Here's something that makes me so mad I get a little twitch by my eye.
The BC Veterinary Medicine Association has a coming event listed:
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 6:30 PM
Nutrients vs. Ingredients
Separating the Science from the Marketing Spin & BARF and Update.
Location: Best Western Inn, Kelowna, BC
Date: April 11, 2007
Time: 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
CE hours: 2
BARF, btw, stands for biologically appropriate raw foods (or bones and raw foods, depending on whom you ask). The CVMA continues to be opposed to both raw foods and home prepared diets. They will tell you over and over again that commercially prepared food is more scientific, it's tightly controlled, it's tested. (What a bunch of crap, as North American pet owners are finding out this week.) So I was a bit surprised to see this seminar being offered and wondered whether the more open minded among the profession were finally making some inroads on this topic. And then I read this:
Sponsored by: Nestle Purina PetcareRight. That will be in an impartial seminar presenting the science of BARF. Presented by Nestle Purina?
As some of you know, I'm an IBCLC, and some of the most important actions being taken in the lactation field are aimed at getting formula companies OUT of teaching doctors and nurses, OUT of offering infant feeding inservices, OUT of the universities, OUT of the conferences. Because formula manufactures come in with tons of advertising, and with sophisticated marketing techniques. One of the problems is that physicians and veterinarians, like many intelligent people, bristle at the idea that they would be subject to manipulation and advertising. Their argument seems to be: only stupid people are subject to that kind of manipulation, I'm not stupid, therefore I can be impartial. It doesn't work that way. These companies are spending tons of money to buy your allegiance and your support. Believe it.
Until veterinarians stop allying themselves with food manufacturers, stop marketing - & sometimes downright pushing, these products in their offices, I'm going to be very sceptical of what a veterinarian says about a particular food. Call me cynical - go ahead! But when you've been wined and dined, and chummed up by a rep, and then stand to profit from selling the product, you're not impartial. Even if you don't stand to profit, I think you have to admit you may have been biased by the information presented, which was not impartial to start with.
Check out some of these links:
Your Whole Pet: Real food for dogs is easier than you thinkWe cheerfully accept that kibble is a wonderful way to feed our dogs, when we rarely choose to live on Ensure meal-replacement drinks ourselves. ...
... the human race and its assorted domesticated animals have managed to survive and reproduce for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years, without the assistance of the modern food-manufacturing plant. This isn't a license to feed dogs a poorly constructed diet -- but rather a little reality check on the idea that your dog requires such a precise, nutritionally specific diet that you need finely calibrated laboratory equipment and a degree in nutrition to make his dinner. Aside from the willingness to do it, you really just need a few balanced recipes and the same measuring spoons and cups you'd use to make a cake from a mix.
Pet owners have been sold the idea that there's something inherently different about "people food" and "dog food." There isn't. Food is food. Recipes are recipes. It doesn't need to be processed into pellets to be "dog food." Putting together a varied, nutritious canine diet in your own kitchen takes some awareness and some thought, but it's genuinely no more (or less) difficult than putting together a healthy, nutritious diet for yourself.
PetConnection.com is maintaining self-reporting database of people whose animals have become sick or died after eating the recalled food. Yes, it's self-reporting, and they have several statements about the possible pitfalls of this system, but nevertheless, it's eye opening. As I write this, the total is over 1000 pets reported deceased.
They also report that the poison has been identified: rat poison in the wheat, which was apparently imported from China (which seem incredibly strange to me, being in Canada! You'd have thought we'd have enough wheat here.)
And they
link to a business professor talking about the shattered illusions that if you were buying the premium expensive brands, you were getting something special and different.
The Dolittler - a blog of a vet, discusses the feelings of vets at getting no advanced warning from the manufacturers
here.
From this veterinarian’s point of view—and from my insight as a former marketing executive—they f----- up big time. Unless Menu Foods didn’t inform their own customers (the likes of Iams and Eukanuba whose production was outsourced to them)—and I don’t think that’s likely—these brands should have done back flips to set up company-wide protocols for dealing with the crisis.
And vets should have been informed—if not on Friday (or sooner) then at least by Monday morning. Yet even our distributor was caught off guard. One finally faxed us a list of their products on recall. But our Eukanuba distributor? Not a peep. Our Hill’s distributor? Silence. Calling them reveals more confusion than it offers answers.
And if you're in Canada, the foods most likely being pushed by your vet are the "exclusively available through your veterinarian" Royal Canin and Medi-Cal (which is owned by Royal Canin). Royal Canin is the subject of a
class action lawsuit claiming deadly amounts of Vitamin D in their food. This is completely unrelated to the current pet food recall.
In the end, it's like everything else - you need to educate yourself, read, learn, listen to advisors you trust, and make up your own mind.
I'm still feeding my animals a commercially prepared diet but I'm not certain I'll continue. I'm very aware that the entire industry got its start just like the artificial baby milk industry - waste products that couldn't be used somewhere else + enterprising companies + convenience + marketing = BIG INDUSTRY. Both industries have grown, both have changed, both do produce useful and valuable products which have improved quality of life. But both are also driven by profits and strongly divisive marketing aimed at convincing the consumer that it's not possible to feed your baby or your pet without their products.
What do you think? Have you been affected by the recall? Do you think differently about pet food now? What about the entire food supply safety, what with the spinach and peanut butter etc recalls? None of us are self-sufficient so how do you look out for the safety of your loved ones? And just how much do you trust the experts - the scientists, the vets, the doctors, the FDA?
