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04-30-2007, 05:57 PM | #1 |
Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Wellman, Texas (Lubbock)
Posts: 156
| [News] Looking to baby your pet? Pet owners are driving a surge of interest in locally produced, organic pet food in the wake of animal deaths and recalls of national pet food brands. By Maria Elena Baca, Star Tribune Horrified by recent pet food recalls, Jessica Rivera went looking for a higher-quality chow for her blue American pitbull puppy, Zoe. She found it at Urbanimal, a Minneapolis pet supply store that specializes in high-end and small-batch pet foods. For the past two weeks, Zoe's diet has been supplemented with raw meat and vegetables, a diet that costs her owner $40 to $50 a month, about the price of a night out with friends. "I can sacrifice that for my dog," Rivera said. Since mid-March, nearly 100 national pet food brands have been recalled or voluntarily withdrawn. Frightened pet owners, desperate for an alternative to commercial brands, are flocking to locally produced organic brands such as Sojourner Farms and Furoshnikov's Formulas, both of Minneapolis, and Well Pet Foods of Prior Lake. Sales of raw-food mixes and treats by Sojourner Farms have doubled and hits to the company's website have increased tenfold. Furoshnikov's Formulas' Twin Cities home delivery business is up 25 to 40 percent. These "boutique" brands often contain ingredients that are locally grown, organic and human-quality, and without preservatives or byproducts. They are sold as mixes that owners can prepare with their own cooked or raw meat, or as pre-made frozen dinners. American pet owners spend about $37 million a year on their pets; food accounts for about 40 percent of that. Small-batch pet foods can cost as much as five times more than the least-expensive grocery store brands, but devotees swear by them -- especially in the wake of more than a dozen pet deaths thought to be linked to commercial pet foods containing melamine-contaminated wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate. The Food and Drug Administration has received more than 15,000 calls from concerned dog and cat owners, but a spokeswoman said the agency still is working to find a definitive link between pet deaths and illnesses and the contaminated products. Minneapolis veterinarian Dr. Cathy Sinning has advocated home-cooked and raw diets since graduating from veterinary school eight years ago. She said she's seen skin, coat and eye problems and chronic health issues resolve with raw and homemade diets, and better health overall in dogs and cats. Indeed, Shannon McKenzie, who runs a St. Louis Park-based canine foster service, feeds her 13-year-old Boston terrier, Sister, a combination of Well Pet and high-end kibble. And since starting this diet two months ago, Sister's pancreatitis has all but disappeared, McKenzie said. Still, Sinning and others warn that pet owners shouldn't attempt a radical diet change without guidance from a vet. For example, a raw diet might be great for a young, healthy, active animal, but may be downright dangerous for an old, sick or nursing animal. "There's no one-size-fits-all. It's best to work with someone who knows what they're doing," Sinning said. And avoiding the kinds of hazards seen with the recalled foods isn't as simple as paying for boutique pet foods, said Dr. Tony Buffington, professor of veterinary clinical nutrition at Ohio State University Veterinary Hospital in Columbus. "This pet food recall has not been for a nutritional reason, but for a toxin, and a toxin can get into anything," Buffington said, adding that an established company might have better quality-control measures in place than a new or smaller company. Pet foods are regulated and inspected by the Food and Drug Administration and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Inspection protocols depend not on the total amount produced, but on the size of the bag. Manufacturers that sell their products in packages holding less than 10 pounds go through a label analysis to make sure the food's claims match the contents and the requirements for the target market. Manufacturers that sell bags of 10 pounds or more undergo additional factory inspections. Cinnamon and pumpkin smells The Sojourner Farms warehouse/manufacturing plant in northeast Minneapolis doesn't smell like dog food. One day last month, it smelled like pumpkin and cinnamon. The raw ingredients waiting to be incorporated into products were human food staples: rolled oats, ginger root, dried carrots, barley, alfalfa, nutmeg, apple sauce. "We're trying to drive home the human-quality point," said owner Ward Johnson. "The recalls were for feed-grade ingredients." JoAnne Tomczak, owner of Furoshnikov's Formulas, another raw-mix pet food maker, can pinpoint the Park Rapids farm where her grains and vegetables are grown and name the Arizona nutritionist who supplies the supplements that provide the "science" for her pet foods. "More people are realizing that commercial dog foods are convenience foods, and just like with us humans, there are times when convenience foods are just that," she said. "Some are very high quality and some are low-quality." On an even smaller scale, Michelle Burt prepares her Well Pet Foods, cooked, sold-frozen, served-fresh pet meals in the kitchen of her Prior Lake home. Her business, marketed only for the past nine months, is too new for her to quantify or credit growth to the recalls. She says 90 percent of her ingredients are locally grown, organic, grass-fed and free-range. "That's a huge issue for me," said Burt, who has a Yorkshire terrier-mini Schnauzer named Clyde. "I don't like thinking I'm feeding my dog or my cat food that came from another animal that was not processed or handled humanely." Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409 • mbaca@startribune.com http://www.startribune.com/389/story/1154144.html Shannon McKenzie holds her dog "Sister" at her home in St. Louis Park. McKenzie feeds her dog homemade petfood. Shannon McKenzie's dog "Sister" looked into her empty bowl after chowing down on her homemade dog food recently in a high chair in St. Louis Park. McKenzie had recently trained her dog to eat in the chair.
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