THE BABY FORMULA MODEL

The complete and balanced claim is mandated on all pet food packaging. Well, practically speaking that is so, but technically that is not correct. A company could say their food is only for supplemental and intermittent feeding (as should be the case for all foods), but then they would go out of business. The public, unaware of the falsity of the complete and balanced claim, would conclude that there is something wrong with a food that is not labeled complete like all the other brands and would opt instead to buy the "complete" foods.

If truth mattered, if health mattered, regulators should prohibit all claims about completeness just like the World Health Organization (WHO) did with baby formulas. The analogy is practically perfect. Breast milk is what babies genetically expect. It is raw, natural and truly complete (provided mom is not eating too poorly). But no, nutritionists know better. A baby's tummy would never know the difference between a chemist's lab and food processor's concoction and the real thing as long as the percentages were in line. So along with the "Coca Cola-nization" of the third world, commerce "solved" their starvation with synthetic formula. The results were so disastrous, resulting in mass disease and death, the World Health Organization(WHO) interceded.

Singularly fed processed pet foods are just as synthetic and just as disasterous. But there is no intercession, only reinforcement and promotion of the fraudulent claim of completeness.

The WHO/UNICEF code for the marketing of processed substitutes for breast milk is shown below.

On the right is a proposed analagous pet food code that would truly make a difference in pet health. Don't expect this to be adopted anytime soon. The AAFCO-Regulator-Big Pet Food cabal is just too lucrative and too entrenched.

WHO/UNICEF CODE No advertising of breast milk substitutes. No free samples to mothers. No promotion of products through health care facilities. No company mother-craft nurses to advise mothers. No gifts or personal samples to health workers. No words or pictures idealizing artificial feeding, including pictures of infants, on the labels of the products. Information to health workers should be scientific and factual. All information on artificial feeding, including the labels, should explain the benefits of breast-feeding and the costs and hazards associated with artificial feeding. Unsuitable products, such as sweetened condensed milk, should not be promoted for babies.

ANALOGOUS PROCESSED PET FOOD CODE No advertising of exclusively fed processed pet foods (EFPPF). No free samples of EFPPF to pet owners. No promotion of EFPPF through veterinary clinics. No EFPPF company sales people to advise pet owners. No gifts or personal samples of EFPPF to veterinarians, staff or veterinary colleges. No words or pictures idealizing EFPPF, or pictures of animals on the products. Information to veterinarians should be factual and scientific. All information on EFPPFs, including labels, should explain the benefits of fresh, raw, natural feeding and the costs and hazards of artificial EFPPF feeding. Unsuitable products containing predominantly food fractions and additives should not be promoted for animals.