Heads up everyone. I feel bad that I just came across this. Please take note of the brands involved.
Some dry pet foods recalled
Mars Petcare US announced a voluntary recall Friday of all dry pet food products produced at its plant in Everson, Pa., between Feb. 18 and July 29, citing potential contamination with salmonella.
Mars, in a news release, did not say how much pet food is involved but said the recall reaches 31 states and various brands and said the action was taken as a precaution…
Mars said salmonella can cause serious infections in dogs and cats and, if there is cross-contamination caused by handling of the pet food, in humans also.
The company said consumers should look for “17″ as the first two digits of the second line on the UPC for products affected. For Pedigree products, they should look for “PAE” on the bottom line. They may also call 1-877-568-4463 or consult www.petcare.mars.com.
The brand names include some items under the names Country Acres, Retriever, Doggy Bag, Members Mark, Natural, Ol’ Roy, Special Kitty, Paws & Claws, Pedigree, Wegman’s, Pet Pride, PMI Nutrition and Red Flannel.
My puppies (one 14 years, the other 2) get only Purina – and scraps from the table.
The two key words in my house: Slow Cooker! I have four dogs and I just keep the slow cooker going – table scraps, ground turkey, occasional beef chunks, vegies (inc. sea veg). Cost effective, high nutrition and delish! Even good for cats if you add the cat vit with taurine. Cats are not too big on vegies; for cats, fewer vegies and rice, more meat and egg.
Any Somali’s working there? Oh. Of course not, that’s Tyson’s which I now boycott.
The last step in the process should be to nuke the foods. Despite the hysteria about irradiateing foods, it is absolutely safe. They have fed irradiated food to 20 generations of numerous species, and found no differences in nutritional content, disease incidence or animal longevity compared to non-irradiated food.
By the way, hamburger is now nuked as a final step after packaging to get rid of salmonella, and e-coli, plus any other critters in ground beef, so if you buy “chub-pack” (looks like a big sausage package) it’s almost certainly irradiated. Ground beef “ground fresh daily” in the store is not irradiated. It has a higher spoilage risk, but is safe if used or frozen within 2-3 days.
For my petfood dollar, Purina is the best. They do multi generational studies on all of their foods and every formula change. I went to Purina Farms on a field trip in a biology class in highschool. The place was as clean as any people food processing plant I’ve ever seen. The people there seemed to be all about quality.