make everybody not want to eat a soup. But if you can imagine, like you're cooking a big soup, the fat that rises to the top of all of this slurry of material, that becomes chicken fat, animal fat if there's multiple species in it. They will take all the moisture, fat moisture out of the meat part of this, further grind it, that becomes chicken meal. It is a meat–I'm using the term meat loosely. It is an animal protein product that looks like dirt. It's a brown powder. It looks like dirt. And that's “protein” that your pet is eating with these foods.
Annie:
Wow. Okay. So you found out that this ingredient was very likely killing your dog. And you called the food company. What happened next?
Susan:
This was pre-internet. I mean, it changed that day, changed my life forever. It changed the direction of my life. This particular veterinarian loaned me books that he had. With the invention of the internet, then you had access to getting online and reading papers and reading regulations and so forth. And in 2006, a group of friends nudged me because I would continuously wear people out telling them this information, anybody that would stop along, I would share information with them. So these friends encouraged me to start a website. And so Truth About Pet Food got started and a year, year and a half after that consumers went, you need to go to AFCO and be there, be our eyes and ears for us. Consumers sent me to AFCO and now I go to those meetings twice a year, every year, have a better understanding of how this whole system works. You know, that's from going to AFCO meetings, I have learned what laws they do enforce, what laws they do not enforce, what they blindly ignore, so forth.
Annie:
Are you now then like a full-time pet food or pet owner advocate?
Susan:
Yeah, this is all I do. Yes.
Annie:
Are there other people doing what you do?
Susan:
There are quite a few people that do go to the regulatory meetings now, but not many, not enough as we need. It's 400 people say at these meetings, they're mostly industry, maybe 50 to a hundred of the 400 hundred max being regulatory. And there's probably eight to 10 of us. Some represent–a veterinarian friend of mine represents the human grade manufacturers. She started a trade association to represent the human grade manufacturers, but there's very few people that go consistently representing the consumer voice.
Annie:
What is the reason that you think there's this divide? Is it between what's allowable for human food and what's allowable for people food? I mean, is it our feelings about pets in our lives has changed and the laws haven't kept up, but it seems to me like all these laws are in place to feed animals that are not being welcomed into our homes as loved family members.
Susan:
It's waste disposal. And to me, it all got started with how we originally fed dogs and cats. My grandparents–I'm from Kentucky originally, and my grandparents were country people. They lived out in the country. They went to town maybe once every two weeks to get staples, but my grandfather hunted, fished. They had a garden. My grandmother would can. And they had lots of dogs and cats. Those animals for their whole entire lives ate when my grandfather hunted and he would clean the animal, the dogs would eat the internal organs. They would eat table scraps. They never ate a commercial food. This was very common, not very long ago that animals ate the same things we ate, but sort of our leftovers.
Annie:
Well, not just, not just for a few generations, but for millennia.
Susan:
Yes, exactly.
Annie:
That's one theory, is that they evolved to eat our garbage, that was a co-evolution. So, but it seems to me what you're saying is that the same thing is now happening. They're eating our scraps. They're eating our offal. They're getting our, you know, the chicken that dropped dead for mysterious reasons, except on a much grander scale.
Susan:
And as the human food industry has gotten better at taking every little morsel of meat, you know, mechanically separated meat, off of that carcass, and more chemicals used, you know, as we have industrialized food that, that excess chemicals, the less and less or worse and worse have gone into pet food and then went to literally the dead livestock. And, you know, this was something that's horrendous to think about. A cow dies, lays in the field for three days decomposing, and that is going to be sold in a bag at your grocery store. You know, it's just horrendous.
Annie:
And so, it's an interesting dichotomy, isn't it? It seems to me like it’s–well, it's one industry that hasn't kept up, it seems like, with the modernization of many parts of our lives for the better.
Susan:
Well, but there are good companies out there, that is the thing. And the hard part is discerning who's who, you know, because they all say ours is the best. No, ours is the best.
Annie:
Why aren't vets more knowledgeable about food in your opinion? Or do you think that's true?
Susan:
Well I do think it’s true, two parts to that. One, they're not taught these things in vet school. You can ask–
Annie:
Why not?
Susan:
They're taught by–agreed, I don't set the curriculum. [laughs] You know, I would, I think they need to learn about the regulations of pet food, because they need to know what the laws are. And if a product comes in, if a client comes in saying, well, the company said this, if they knew a little bit about the laws of pet food, they can go, Nope, that company just lied to you because here's the law, but vets are busy running a clinic and they have to know all the meds and surgery techniques and so forth. So just like human doctors, they don't get deep into nutrition.
The other part of why vets don't know this is, the same way all these laws and all this truth is hidden from us, from consumers. It's hidden from vets too. To know the laws, the vet would have to buy the book every year, go to the regulatory meetings every year. Well, that's difficult to do, you know, so it's a very hidden–to really understand what's really going on, I would bet you could ask 99 out of a hundred veterinarians, just take a random 100 and ask them what a human grade pet food is. And I would bet 99 out of a hundred would tell you that's not a real thing, but it is a real thing
Annie:
I'm under the impression of two things, one about vets and one about breeders. Vets I feel like are, we'll recommend a brand. And if you ask them why they'll say, well, you know, that brand came in and gave a lecture one afternoon at my vet school. And the vet might also say, and we really didn't get much of an education on pet food, but I did have this one lecture given to me by the brand. That's a hunch I have, that, that's where a lot of vets get their information. The other is breeders. There's a couple brands that we have clients say they feed their dogs because the breeder recommended it. And there's not major brands that you see at the supermarket. They seem to me more like pyramid scam kind of brands. Have you run into that?
Susan:
Yeah.
Annie:
Life's Abundance is one I've heard of, and I don't know the quality of these foods, but when I hear about that, I always pause and think, I don't think your breeder is recommending this because of the quality.
Susan:
Well, it emphasizes that, you know, people shouldn't listen to anyone, myself included and take that as absolute fact, listen to what the other person is saying. And then go do your own learning. You know, the more you learn about this industry, the better off they're going to be. And I know it's tough where we all lead very busy lives and we don't want to have to spend hours researching pet foods, but this is a life or death situation. It very easily can be.
Annie:
So what are some of the things that you offer or that you've developed that people who aren't familiar with your work can access to get more information about what they should be feeding their dog?
Susan:
On the homepage, the most significant to me is human grade. You know, if more pet owners understood human grade and feed grade, they are then empowered to ask manufacturers better worded questions. And on the homepage of my website, there is–I'm trying to figure out where it is. It's in the top middle, there's a link. And I did a brochure pamphlet. It's under “resources,” those three things, right there help to give pet owners just more information, make them better educated consumers.
Annie:
And you also have a pledge that you have?
Susan:
On the association website, we do have pledge to quality in origin where manufacturers provide us quality of ingredients, country of origin, of ingredients, and then sign the document that States all the information is true. Yes.
Annie:
And how many companies have you had sign up?
Susan:
There's quite a few, I would say 40 different companies. There's quite a few. That's on associationfortruthinpetfood.com.
Annie:
And you also have a recommendation list that people can purchase, right?
Susan:
Since this is all I do, I do have to support myself doing this work. And the most common question I get is what do you feed your own dogs? Tell me what to feed. And I can't ever make any kind of a brand specific brand recommendation. I can't and don't endorse any pet food company. So the way I could support myself, help support myself and answer their questions was to come up with a list of pet foods that I personally would trust to give my own pets. Well, these companies are very thoroughly vetted. They have to list, provide answers to a long list of questions. And then they have to provide me with validation. Like if they're telling me all the meats are sourced from humanely raised animals, well, they have to provide me with verification of that. If they say we only buy human grade meats, well, they have to provide me verification of that country of origin. They provide me invoices of that state's human grade and what country it comes from.
It takes about three months each year to get this document and put together. And it's a lot of work for the manufacturers to provide me with all of these documents, but that's how I go about selecting a food for my own pets. I'm that picky. I want to know that this food, you know, is as safe as possible.
Annie:
I do buy this list every year and I suggest you buy it too. It's $25?
Susan:
It's anywhere from 10 up. It's the same document, $10 up. It's the same document, no matter what price you purchase it at. It’s listed at multiple price points for people that want to help the cause, help support Truth About Pet Food. If they can afford more than they can pay more to help support our work.
Annie:
So does that mean you won't talk about any specific brands during this conversation?
Susan:
I really it's. It's just not, I have to remain as unbiased as I possibly can and yes, I do have personal opinion, but as a consumer advocate doing that work, I can't have a personal opinion. I have to separate that.
Annie:
How do you feel about changes in the pet food market? I mean, is there a name for the movement that I've at least noticed in the last, I'd say 10 years of these smaller companies coming on the market and offering what's at least seems like better options?
Susan:
I think people, and, some of the histories of these companies are just like what happened to me. Their own pet died from a food. And as they dug in and learn more, they were horrified as to what is actually out there being called dog food and cat food. And so they started, a lot of times the people started cooking for their own pets because they didn't trust anything. And then that led to them starting a company. I think the majority of these small companies were started because of a horrible, something happening, a bad, bad experience. And they wanted to make a difference in the future. And they are, there's lots of wonderful choices. But again, your viewers and listeners–don't just trust their marketing, do the homework, ask them the difficult questions, dig in a little bit to make sure what they're telling you is actually accurate.
Annie:
Do you recommend cooking for your dog above all else?
Susan:
My own pets eat one half commercial raw, one half home prepared, cooked. So I think cooking is a wonderful thing. It's not rocket science. My cooking has not killed anyone, but you do have to follow a good recipe. So you don't want to just arbitrarily, Oh, I've got some chicken and I've got some, you know, whatever. You've got to follow a good recipe, but it's not hard. It's really not hard. It's a little time consuming, but for a human grade, you know exactly what's in there, then. When you make it yourself, you know exactly what your animal is eating. I think it's a great thing to do as long as you're following a good recipe.
Annie:
And what recipes do you suggest?
Susan:
Dr. Karen Becker on her website has some cat food recipes on mercola.com. If you look Dr. Karen Becker up on the homepage of Truth About Pet Food, there's a video for a dog food recipe. I think it's on planet paws, planetpaws.ca has more recipes from Rodney Habib and dr. Karen Becker, Dr. Judy Morgan, her website has some dog recipes. They're out there. You know, just make sure they are a complete and balanced recipe.
Annie:
Right? That's my understanding of why you can't just wing it. It's because dogs do have different nutritional needs. And that if something's labeled to commercial pet food, that means it has to be especially balanced for a dog. I have sometimes recommended, and you can tell me what you think about it, the website balanceit.com for people who are making their own dog food. Are you familiar with balanceit.com?
Susan:
I am familiar with them. It took me, I had to jump through multiple hoops to finally get to talk to balance it. BalanceIt is a company that sells recipes, and then they sell you the supplements to balance that
Annie:
But it has a tool where you can put in, like I'm going to give my dog Turkey and broccoli and carrots, and it'll tell you, okay, this is what you need to add. Right?
Susan:
Yeah. Well, I've never used it officially, but I've been in contact with them and it took forever. I had to jump through hoops after hoops to finally get to talk to someone there. Uh, some of their supplements are sourced from China and they don't, they're not real open about disclosing that on the website, which I am not a fan of. Not everything that comes out of China is bad. Okay. It's not, but at the very least, consumers deserve to know, and they can decide if they are comfortable with Chinese sourced supplements or not. So that's my issue with it is that some of their supplements are sourced from China.
And for your listeners, you might have a pet food company. If you call them and ask country of origin and you're leery of Chinese source supplements, many companies will say taurine, which is big in the DCM issue right now. And it's a required supplement for cats or it's, it's a required nutrient for cats. Many companies will tell you, China is the only company they can buy touring from. That is not true. Japan is a another country that exports taurine it's much more expensive than the taurine from China. Most supplements are much more expensive if they're sourced from the US or other countries of origin that might not have the questionable history that Chinese pet supplements have. So, but don't be misled by these companies. There are other places to get them. If they're telling, you know, China's the only place we can buy it, that's not true.
Annie:
Do you recommend getting pet foods that have nothing from China in them?
Susan:
That's the individual, that's–
Annie:
Well, my, my, my knowledge about China as it relates to pet food comes from the Marion Nessel book I read about the 2007 pet food recall, which for those listening who are not familiar, was the biggest food recall in history, I believe. And it, and it was a pet food recall. Although there were, I believe baby foods also affected. And it stemmed from China sourced melamine?
Susan:
It was wheat gluten that was laced with melamine? So here, this brings up another issue of pet food. Pet food is required. Like an adult dog food is required to be 18% protein. Well, we hear protein and we think meat, but pet food doesn't–the protein can be from anything. So vegetable, a wheat gluten, vegetable protein, they added melamine, which is a plastic. Protein is analyzed in pet food. If you notice on the back of your pet food label, it says crude protein. Crude is a method of testing and they measure the amount of nitrogen in the pet food. So when you see crude protein, 24% crude protein, 30%. Pet owners unknowingly think, Oh, it's got more meat in it. Look, it's 30% protein. Not necessarily, it's got more nitrogen in it. We don't know if that protein is actually available to the animal, where it came from.
That 2007 instance, the melamine was added to wheat gluten to raise the protein level of the wheat gluten, which then they could sell the wheat gluten for a little bit higher price than normal wheat gluten.? Many pet food manufacturers utilized it. And it killed many, many, some accounts hundreds of thousands of pets. A very painful kidney failure death. It was horrible.
Annie:
Amazing.
Susan:
And absolutely nothing, nothing has changed in the pet food industry since then. Congress, after that recall, wrote laws, it was the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act. And the laws were titled Ensuring the Safety of Pet Food. And it was those laws were written on the lives of all those pets that died in 2007 to prevent this from happening again. FDA was required by Congress to complete these updates, pet food safety updates by September of 2009, every year, 2010, still not done 2011, still not done 12, 13, 14. They never, FDA never did what the US Congress told them they had to do. And then in 20, late 2018, uh, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky went in and submitted an addendum to an unrelated bill. And those laws that many, many pets died for, thanks to Senator Rand Paul's addendum, were wiped off the record. They're gone. So we have nothing, nothing, all those pets died in vain.
Annie:
Terrible.
Susan:
Yeah. It's criminal.
Annie:
Very simply. What's the best way to know what is a good food. I mean, I guess we've touched on some of this, but anything we haven't touched on?
Susan:
Well, everybody has to be comfortable. Like you, you have to understand what feed grade and human grade is. You know, to me, it's a human grade pet food, a human grade pet food that is minimally processed, but you might be different. Okay. So you've got to understand what cards, you’re dealt, what's available out there first. And then you can decide what is best for your dog, your cat, understanding some of the regulations such as, here's another one, the term “with.” You see many pet food labels that say Joe's pet food “with” chicken, “with” on a label when it's in the name of the product means that that pet food only has to contain 3% chicken or 3% of whatever it is with. When you look at a 20 pound bag of pet food, 3% is, is only like–Gosh, I have this all calculated out in an article on my website. It can be anywhere. I don't remember it. It's so minimal. It's horrible. So if you think, look at that bowl of food, if it's a kibble, you, that you, that your dog is eating. And if you think only 3% of this chicken that's blazened and all across the label with a picture of chicken on the label!
Annie:
What about dry food versus canned food versus frozen food versus freeze dried, dehydrated, your feelings about that. Do you deter people from dry and canned?
Susan:
I liked for it to be recognizable. I like to be able to see what I'm feeding. You have no idea what you're feeding in a kibble. It's so highly processed. The ingredients are cooked at least four times before it gets to your dog's bowl. That's why they have to add so many supplements back to it because it's cooked and then cooked and cooked and cooked. So all the nutrients have been cooked out of those food slash feed ingredients. So minimally processed, just how people benefit from eating minimally processed foods. The same thing for our pets. If you can't afford to feed all human grade, then feed some. You know, add a third every day to your dog's diet. That's huge, to add some minimally processed, actual food to their bowl. Take a third away and put a third of actual food in.
Annie:
Raw versus cooked?
Susan:
I feed both. So, you know, I'm okay with, I'm more of a quality of ingredients. I'm not so stringent that it has to be raw, it has to be cooked. I'm open to it all, but I'm really, really picky on quality of ingredients.
Annie:
Okay.
Susan:
Have to be edible ingredients.
Annie:
I often tell puppy owners in particular to steer clear of dry food whenever possible, because in my own experience, I find dry food tends to produce a lot more waste. And when you have a puppy, you want to have less pee and poop rather than more pee and poop.
Susan:
Well, it's the nature of the beast. A kibble, if you imagine all these ingredients are ground very finely, then they're cooked and forced out. And they're like a little dough ball. And they're baked after that, dried, little dough balls are dried. For that to stick together for this, not to all crumble and fall apart in that 20 pound bag.
Annie:
That's going to live on a shelf for 25 years?
Susan:
It's going to live on a shelf for quite a while.
Annie:
Is that still true, that dry food, it can live on the shelf for that long, some of these?
Susan:
They don't say that, they don't claim that anymore, but that, you know, with ethoxyquin yeah. Shelf life for most kibble foods are three years.
Annie:
Sorry. I interrupted you though. You were saying,
Susan:
Well anyway, for that little kibble ball to stick together, keep its shape in that bag, a lot of glue has to be in there, and that is starch, carbohydrates. So carbohydrates aren't–dogs have zero nutritional requirement for carbohydrates zero. There are nutrients in some carbohydrates, there's vitamins, there's minerals that they can benefit from, but nutritionally speaking, there's zero. You know, so if it's not utilized by the animal, then it's going to come out the other end. And by nature of kibble, a lot of carbohydrates starch has to be added in order for it to keep its shape.
Annie:
Wow. That's interesting to put it that way. So the carbohydrates just go in one end and out the other is what you're saying.
Susan:
[laughs] Oh, well again, there are vitamins and minerals in, in some carbohydrates that the pet utilizes. Okay. But you know,
Annie:
The way I think of it, [laughs] I say this laughing, cause I had a job many years ago at a raw food retreat. And I showed up late in the summer and the job that was left over that they gave me was to clean the bathrooms. And this place, you know, was all about clean eating and enemas. And I was the bathroom cleaner, but it actually wasn't that bad. [laughs] And it's almost like if you have to clean the bathrooms, I'd rather be cleaning the bathrooms of the people who are eating nothing but raw food all day, as opposed to the place down the street, which is serving heavily processed foods. Right? And anyway, sort of the same thing with our dogs. Great. Well, any other questions that anyone has here that we can pose to Susan? Anything that we haven't touched on that you think people might like to know about?
Susan:
No, just keep learning. You know, I'm continually learning too, you know, that's the thing, this is, we peel back layers of this. I had a pet owner years ago. I put out a post and it was hard for her to accept and she was arguing with me via email. That can't be true. That can't be true. And finally, I went, I'm sorry. You know, I gave you the evidence, if you can't accept it, it's OK. And about a month later, she wrote me back and she went and, you know, learning this, my education of understanding pet food is like me trying to get to the center of the onion. I couldn't get to the center of the onion right away. I had to only remove one layer and then live with that for a minute before I could take the next layer off. So we're all continuing to peel back layers. It's a very secretive industry. And as we learn one thing, you know, it gets shared among all of us and then we learn more and then we learn more. So we're all continuing to learn. So don't anybody get frustrated with the learning process?
Annie:
I think that it reflects a lot of larger, I guess, I don't know what the word–issues are or stories about pets in our society. For instance, if you say to someone, Oh yeah, sure. I ate some of my dogs. Food. People will still think you're crazy. And most people I'm guessing. Whereas an a and I think of this, I don't know if you're familiar with Evermore, but my friend–
Susan:
Yes. Great company.
Annie:
My friend, Hanna, is one of the founders of Evermore, which is the only food actually that we carry at our studio. And it's mostly what my dog eats. And she and her co-founder did a stunt where they ate only Evermore for a month and actually felt great, lost weight and seasoned it up. So it really wasn't that bad.
Susan:
It's food!
Annie:
Right. And to drive home the point that this is food. And really, if you think about it, why should it be gross to eat anything that you're feeding your dog? Yes, we have different nutritional needs, but we have more in common than we don't have in common. As far as our nutritional needs go, by a lot. And to me, it makes sense that if I'm feeding my dog something, it shouldn't be that gross that I wouldn't want to eat it too, but we're still–
Susan:
It shouldn’t be illegal.
Annie:
Right.
Susan:
You know, that's the whole thing. Federal law says just what you were saying. That food is what humans and animals eat. That's US law. Yet, unfortunately the majority of the products out there do not abide by law, and that's wrong.
Annie:
So when is the Truth About Pet Food documentary coming out?
Susan:
[laughs] No, no, no, no, not me.
Annie:
It seems like a Netflix special waiting to happen.
Susan:
Ah, well.
Annie:
Or a John Oliver, a John Oliver episode.
Susan:
Well, we're continuing to learn always more and more, and it all gets shared. Every time I learn something I do share with pet owners, much to everyone in the industry and the regulatory people–Um, they, they're not happy with me, but that's okay.
Annie:
Well, I'm glad that you're around for them to not be happy with. And I appreciate everything that you do and really, really am grateful to get to talk to you, and I hope that this conversation turns some new people on to your work, which is so valuable, so thank you very much.
Links:
What is feed grade and human grade pet food? Learn the differences.
Pet food ingredients differ from human food ingredients.
Learn how to add some real food to your pet’s diet.
Associationfortruthinpetfood.com
The List – Truth About Pet Food’s approved foods
Dr. Karen Becker Dog Food Recipe
