Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, Cadmium Found In Popular Pet Foods

Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, Cadmium Found In Popular Pet Foods
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Now, lab tests commissioned by the Clean Label Project are shedding light on what they say are shocking levels of contaminants lurking in some pet foods.

Jackie Bowen of the Clean Label project said, “Seeing lead levels that were 55 times those observed in the Flint, Michigan drinking water” was among the most surprising findings of the tests.

The Clean Label Project worked with Ellipse Analytics to test 900 of the bestselling pet foods and treats for over 130 contaminates and toxins. Lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium were just a few of the contaminants the lab says it found in a variety of pet foods.

The Clean Label Project Site

Some of these weren't your typical store brands either, included in the study was Orijen and Wellness(Grain-Free for cats). While there are numerous brands to chose from these days for your companions even researching the food is still just half the battle.

This Clean Label Project is very much needed, in the light of Flint and numerous areas affected across the US water wise, not to dismiss food contaminants in our own food, more focus needs to be done on what we're all ingesting. A lot of conditions and ailments we see with our pets is due to nutritional issues-common ones such as UTI(urinary tract infections).

She does stress that animals can be more tolerant than humans to many contaminants, however she says it’s important to know what is in your pet food.

This should be addressed more, how about new-non paid for- findings that contradict older studies as the allowable levels of contaminants are much higher in pet foods.

“Lead, Arsenic, Cadmium, and Mercury are weighted most heavily within our star rating, followed next by contaminants like antibiotics and pesticides, followed by the rest. We more heavily weight the toxic metals because of literature outlining the potential for adverse health effect risks.”

Source

Earlier this year, once again, but with more quality food, euthanasia drugs were found in the pet food. Apparently it was unknown to the food manufacturer. One source for that

I know we love our fur babies, and with that are concerned about what they eat too, so this serves to help be more aware of what they are ingesting. Not my title, but as per T&C rules because I am using the article, so please read more into it.

I'm a cook at a butcher shop. We make our own dog food. The recipe was designed and approved by a vet. I feed my little dogs the stuff we make in house.

They love it!

a reply to: dreamingawake


My dog only eats homemade food my wife makes for him, boiled chicken breast with rice, sweet potatoes, celery and carrots. We mostly use organic ingredients.

Wow that's really interesting.

I spoke to my veterinarian friend the other day about dog food and basically if it says "beef" on the label that doesn't exclude horse meat, kangaroo (if you're down under), pork, lamb, rabbit, chicken etc. They basically get all the offcuts and grind them up and can them.

Also there are required with holding periods for meats that are due for human consumption; certain medications to treat chickens, for example; go into the eggs and can potentially make humans ill, so these eggs are destroyed for a week until the medication wears off and then they can collect the eggs for sale again. Same with the medications given to race horses; if the racehorse is no longer needed it's sent to the slaughterhouse and made into dog food. Any high performance drugs and medications are left in their carcass and go into the food to be eaten by Fido.

I wonder if this could potentially account for some of those chemicals?

originally posted by: Trueman
a reply to: dreamingawake


My dog only eats homemade food my wife makes for him, boiled chicken breast with rice, sweet potatoes, celery and carrots. We mostly use organic ingredients.

Lucky dog!

All but one of my dogs eat a raw diet but the one only likes kibble (yuck) and with lots of research we found Fromm dry dog food as one of the best and if I remember correctly they had 0 recalls but one self recall with can food because it may have had elevated levels of vitamin D.

If you read meat byproduct in the label then chances are Fido is eating other dog meat.

originally posted by: TheAlleghenyGentleman
I'm a cook at a butcher shop. We make our own dog food. The recipe was designed and approved by a vet. I feed my little dogs the stuff we make in house.

They love it!

Care to share a recipe??

I don't have dogs, but I'm sure people are curious.

A relative of mine makes his own dog food, too, namely a mixture of rice and fresh liver that he cooks up.

a reply to: Liquesence

Yeah, totally. I just left work so I will need to get it tomorrow and scale it down for you guys.

a reply to: dreamingawake

Class action law suit may be the only way to clean this up. I wonder what kind of profits these companies are making by selling a dangerous product?

If its in pet food its in our food too.

But we already know that. What are we gonna do, submit every mouthful of food to gas chromatography mass spectrometers? You know how much that costs?

Heres a novel idea. Buy some land, test the soil, build greenhouses, grow indoors, distill the water you drink.

Or take off and nuke the place form orbit. Its the only way to be sure.

Pets of today have become so closely aligned with their human owners they now suffer from nearly all human ailments which is why many times your vet will tell you to give them human meds (in reduced dosages).

I remember our hunting dogs growing up were fed only the scraps from our fishing and hunting trips along with any leftovers from dinner mixed in with Old Roy dry dog food. Hardly, the "quality diet" many feed their pets today.

None of our dogs lived less than 18 years. We had 5 that lived to 20. My theory why is their very active lifestyle. They were working dogs. They hunted year round with us. Constantly in the woods and always in the water. They went everywhere we did. We also had a legitimate pack as well. 10 in total. They had their pecking orders and they lived together as a pack should. So I attribute our family dogs' long and healthy lives to the quality of their activities and the tightness of their pack.

Today's pets are mostly in the house. Take very abbreviated walks only a few times a day. And the breed mixing is out of control by breeders and is creating many weak breeds susceptible to a menagerie of ailments.

a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

would you like to write up that recipe?

I am interested about cooking my own dog food also.

Wasnt it cadmium that is good for your bones?

Oh no, thats fluoride.

Wait...

I just looked at the top 10 dry foods and bottom 10 dry foods. It looks like anything with fish or seafood generally is more contaminated. Aren't lead and cadmium elements that were released en masse in Fukushima? Could be an interesting connection.