Warning! The following story is shocking… but true. It’s taken with permission from an article which appeared in the Earth Island Journal:
“The rendering plant floor is piled high with “raw product”… Thousands of dead dogs and cats; heads and hooves from cattle, sheep, pigs and horses; whole skunks; rats and raccoons… all waiting to be processed. In the ninety degree heat, the piles of dead animals seem to have a life of their own as millions of maggots swarm over the carcasses.
“Two bandanna-masked men begin operating Bobcat mini-dozers, loading the “raw” into a ten-foot deep stainless steel pit. They are undocumented workers from Mexico doing a dirty job. A giant auger at the bottom of the pit begins to turn. Popping bones and squeezing flesh are sounds from a nightmare you will never forget.
“Rendering is the process of cooking raw animal material to remove the moisture and fat. The rendering plant works like a giant kitchen. The cooker, or “chef”, blends the raw product in order to maintain a certain ratio between the carcasses of pets, livestock, poultry waste and supermarket rejects.“Once the mass is cut into small pieces, it is transported to another auger for fine shredding. It is then cooked at 280 degrees for one hour. The continuous batch cooking process goes on non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week as meat is melted away from bones in the hot “soup”. During this cooking process, the “soup” produces a fat of yellow grease or tallow that rises to the top and is skimmed off. The cooked meat and bone are sent to a hammer-mill press, which squeezes out the remaining moisture and pulverizes the product into a gritty powder. Shaker screens sift out excess hair and large bone chips. Once the batch is finished, all that is left is yellow grease, meat and bone meal.”
Welcome to the Dark Side of Recycling
So, what on earth could this unsavory concoction be legitimately used for?
Certainly not to make anything edible… right?
Unfortunately… as hard as it is to believe… the final “product” of this grisly process is sold as a source of protein and fat for making animal feeds.
That’s right… food ingredients to be fed to chickens, pigs, cattle… and you guessed it… dogs!
These revolting products are actually used to make dog food.
Every day, hundreds of rendering plants across America ship thousands of pounds of this recycled garbage to ranches, farms, feed lots… and pet food manufacturers.
Each batch of rendered product is labeled… according to its dominant animal source. That’s why on a dog food label you’ll see so many ingredients that look like these…
- Poultry by-product meal
- Meat by-product meal
- Fish meal
- Animal fat
All are products of the rendering process.
Toxic Waste and Euthanized Pets
But this same complex system which converts waste into animal feed has also evolved into a recycling nightmare. That’s because rendering plants are unavoidably processing toxic waste, too.
Here’s how…
The dead animals are frequently accompanied by a host of unwanted ingredients. Pesticides enter the rendering process via tainted livestock.
Fish oil is commonly contaminated with mercury and other heavy metals.
Dead pets are frequently thrown into the grinder with their flea collars still attached. Insecticide-laced patches found on the skin of slaughtered cattle are also carelessly added to the mix.
Antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals follow livestock directly into the soup. And drugs given to euthanize pets have been regularly found in the rendered product.
Unwanted metal contaminants can be traced to a variety of sources including pet collars, ID tags, surgical pins, and needles.
Even plastics end up getting into the process.
Finding a Use for Spoiled Grocery Meats
Every day, out-of-date supermarket meats as well as spoiled fish and poultry arrive by the truckload… right in their original Styrofoam trays and shrink wrap. There’s simply no time for the tedious task of unwrapping each individual package of the many thousands of rejected products.
Plastic cattle ID lags, pesticide patches and even the green waste disposal bags containing pets from veterinarians are tossed directly into the pit.
As you can see, literally all of it (plastic, paper, cardboard, and whatever) goes right into the rendering machine.
By now, you must be starting to figure it all out. Much of what goes into dog food is simply what’s left over after the processing of human food. It’s what’s commonly classified as “unfit for human consumption”.
Unfit for Humans… Legal for Dog Food
Here’s a short list of some of the unsavory raw materials I’ve already mentioned… plus a few others. All of the following ingredients are appalling… yet each can be lawfully used to make dog food:
- Slaughterhouse waste (organs, heads, hooves, beaks, feet)
- Bread and cereal rejects (cobs, stalks, mill sweepings)
- Contaminated grain middlings
- Dying, diseased and disabled farm animals
- Road kill (deer, skunks, and raccoons)
- Distiller fermentation waste
- Spoiled supermarket food
- Dead zoo animals
- Restaurant grease
- Euthanized cats and dogs
The pet food industry can be… at least in part… a sinister waste disposal vehicle for the human food manufacturers… and a way to profit from its own garbage. Many companies practice legal witchcraft by magically turning their trash… into cash.
My Strongest Recommendation
Learn to readily spot these “profit-first” dog food companies… and avoid buying their second-rate products.
Look for brands made by conscientious manufacturers who take great pride in producing top-tier products… products designed to significantly enhance… and extend your dog’s life.
Learn why you should be skeptical of dog food products that claim to be “premium”, “natural” or “gourmet”.
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
Could you please list companies that actually manufacture dog and cat food.
Glenn… because your original comment makes reference to your company (the manufacturer of a device used to recover restaurant grease for possible sale to the pet food industry) I have removed your business link from your message. Recycled waste like this is a perfect example of the shameful ingredients I specifically rebuke in this article.
Hello, I was wondering if you could give me the article name or at least somewhere where I can find it. I’m doing my senior project on the truth about commercial pet food. I’d really like to use it in my research paper.
Hi Danielle… Earth Island Journal appears to have not archived the article on their own website. But here’s a complete copy published on the CommonDreams.org website entitled “The Dark Side of Recycling“. Good luck on your research.
okay, thank you, and I was also wondering if I asked you some questions if you could answer them so I can conclude them into my research paper also?
Hi Danielle… How would you like to conduct the interview? Via email? Via phone? Just write me via the “contact” page on this website and let me know your preference.
Sounds like a far stretch of the truth. No sources cited, no pictures. Probably 90% made up.
Mark… the story you choose to call “a far stretch of the truth” was printed in the Fall 1990 issue of The Earth Island Journal after first appearing in an abridged report in the San Francisco Chronicle (February 1990).
In another story published by the same journal, Gar Smith wrote the following related narrative “A Look Inside a Rendering Plant”…
“Rendering has been called “the silent industry”. Each year in the US, 286 rendering plants quietly dispose of more than 12.5 million tons of dead animals, fat and meat wastes. As the public relations watchdog newsletter PR Watch observes, renderers “are thankful that most people remain blissfully unaware of their existence.
“When City Paper reporter Van Smith visited Baltimore’s Valley Proteins rendering plant last summer, he found that the “hoggers” (the large vats used to grind and filter animal tissues prior to deep-fat-frying) held an eclectic mix of body parts ranging from “dead dogs, cats, raccoons, possums, deer, foxes [and] snakes” to a “baby circus elephant” and the remains of Bozeman, a Police Department quarterhorse that “died in the line of duty”.
“In an average month, Baltimore’s pound hands over 1,824 dead animals to Valley Proteins. Last year, the plant transformed 150 millions pounds of decaying flesh and kitchen grease into 80 million pounds of commercial meat and bone meal, tallow and yellow grease. Thirty years ago, most of the renderer’s wastes came from small markets and slaughterhouses. Today, thanks to the proliferation of fast-food restaurants, nearly half the raw material is kitchen grease and frying oil.
“Recycling dead pets and wildlife into animal food is “a very small part of the business that we don’t like to advertise,” Valley Proteins’ President, J. J. Smith, told City Paper. The plant processes these animals as a “public service, not for profit,” Smith said, since “there is not a lot of protein and fat [on pets]…, just a lot of hair you have to deal with somehow.”
“According to City Paper, Valley Proteins “sells inedible animal parts and rendered material to Alpo, Heinz and Ralston-Purina”. Valley Proteins insists that it does not sell “dead pet by-products” to pet food firms since “they are all very sensitive to the recycled pet potential”. Valley Proteins maintains two production lines; one for clean meat and bones and a second line for dead pets and wildlife. However, Van Smith reported, “the protein material is a mix from both production lines. Thus the meat and bone meal made at the plant includes materials from pets and wildlife, and about five per cent of that product goes to dry-pet-food manufacturers…”
“A 1991 USDA report states that “approximately 7.9 billion pounds of meat and bone meal, blood meal and feather meal [were] produced in 1983″. Of that amount, 34 per cent was used in pet food, 34 per cent in poultry feed, 20 per cent in pig food and 10 per cent in beef and dairy cattle feed.
“Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) carried in pig- and chicken-laden foods may eventually eclipse the threat of “mad cow disease”. The risk of household pet exposure to TSE from contaminated pet food is more than three times greater than the risk for hamburger-eating humans.”
Still need proof, Mark?
Then, watch this short video interview with the president of the American Association of Feed Control Officials (the regulatory arm of the pet food industry)… and decide for yourself.
Mike i looove your site! thankyou for the time you take for ALL the research you do to help us…the consumer of such garbage”
Im a first time dog owner and became obsessed with whats in our dog food. ITS INSANE and so hard to believe but when you read the SAME thing on hundreds and hundreds of diff people companies etc you know it HAS to be true!
i keep trying to spread this horrible news to friends and family,,,,but they just think im nuts its so frustrating i just want them to be aware of what they r feeding their precious pets :O/
I loooooove the answer you came back with to that skeptical man mark. the video says it all. he must believe it in the back of his head otherwise why is he reading all your info :O)
i wanted to get your feelings dealings experiences with raw pet food. I love the idea its scarey but seems to be the best. I would appreciate and info you have on it. Thank you so much. im wondering….lol…how do i know when or if you answer this?? i guess keep checking back everyday?
Thanks again and hope to hear from you real soon. I want to place an order asap of Primal or bravo or paw naturaw raw dog food!
Have a great day!
Hi Dawn… feeding raw dog food is an excellent choice for some. But (like everything else in life) it’s not for everyone. Currently, I’m continuing to review commercial raw products.
Yet I find many (maybe you?) want to know more about how to feed homemade raw foods, too. I’m planning to add a good deal about this fascinating subject once I begin to complete my “first pass” of all the product reviews (hopefully… later this year?).
By the way, don’t be too discouraged by articles like this one. There are many fine commercial dog foods out there. And the list of good ones continues to grow.
Hey Mike, I think you need to get off your high horse. Restaraunt waste oil or what you refer to as “grease”, Is more often than not used as a source stock to produce bio-diesel, which is what my car runs on. I get a real anti-recycle vibe from you. You also come across as a bit of a shock jock and know it all. You condemned glenn martin ealier in this forum for being affiliated with a company that produced a product that recycled restaraunt waste oil. Really? That waste oil could be recycled into any number of things including fuel. Do you have any idea how much dog food would cost if every aspect of its production was on the up and up? Most people would not be able to justify the expense of owning a dog. The shelter in my town is already full of animals that were given up by their owners who could not afford them.
Jason… I’m sorry you feel I come across as having an “anti-recycyle vibe” when you read my website… for that is definitely NOT its purpose. Please know that I firmly believe in (and support) the safe re-cycling of waste of any kind (especially when it comes to making bio-fuel).
However… I (and probably millions of other pet lovers around the world) are passionately against the use of manufacturing waste when it’s used in our dogs’ foods.
Mr. Martin’s “comment” requested a list of “companies that actually manufacture dog and cat food”… and contained a business link to a grease-trap manufacturer. I chose to remove this link (but not his comment) as I did not feel the company’s web address was constructively related to the welfare of dogs… which (by the way) IS the purpose of this blog.
Good job with this site Mike. Don’t listen to Mr Cook, and Mr Martin, these are dolts who will continue to feed the crap pet foods like Beneful, or pedigree, and think it’s !!AWESOME!! food. Thank god I got my little guy off Iams and other garbage and onto Orijen and Evo. Now that I have him on a prey model raw diet, he is doing incredible and will be 21 soon! Companies that make the pedigrees, and Benefuls of the world will not change a darn thing, as they sell 1,000 times more than good wholesome companies like Natura, or Champion. I’m just glad I’ve done my research, and have “gotten” it, and don’t blindly follow companies that make the sub par foods.
It doesn’t cost that much to feed myself organic, sustainably grown food and it doesn’t cost that much to find meat for my dog that comes from animals that have been humanely raised on a species appropriate diet.
I’m shocked that anyone would consider grease from a restaurant appropriate food for anything, furthermore, yes Jason Cook, any consumer with half a brain should demand the companies manufacturing their FOOD to be on the up and up.
Dog food is not any different than people food, it is all food and the recent Menu foods debacle has only highlighted how closely tied our own food supply is with the lowly dog food. Pet food manufacturing as Marion Nestle has said, has been the canary in the coal mine for how very flawed our food supply chain is.
Also Eddie, don’t talk up Natura too much, it’s been bought by Proctor and Gamble…
Hi,
I have owned a retail store for over 10 years, carrying only top quality pet foods, such as Orijen, Evo Innova ETC. As commented above Natura has just recently been sold(just this past month) to Proctor and Gamble. I believe the food will be good for another 6 months, as stock gets depleted, and then look out.
I will be dumping it from my shelves as quick as possible. I don’t trust anything they say. I am looking at other alternatives such as Earthborn Holistic, and anything else that would be reputable.
Hi Yvonne… for now, we’re giving Natura the benefit of the doubt. But like you we’re keeping a watchful eye on the company’s products.
Yvonne,
I too own a pet supply store. Check out nature’s variety’s products, wellness core, and nature’s logic. Good job Mike on your work here.
Why some people find this hard to believe beats me, Are we all ignorant to think the world is a perfect place and that we treat other things with respect? Because we don’t infact humans are the most cruelest species that will probably ever live. This makes me sick and it’s sad that we treat animals like rubbish (dead or alive). Has anyone seen the chinese fur farms? Another sad thing. This is not only disgusting to the animals put through those machines and minced up but also that this would be fed to another living thing. See the website re the Fur farms.
Mike, I really appreciate your site. After reading the article about rendering plants, I’ve been wondering about something. Whenever one of my dogs reaches the point where I have to take him to the vet to be euthanised, I’m always offered two options: Private or group cremation. I always choose group cremation. Now I’m wondering, how can I be sure my dog is really being cremated and not sent to one of those unspeakable rendering plants?
Hi Mark… I’ve had these same thoughts myself (especially right after we lost our last dog, Penny). I’d like to think that (over time) things have changed. But I have a nagging feeling this is a question we’ll probably never be able to answer with certainty.
I work in a vet clinic and know that for sure the pets that we send out to be cremated without ashes returned actually are. I can’t say that about every clinic and crematory everywhere, but the ones who actually care about animals would never think twice about selling deceased pets, if that makes any of you guys feel a little better. Maybe you could inquire about what crematory your clinics use and see if you could visit it? Most of them (reputable ones) wouldn’t mind. I’ve toured the one we use and another one in our town. The places that I would be worried about doing something like that would be research clinics and such using domestic dogs and cats that were not beloved pets.
Check out http://www.swaggerbout.com.au all natural dog food, raw diets, no preservatives.
Mike… I’ve just read this TWENTY year old article. How have things changed in the USA?
Hi Ian… That’s the question we all have. How HAVE things changed? Unfortunately, much of the system used to reclaim and recycle animal processing (slaughterhouse) and supermarket waste around the world remains much the same as it’s always been.
However, due to unfortunate events like those 2003 cases of BSE (mad cow disease) the FDA makes occasional modifications to its regulatory code.
But can (or do) mass euthanization facilities like the animal shelters in Los Angeles County still send their dead animals to rendering plants? What about dead, diseased or dying farm animals?
For this I can find no definitive answer.
I have been aware of what goes in dog and cat food for a long time as I have my own animal rescue org. It disgusts me. I think this is an area where the government should step in and make restrictions, condemning the sale of rendered bodies to companies for pet food. Why are we not cremating these diseased, spoiled, unedible body parts? I can probably answer this myself. It’s always the almighty dollar. We bury our pets as I couldn’t bear to even think that they would be treated with such disrespect. I wish people would read the ingredients on dog/cat food before feeding it to their pets.
Hi there,
I live in South Africa, Johannesburg, My dog of 2 years gets quite a bad rash in summer from the dry grass, i was feeding him hills science diet – i even tried sensitive skin; then somebody suggested i feed him fish pellets – there’s a company called maxhealth – please can you have a look at their website – http://www.maxhealth.co.za – would you be able to tell me if their ingredients are on the level? – they only supply in south africa – please advise, many thanks and best regards Denise
Hi Mike and all of your contributors!
I commend you on your work here.
Just this month, my wife and I lost our best friend ever – our 10-year old Australian Shepherd, Emmie – to Mast Cell cancer in the prime of her life.
Only a month ago, she caught a rabbit. Two months ago, a squirrel. All these years we NEVER let her keep and eat her prey animals – we thought it was cruel of her to catch them; instead we forced her to eat commercial poison in a bag (of course, she was our best friend, so she did join us for dinner every night, sharing whatever real food we were eating…probably the only reason she was so ‘healthy’ when she died of cancer).
Our surviving Shetland Sheepdog, Brewster, has been on the same poison diet for 11 years, and he has had incessant cysts on his feet, and recently acquired what appeared to be a hygroma on his foot, but prelim lab results indicate – guess what? Possible Mast Cell!
We are considering a new Aussie puppy, and want to make sure we don’t poison him the way we poisoned our other dogs over the past 11 years with garbage commercial foots. I want to go with a total BARF diet (vis-a-vis Lonsdale), but my wife is grossed out by it. After weeks of research – much of it from your forums – we are leaning towards Orijen for both our (maybe) new Aussie puppy and our senior shetland Sheepdog. We also considered EVO and a few freeze-dried and/or frozen.
I have a background in the sciences, with a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering and even still…I AM OVERWHELMED by the options and information.
Can you please weigh in your additional wisdom for us?
How best for us to choose the right commercial kibble, and to test out the various formulations on our new puppy and our old friend?
Thanks!
Hi EmmBrews… Sorry to hear of your recent tragic loss of Emmie. All of us who have spent our lives living with and loving our dogs can relate in our own way to your story.
When we review dog foods here, we only read and interpret the ingredients lists and attempt to estimate meat content. So, our reviews may not live up to what we’d all like for them to do… to reassure us that we’re feeding the healthiest food we can find.
To better understand this challenge, be sure to read my recent article, “The Problem with Dog Food Reviews“.
All you can do is slug through our 4 and 5-star foods. In most cases (at least with our 5-star foods) I try to spot and eliminate the ones made with obvious low quality and synthetic ingredients. But who’s to say any of the raw materials used to make these better foods aren’t themselves already (and unknowingly) contaminated by pollutants in the environment?
We lost our dog to our own ignorance. We would never have knowingly harmed our precious Penny. But in our innocence, we did. Now, we make the effort. You can never be 100% sure (even with human foods). But now at least, we are eliminating the most inferior products and we’re stacking the deck in our favor. By knowing the truth and learning more, you can do the same.
Please spread the word on whats really in mass produced pet foods. We make an all natural USDA certified line of raw dog food.
My one big problem with how to fix this gross industry is this: When we hyper focus on the singular importance of healthful ingredients and real meat, we don’t stop to think where that will come from. As it stands right now, with our massive demand for meat so that the fast food joints can sling .99 cent cheese burgers at us and KFC can flash-boil millions of pounds of chicken wings, we are already using meat, in America alone, at an unsustainable level. As you read this, acres of rainforest are being slashed and burned so that BK can raise cattle on the land. land that will be leached bare of nutrients within a few years and made useless for many more years to come. And here in America the government subsidizes the growing of corn so that it can be sold below cost and fed to cattle that can’t digest it and chickens that are grown so rapidly with hormones that they often cannot walk for more than a few steps without having to lay down under the stress of their own bodies.
So if tomorrow they shut down all the rendering plants with new government rules and all the dog food makers had to use real meat, where does this extra meat come from? It would have to come from an industry that is already stressing our environment to the limits. The honest and correct solution would be for us to eat a lot less meat so that there would be plenty for the dogs! We don’t’ NEED it. Dogs do. We are omnivores and sustain a healthy life better with veggies, legumes, and limited amounts of meat. Eating meat every meal, every day, is a relatively new practice for our species and has certainly had it’s consequences on our health and environment. But people will not stop. Particularly in America where fast food is so prolific in our culture. So what is the answer? should dogs suffer for our environment? or should we speed up our over consumption problem by making it mandatory that all dog food be made with real meat?
What if they simply made it so that the truly gross stuff… the grease, diseased animals, dead pets, road kill… were not allowed, but instead, used only the meat packing industries leftovers? I mean, as long as it is fresh, what is wrong with feeding dogs heads and feet and guts of chickens, cows, and pigs? In the wild, carnivores eat their entire prey animal. Their intestines evolved to handle such items. And I would see nothing wrong with using those parts we don’t eat, unspoiled and clean, to make meat meal. That way it could still be a way of recycling the non diseased, clean parts of the animals that we simply don’t like to eat (and some people even do! Haggis? Eww!) The hearts, brains, livers, guts, feet, eyes, snouts, etc, all sound disgusting to us, but that’s an emotional reaction. There is nothing wrong with a dog eating these items, so long as they are clean and fresh, and they would be happy to eat them all, as anyone who has ever seen a nature documentary on wolves knows all too well. So would that be a more acceptable solution for “lower priced” dog foods? I think so. But our meat usage still needs to be curbed by multitudes. Let the pups have the chicken and we can go get some hummus and carrot sticks.
Hi Jonathan… As usual, a well-argued comment. You’ve highlighted the downside of avoiding by-products. Without using by-products in pet foods and animal feeds, all this food would be sent to a landfill to go to waste instead of being re-cycled.
And that would admittedly contribute to the earth’s problems.
However, my purpose of spotlighting the use of meat by-products in dog food is mostly to inform buyers of what they’re getting. We rate meat by-products lower for a different reason. Although a wild animal does indeed consumer a prey’s organs, it does not do so exclusively at the expense of the skeletal (striated) muscle. A wolf doesn’t eat the organs and leave the muscle meat to decay. He consumes the entire animal (many times, even the bones).
Ideally, dog food ingredients should include the “whole animal”. Not just the skeletal muscle meat. And not just the organs and by-products, either.
Again, I commend you on writing an excellent (and thought-provoking) comment.