Jerky Treats Kill 600 Pets

[Amy SF]

Jerky Treats Mysteriously Kill Nearly 600 Pets and Leave Thousands More Sick

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been issuing warnings about the dangers of jerky treats to consumers since 2007, but more pets have continued to get sick and die. There are still no answers as to why.

The FDA isn’t naming names, but notes that most of the jerky products implicated were made in China and that pet food manufacturers in the U.S. are not required by law to list the country of origin for each ingredient in their products.

As of September, more than 3,600 dogs and 10 cats have reportedly suffered from jerky-related illnesses, and 580 dogs have died as a result. Despite the attention this issue has received, some vets are still concerned that pet owners are unaware of the dangers associated with these treats.

The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) has taken a number of steps to solve the mystery — from testing treat samples for contaminants and nutritional content to verifying ingredients listed on labels and sending experts to China to inspect manufacturers to reaching out to companies in the U.S., researchers and foreign governments to share data — but the agency still hasn’t come up with anything conclusive.

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[shyvas]

That is disgusting and totally inacceptable !

 

[Amy SF]

http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2013/10/..._campaign=Feed:+LifeWithDogs+(Life+With+Dogs)

Too little, too late.

 

[Vegan Dogs]

So they are as dead as the animals in the treats. Feed vegan and no one dies.

 

[LoreD]

There are a number of vegan pet foods and dog treats. The only warning was that the cheaper ones are not nutritionally complete. You get what you pay for.

Carnivores can live on a vegan diet.

I watched a documentary on pandas, and pandas have the digestive tracts of a carnivore, because they really are bears. They did a study in China on the amounts of protein and nutrients in the panda diet. They strictly monitored how much bamboo each panda was eating; and studied what came out the other end. According to the study, the pandas were getting the same amount of protein and nutrients from bamboo as any other carnivore. Also, their poop was indistinguishable from the poop of wolves.

Pandas were getting the same nutrients from a vegan diet as carnivores from a meat diet.


Are pandas carnivores or omnivores?

Pandas are in the carnivore family and, for the most part, have the digestive system of a carnivore. Long ago, for reasons scientists do not understand (perhaps because they could not compete well for food with other carnivores), pandas adapted to a vegetarian diet. Pandas now feed almost exclusively on the stems and leaves of bamboo.

Giant pandas have an exclusive diet of bamboo; however, their gut microbiotas are more similar to carnivores than herbivores in terms of bacterial composition and their functional potential.