REGULATION THWARTS THE BEST PET FOOD

There is a persistent rumor that there is anarchy in the pet food industry, permitting manufacturers freedom to put anything they like in their products.

That is far from the truth.

First off, in our litigious society, companies are under the constant threat of individual, class action, competitor, and governmental lawsuits. Anyone can bring a suit, and just trying to defend against even a frivolous suit is emotionally and economically exhausting (for companies other than the giants). This in itself is motivation to be careful when putting products into the market.

On top of that, <<several agencies>> regulate pet foods. There's the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), FDA (Food and Drug Administration), AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials), NRC (National Research Council), FTC (Federal Trade Commission), and each state has its own feed regulatory agency. There is also the new Food Safety Modernization Act (fsma) requiring food manufacturing facilities to have controls and sterility requirements essentially like a surgical suite in a hospital.

For a nationally distributed pet food, that makes 50+ regulatory agencies to contend with. Who pays for this? You do, with increased price of pet foods.

Human foods are less regulated than this.

Consider that this regulatory overkill is not about powerful pharmaceuticals, addicting drugs, or hazardous chemicals, but rather food for pet dogs and cats. Evidently, government has come to the conclusion that dogs and cats are more important than people and babies.

So what does this army of regulators actually do to fill their time and justify their tax-paid wages? Well, they are supposed to keep harmful things out of foods and enforce truth in labeling. They are also tasked with increasing revenues for states by charging yearly registration fees and taxing sales based upon volume. Who pays for this? You do, with increased price of pet foods.

As an enforcement arm of government, some agents let their public trust and power be an excuse for unreasonableness and even tyranny. Some companies who dare to question their mandates can be harassed relentlessly, banned from selling products, and even criminally charged and fined for picayune wording on labels. The cost to pay lawyers to fight the fine is greater than paying the fine, so the fine is paid. Such governmental abuse is extortion and has nothing to do with protecting the public or assuring the best pet foods. Who pays for this? You do, with increased price of pet foods.

Regulators are not skilled in the health, nutraceutical, processing, and other food sciences <<important in pet nutrition and health>>. They may have taken a class in traditional nutrition. But traditional nutrition is about percentages of nutrients and preventing overt deficiencies or excesses. That education is about 75 years behind the state of the art which demonstrates the profound impact that functional ingredients, packaging, and methods of processing can have on health.

This limited knowledge of regulators creates a bias against innovation. This bias is deepened by the AAFCO-Big Pet Food cabal in which mega-companies restrict innovation by smaller companies.

For example, dehydrated garbage, polyethylene roughage, feathers, peanut hulls, leather, potentially toxic dyes, drugs and other chemicals are permitted in formulas. Why? Because they contain protein, fat, fiber, etc., or have supposedly been thoroughly tested for safety. On the other hand, natural health-giving ingredients found in foods used for thousands of years and freely available for human consumption are banned from pet foods.

Such spurned ingredients have included spirulina, trace mineral sea salt, chondroitin, bee pollen, collagen, psyllium seed, sea cucumber, geologically composted sea vegetation, vitamin C, herbals, antioxidants, functional lipids etc. Under pressure, some such ingredients are now permitted, but getting that permission was like pulling teeth.

Aside from keeping ingredients not listed in the official AAFCO publication out of pet foods, regulators dictate every detail on a pet food label. If you thought your old English teacher was tough, you should try writing a pet food label for approval by regulators. If you don't pass, your products can be banned and confiscated. For a small producer it could mean bankruptcy.

Here are examples of some things, which if not "corrected," could seal your fate if you are a pet food company:

• The net weight has to be in kilograms, not just pounds.
• The word "complex" has to be beside a vitamin.
• Probiotics have to be quantitated in colony forming units, not cells (a colony forming unit is a cell, but no matter).
• Names of ingredients have to be in the same point size and letter style.
• Wording regarding AAFCO has to be precise.
• Nutrient analysis has to be positioned in just the "right" way.
• Spacing cannot be even ¼ " off.
• Etc.

Even when true, you can't state on packages or anywhere else:

• That you search for quality, rather than least-cost ingredients.
• That processing destroys some nutrient value and therefore nutrients must be supplemented.
• That synthetic chemicals are not the source of best nutrition.
• "Quality" unless synthetic preservatives are used.
• You have safe levels of iodine if kelp (a seaweed) is an ingredient.
• Your foods contain proteoglycans (important for joint health). Proteoglycans are in all meat products. It is therefore impossible to produce a product that does not contain this if meats are in the formula.
• Your cat foods contain Glucosamine, one of the proteoglycans particularly beneficial for joint health. Yet a cat in the wild would never eat a meal without consuming glucosamines.
• That if you enzymatically digest a meat to make it more digestible that the result is a meat product.
• Any reference to the quality or grade of an ingredient – something that has everything to do with health. But you can talk all you want about color, shape, texture, mouth feel and aroma – things that have nothing to do with health.
• In fact, the word "health" cannot be used.
• That chicken is meat.
• That dried egg is egg.

How many lives have been spared by such regulatory nonsense? Zero. How many have been lost due to the "100% complete" claim regulators require? Thousands.

If, instead of being cute on labels or offering raffle tickets in packages, a pet food company attempts to make serious health innovations, it can be shut down.

What has brought pet food regulation to this sad state? It began when the public, with their quest for ease, wanted a "100% complete" meal in a bowl. Or it may have begun when manufacturers discovered how to create food products with shelf-life and saw dollar signs. It's not certain which was first, but the end result, people feeding only these foods of convenience, begged for regulation. So regulators emerged to assure "100% complete" foods were just that. Problem is, they never stopped to examine the false underlying premise that complete knowledge of nutrition was at hand. They simply assumed nutrition was at a scientific end point (absurd, of course) and went from there.

So what should regulators be doing? First, forbid the spurious, unproven, and unprovable claim of "100% completeness," just as was done with baby formulas. Then, permit all manufacturers to formulate as they wish and say what they want about their products, as long as it is truthful and cannot cause harm.

All pet food labels should be required to say the exact opposite of the complete claim regulators presently demand that they say. Pet foods should say:

For supplemental or variety feeding only. Do not feed exclusively.

Leave discernment to buyers. With the Internet at public disposal, people are as capable of making a decision as are regulators, who are just people too.