Organic Pet Food Sales Going Up, LET'S HELP THEM ALONG!!

Let's Make the 2007 year the one we Vote With The Pocket Book.

The wheat gluten recalls have left hordes of pet parents with uncertainty and wondering what they should buy. Many have turned to holistic and/or organic pet food.

Natural pet food an option amid recall scare
Gary Klien
Article Launched: 04/13/2007 11:07:49 PM PDT

Excerpt Below:

At least six pet food companies have recalled products made with imported Chinese wheat gluten tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastic kitchenware, countertops, fertilizers and flame retardants. The recalled food includes product by Menu Foods, Del Monte Pet Products, Hills Pet Nutrition, Nestle Purina PetCare and Sunshine Mills, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The tainted food, which can cause kidney failure, has sickened thousands of animals and killed numerous others, although the death toll remains unclear. The recall involved about 1 percent of the overall U.S. pet food supply.

Veterinarians have fielded calls from residents seeking guidance. Sausalito veterinarian Raymond Dieter, owner of Sausalito Animal Hospital, said the best option, time permitting, is to cook meals for pets using quality meat and whole foods, vegetables such as carrots or asparagus, bones or bone meal for skeletal health, vegetable oil and a balanced vitamin supplement.

Byproducts and mass-produced food full of protein filler - like gluten - should be avoided, he said.

"Everyone's scrambling now to figure out what to do," Dieter said. "If we really love our animals the way we think we do, we'd probably cook for them ourselves. More and more people are doing their own home recipes."

But Michael Dahlman, a doctor with South Novato Animal Hospital, tells clients that home-cooked pet meals are ill-advised because they don't cover the nutritional bases as well as quality commercial brands. Dahlman said he is confident most of the food involved in the recall has been removed from the shelves.

"We generally prefer commercial diets," he said. "Almost invariably the diseases we've seen that can be attributed to a dietary deficiency, we find they are usually from a home-produced diet."

Evans, the owner of Marin Sun Farms, said his pet food is raw and consists of 90 percent ground beef and 10 percent kidney and liver. Because the food is based on grass-fed beef, as opposed to the more common grain-fed variety, the meat is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, according to the ranch. It also has about half the fat and cholesterol of grain-fed beef.

"There's a large contingency of pet owners that are moving their pets to a raw diet, trying to adhere to the natural diet of the dog and its ancestors," Evans said.

The food, which sells for $2.99 a pound, is available at Marin Sun Farms' butcher shop in Point Reyes Station or at the Saturday farmers' market at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza. Evans also sells the ground beef to Feed This Inc., a raw pet food company in Forestville, where it is made into treats.

"We got a lot a phone calls from wholesalers and individuals looking for a healthier alternative for their pets," Evans said. "We had the ground pet food for a while, but we didn't really put it out there because we didn't know there was such a demand."

ORGANIC PET FOOD

Estimated sales of organic pet food according to the Organic Trade Association.

2004: $20.6 million

2005: $30 million

2006: $40.8 million

2007: $51 million forecast

Source: New York Times