Currently browsing posts about: Pet food

I subscribe to Obesity and Energetics Offerings because it’s a great way to keep up with current research and commentary on just about anything related to diet and activity.

One of the things I particularly like about it is its section called “Headline vs Study.”

Here is its most recent example:

• Headline: New Study Reveals COVID-19 Pandemic Fueling Pet Obesity.
• Press-release: No Formal Study Report Found. Survey of Pet Owner and Veterinarian Perception of Eating Behavior and Pet Obesity Patterns. No Pet Obesity Reported.

The headline, from Pet Food Industry magazine (an  unusually well written and edited source of information about this industry), refers to a survey of veterinarians done by Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a maker of pet foods.

According to veterinarians, more than 71% of pet professionals say the pandemic has impacted the way pets eat…Since the start of Covid-19, one third (33%) of pet parents with an overweight pet say their pet became overweight during the pandemic…veterinarians state that only 12% of pet parents proactively flag concerns with their pet’s weight. Moreover, nearly two in three veterinarians say pet parents act surprised (64%) or defensive (64%) upon learning about their pet’s weight issues.

Pet parents?  You know who you are.

What is this about?

IRONICALLY, TOO MUCH “TREAT LOVE” DURING THESE DIFFICULT TIMES IS THE MAIN CULPRIT.

Treats, as Mal Nesheim and I explain in our book about the pet food industry, Feed Your Pet Right, have calories, and those calories—just like the ones from any snack—add up.

Obesity in pets does just what it does in humans; it raises the risk of chronic disease, especially type-2 diabetes

A new study just out in the BMJ, which compared obesity in dogs to that of their owners, says:

Data indicated that owners of a dog with diabetes were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes during follow-up than owners of a dog without diabetes. It is possible that dogs with diabetes could serve as a sentinel for shared diabetogenic health behaviours and environmental exposures.

Pet parents: Walk those dogs!  Love them some other way!

Thanks to Nate Goldstein (@drnategoldstein), Mitchell Davis (@kitchensense), and the adorable Milo for this photo, discovered in my Twitter feed (@marionnestle).

Milo: Don’t eat my book!

OK, it’s ten years old, out of date, and out of print.  Mal Nesheim and I badly want to do an updated edition with a title that better reflects what the book is about.  It’s really an analysis of the pet food industry and what it produces.  We did include generic recipes for feeding dogs and cats, though, so you can make your own .

Anyone interested in taking on this project?  Let me know @marionnestle.

Food Dive reports: FDA study finds some CBD products are mislabeled: Of the 20 edible and beverage products tested that had an amount of CBD marketed on their labels, five had less than 80% of the amount indicated and six had more than 120%.

I’m particularly interested in CBD edibles so I took a look at the FDA CBD labeling report.

What the results mean:

• For gummies, 7 of 17 products were mislabeled by 20% or more, and 5 contained THC (the psychodelic ingredient they are not supposed to have).
• For edibles, 6 of 17 were mislabeled by 20% or more, and 3 had THC.
• For beverages, 3 of 8 were mislabeled by 20% or more, but none had THC.
• For pet foods, 5 of 22 were mislabeled by 20% or more, and 9 had THC.

If you want THC in your edibles, you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting it, and so do your pets.

Enjoy!

Interested as I am in pet food and the effects of coronavirus on what’s happening with these products, I was fascinated to come across this item:

Confirmation of COVID-19 in Pet Dog in New York.

Uh oh.  We knew that cats and tigers could get this disease but dogs were considered safe from it.

The big question: can pets transmit?

I’m guessing yes, although maybe not easily.

I am an avid reader of Pet Food Industry, a top-notch trade magazine for pet food makers.

It has been following the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on this industry.  Because pet food is an integral part of the food supply chains for humans (it uses byproducts from human food production), anything that affects the human food supply also affects the supply for pets.

The problems now seen in the meatpacking industry affect pet foods too.

A recent Pet Food Industry article explains.

If meat processors lose capacity to supply the human food chain, the livestock may end up in rendering plants, said David Meeker, Ph.D., senior vice president of scientific services for the North American Renderers Association. “We’ve got renders ready and willing to help with that,” Meeker said. “Hopefully that can be done in a way to make good pet food ingredients out of it….We absolutely don’t want them put down with any kind of drug,” he said. “They’d have to be put down like they were meat.”

Leo Wilson, an editor at CyberPet, sent me his graphic advice to pet owners worried (for good reason) about Coronavirus.  His Infographic has 12 pieces of advice.

Here’s advice #7 about basic health care.

It’s bad enough to have to worry about avoiding getting sick from Coronavirus, but now we have to worry about making our pets sick too.

• Hong Kong reports a case of Coronavirus in a dog; it looks like the dog caught it from it owner.
• The Animal Wellness Foundation urges restraint and care in dealing with Coronavirus in pets.  At the moment, there is no evidence that we can catch the virus from pets.  Nevertheless, the Foundation suggests not “letting your pets lick you on the nose, mouth, and mucous membranes.”
• FDA alert warns pet owners of Salmonella contamination in raw food:  The FDA is cautioning pet owners not to feed their pet’s certain Aunt Jeni’s Home Made frozen raw pet food “as it poses a serious threat to consumer and animal health” because of Salmonella Infantis contamination. The Salmonella was discovered in January when the FDA collected one retail sample of Aunt Jeni’s Home Made Turkey Dinner… Continue Reading
• Blog: Global Pet Expo debrief: CBD, DCM, party time for pets: Lindsay Beaton reports on what she saw at the Expo: “There weren’t a lot of surprises at Global Pet Expo 2020, but there were a few items of note…the global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation….more than 100 China-based exhibitors [were] unable to attend due to travel restrictions.”   She reports: hemp and CBD dominate new products,  nobody can figure out whether grain-free foods really do cause dogs to get dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and some companies are making wild-caught octopus chips and ice cream for pets.
• CBD dog treats blamed for pets’ death, illness:  Currently, few studies have examined the effects of varying dosages of CBD on dogs and cats, reports Pet Food Industry.

My pet food mantra: more research needed!

Although I haven’t written anything much about pet food since Pet Food Politics  (2008) and Feed Your Pet Right (2010), I occasionally run across articles of particular interest.  These come from Pet Food Industry, the exceptionally intelligent trade magazine for this industry.

The Pet Food Business

• Global pet food sales hit $91 billion in 2018: The highest growth rates for pet food are in treats, Asia Pacific and online, according to Euromonitor.
• North American pet ownership demographics shifting: North American pet owner demographics continue to shift, which is creating new challenges for dog and cat food brands in a competitive marketplace.

Hill’s Recall Because of Excessive Vitamin D

• 35 lawsuits combine over Hill’s vitamin D dog food recall
• FDA warns Hill’s that vitamin D dog food reply deficient: FDA concluded that Hill’s response did “not address the root cause of this incident.”

Protein in Pet Foods

• Blog: Pet food protein: How much is too much? Debbie Phillips-Donaldson: The current pet food trend of pushing protein levels ever higher may not be sustainable, for a variety of reasons, and research is lacking to understand the long-term effects on dog and cat health.