The common bond...

[Beowulf]

All of these ingredients are fillers. They are derivitaves of by-products of the food itself.
The only acceptable words that should precede or follow a core ingredient are "Meal" (meaning water content has been removed) or a word of description such as "Ground" or "Dried".

Glutens, Brans, Proteins, Pulps, Germ, etc. all denote the remainder or a derivitave of the ingredient itself.

Because nearly all ingredients have parts that do not make it into human food markets, the supply of these fillers are abundant and worldwide. They are also not subject to the same testing and growing regulations that USDA certified foods are.

Back to Basics is made with only ingredients from domestic, human-grade food suppliers and contains zero filler material. From top to bottom, the ingredient list contains only ingredients that serve rock-solid nutritional and digestive purposes.

Mike,
Proud owner of Beowulf Mastiffs' "Logan":Ranked #19 in country @ 14 mos. - April 2003 - Retired
http://209.217.212.84/stud_dog1.shtml
Exclusively fed Back to Basics : www.backtobasicspetfood.com

[garypen]

Actually, the common bond is China. I would avoid all food products and ingredients from that country, grains, meats, produce, anything.

It is important to choose a pet food that gets NO ingredients from China at all. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

The key to your brand's safety, and that of any brand, is that all ingredients are of domestic origin. Not just domestic sourced. All of these poison Chinese ingredients were sourced domestically.

[Geff]

Gary, I would have agreed up until yesterday. We now know that Melamine is in US Pork. Could Chicken, Beef & Lamb be far behind?

HOPEFULLY they'll find the concentration in food animals will be too low to seriously harm any animals or people, but we don't know yet..............

[garypen]

True. But, do you know why it is showing up in US livestock? It's because they are eating feed made with ingredients from CHINA. Again, CHINA is the common bond in all of this.

This is why import of ANY AND ALL Chinese grain, produce, meat, and other food products need to be banned on a temporary emergency basis. I sent an email to Sen. Durbin asking him to push for this ASAP.

[Cindy Nevarez]

I would agree with this statement if it weren't for the fact that some US grain distributers are not being forthcoming with information that they got their grain from a Chinese manufacturer, which was the case with both the wheat and the rice.
Also, that the laws concerning labeling in pet foods are loose in that they only have to report ingredients 3 of every 12 months, and when changing ingredients, have 6 months to report that (so I understand), which explains why NB has one list on their website one day, and then after they pull product, show another list the day after.
We cannot trust these things anymore. Basically we are playing pet food roulette now, and our pets are the guinea pigs.

[garypen]

If all imports of foodstuffs from China were banned, it wouldn't matter how forthcoming these pet food and animal feed manufacturers were. Those ingredients wouldn't be available...period.

Let's stop the immediate problem at its source right now. Then, we can work on the bigger problem of regulation of the pet food and animal feed industries in general.

[Geff]

Gary, I agree 100%. Good luck with the Bushies, though.

I just called my elderly father & suggested he may not want to eat pork for awhile.
Until the media starts doing their job & gets this info out to the public, we may need to start protecting our human loved ones also.

[Cindy Nevarez]

Yes, you are right and I agree.

[garypen]

Gary, I agree 100%. Good luck with the Bushies, though.

Yeah. No s***! However, they're no longer in charge of the Congressional committees that investigate these things. And, hopefully, in another year and a half, won't be running the Executive branch either, where they nominate the heads of various agencies, like the FDA, FTC, USDA, etc. Maybe we'll start seeing these agencies protecting American citizens again, and not American corporations.

[Tommyboy]

"Maybe we'll start seeing these agencies protecting American citizens again, and not American corporations. "
 
Yeah, I wouldnt hold my breath on that one. Maybe we could set up a lobbying firm on K Street, come up with a few million dollars and buy a couple of senators. That is probably the only way we wont be left holding the bag here. 
 

[Geff]

The potential significance of the corn starch used in baby food just dawned on me. If (God forbid) human babies start dying, America will finally take this seriously.

[Cindy Nevarez]

Gerber (who was just bought by Nestle) puts it in their meats of all things.

[Mary K]

Cindi, What is the latest news on corn starch? I am still worrying about feeding home-made, as I add Gerber's meat with corn-starch at times to get the cats to eat my concoctions. Haven't seen Beachnut in my area. Also I worry about contaminated chickens and beef that may be fed with the poison. That makes home cooked or raw suspect, too. Nothing is 100% safe since the whole thing started at the bottom of the food chain. (Except for my outside kitty and her organic mice!) But wait a minute-the mice are eating bird seed, and who knows what is in that!?#

[Cindy Nevarez]

Ok...OK calm down 
It's just that I discovered that Gerber puts corn starch in their meats. I wondered why they would do that, but besides that, someone here...made a connection between that and tainted grain, and figured that if babies were poisoned THEN the media would HAVE to pay attention to this situation.
But seriously, why is Gerber putting corn starch in meat? Babies certainly don't need that. Plus it's a refined carb that kitties don't need, but if that's all you've got...that's all you've got.
I think you can order Beechnut online though....check their website. My kitties do love it.

[Beowulf]

This is as much if not more about the ingredient itself than of it's source being China.
The reason they sell this stuff to us en masse to begin with is because it is rendered, left-over food product that their country will not use. We (US) welcome it with open arms because low quality filler ingrdients are a very available, VERY profitable resource. We are the largest pet food producing country in the world and we also supply most of the world, I know this first-hand as I am the international sales manager for a medium-sized pet food company.

There are plenty of foods to choose from that don't use these materials in their product, ours being one of them. It's important to always read and understand an ingredient label before choosing the food you'll be feeding your pet for the rest of it's life. When the majority begins switching to good foods (which is happening now), the demand for the products containing filler ingredients will go down, and as a result the filler product coming in from overseas will decline.

It's not excusable to me that pet food companies are using these ingredients to begin with. Knowing what I know about many pet-grade ingredients, I would never feed that stuff to my dog. But I feel the same way about what's in fast-food.

Should the government ban all imports from China until we get this thing figured out? Absolutely.
Is the source being overseas the real problem? Only if you're a conspiracy theorist (hey, who knows)

There is an immediate solution we can all create by just switching to a better food. I won't say "good" food because I understand what it's like to think the food I was feeding was "good" I trusted it to BE good. When I say better, I mean just make the conscious effort to look at the ingredients and understand them. If everyone walked away from the fillers that dominate the pet food markets, the demand for these now apparently contaminable ingredients will vanish.

If you would like to know our stance on any pet food related issues, please call me (or the crew) at 1-800-219-2558.
You can also email me at mikew@beowulfs.com

-mw