Blog-Wa, the Dog-Wa Blog

We remember a time when food poisoning was something you only thought about with cream pies or perhaps seafood in cream sauce.  No longer.  Now we’re seeing food poisoning from spinach, tomatoes, cantaloupes, peanuts, pistachios, and even white pepper.  This is in addition to problems with beef, pork, poultry – you name it.

Yet many dog lovers today are turning to raw foods for the health and happiness of their pets.  We are passionate about the benefits of fresh, raw foods for both humans and animals.  But we know that feeding raw foods also raises some serious health concerns.  So we read with interest this piece in the May 14 New York Times on the subject of food safety and frozen foods.

If you want safer food, you’ll have to take care of that yourself

The gist of the article is that sickness caused by frozen foods is on the rise in the United States.  This reflects a larger trend:  American food is actually getting more dangerous, not safer.  As a result, food manufacturers are shifting the burden of ensuring food safety onto the consumer.  And the way they want you to ensure the safety of frozen foods is by really cooking them.  Some even recommend that you stick with conventional ovens.  New directions urge the consumer to avoid the use of microwaves with frozen foods, since microwaves do not guarantee a consistent internal temperature sufficient to kill contaminants.

The article points out that one manufacturer tried pre-cooking the vegetables they intended to include in their pot pies to a safe temperature before they assembled the pot pies.  The result?  The vegetables were reduced to mush.  The article implies that this was considered a “palatability” issue.  In other words, consumers didn’t like the mushy texture.  What it does not mention is the nutrient loss from cooking foods at such high temperatures.

Why is this a problem?  And what can be done to ensure safety in your food and your pet’s food?

There are actually a few things going on here.

Food poisoning, which can result in sickness and death, is caused by pathogens.  Pathogens, more commonly known as infectious agents or germs, are biological agents that cause disease or illness to their host.  Our bodies, and your pet’s body, contain many natural defenses to these harmful pathogens.  The immune system and “good” intestinal flora help to combat pathogens when the body is functioning at peak performance.  But when the health of the host, whether human or animal, is not functioning at optimal levels, pathogens have the opportunity to spread and result in infection.  New and more deadly pathogens are also appearing, which are less responsive to the immune systems of our bodies and our pet’s bodies.

What is causing the spread of food-borne illness?

Major contributors to the spread of pathogens include soil contamination and the indiscriminate use of antibiotics.

Pathogens contaminate the soil in which grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables grow.  The pathogens thus have the opportunity to infect the growing plants systemically.   This accounts in part for the recent recalls of spinach and tomatoes, which have not historically offered a heightened risk for contamination with harmful pathogens.

This is a problem everywhere, but particularly in many foreign countries that provide raw food materials to the United States.  The reason why foreign food products are often cheaper, and therefore attractive to food manufacturers, is in part due to the fact that foreign producers are not required to meet the same standards applicable to food produced in the United States.  Soil contamination, in particular, is a problem.  Yet the FDA inspects less than 1% of the foreign food coming into the United States.

The prevalence of antibiotics is also a culprit.

When used with discretion, antibiotics can give results that are almost miraculous.  They can stem the spread of infection that could otherwise become life threatening.  We tend to forget the dangers of infection in today’s world, because modern drugs and hygienic practices have changed the way we think.  My grandmother, who is 97, remembers President Coolidge’s son.  The little boy’s shoe rubbed his heel until he got a blood blister.  The blister became infected, there was little to be done, and the boy finally died of infection.  That kind of thing seems almost unbelievable to us today, but the era when death by infection was highly common was really not so long ago.

So antibiotics are very effective in killing pathogens.  However, the use of these potent antibiotics has not been as controlled as it might be, and that has led to a new set of problems.  One result of antibiotics is to kill the “good bacteria” in our bodies that help us to fight off the effects of pathogens.  Another problem is that the use of antibiotics leads to mutation in the pathogens.  So newer and more dangerous strains of pathogens result from the use of antibiotics.  This might not seem like too much of a problem.  But consider this:  in the United States, 70% of the antibiotics that are consumed are fed to farm animals.

A bill has been proposed in the US Congress to ban the use of antibiotics for healthy livestock.  And frankly, the arguments are persuasive on both sides.  On the one hand, such a ban might help inhibit the development of newer and more deadly strains of pathogens.  We would all be ingesting fewer antibiotics, thus preserving both beneficial intestinal flora and saving antibiotics for when we really need them.

On the other hand, raising livestock is now big business.  That means that animals are kept in crowded conditions, exposed to illness from the thousands of other animals with them, and exposed to environmental contamination from the lots where they are kept.  The proposed ban would forbid feeding antibiotics to healthy animals.  But that might lead to far more infection in animals that were not given antibiotics for preventive purposes.  So the result might be that there would always be enough sick animals to require the use of antibiotics in any case.  We wonder how much difference there would be in the long run.

So how do I incorporate safe, fresh, and raw foods into my diet, and into my pet’s diet?

Free-range? Antibiotic- and hormone-free?

You might think that free-range, antibiotic- and hormone-free  meat is the way to go.  Generally speaking, we agree.  But here’s something else to consider:  a study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease sampled more than 600 pigs in North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin.  The study discovered not only higher rates of salmonella in free-range pigs (54 percent versus 39 percent) but also greater levels of the pathogen toxoplasma (6.8 percent versus 1.1 percent) and, most alarming, two free-range pigs that carried trichinosis, which can be deadly.  None of the confined pigs were infected with trichinosis.

The reason is because free-range animals are exposed to more pathogens when they are “ranging.”  Just a little time outdoors increases pigs’ interaction with rats, birds, and other wildlife and even with domesticated cats, which can carry transmittable diseases, as well as contact with moist soil, where pathogens find an environment conducive to growth.  If those free-range animals are also antibiotic free, the opportunities for infection multiply.

Made in the USA?

Another idea is to buy foods grown and made in the United States.  We agree.  However, this is not the magic solution to the entire problem.  The reality is that most food manufacturers and distributors cannot identify the suppliers or recipients of their products despite federal rules that require them to do so.  And many food manufacturers admit that it is almost impossible to know the origin of the ingredients they use, since many food products include dozens of ingredients.  So buying products made in trusted countries is a big help, but it isn’t the single answer.

Are organics safer?

One of the most shocking aspects about the recent peanut recalls is that the Georgia plant that produced the contaminated peanut products was actually certified organic.  If this were a single case, then we might be inclined to give organics the benefit of the doubt.  But in fact a sister plant of the Georgia peanut processor, located in Texas, was also implicated in the peanut recall.  And it, too, was an organic facility.  This is not to say that all organic food is unsafe.  But it does mean that organic doesn’t give you the guarantees you might be looking for.  And of course, organic is expensive.

It’s hard for consumers AND manufacturers to know what to do

As consumers and dog lovers, we believe in the benefits of fresh, raw foods.  But after everything we’ve told you in this post, you may be thinking that there is no way to have a fresh, raw product that is actually safe.  As manufacturers of a dog food product, we faced many of these problems when we were researching and developing Dog-Wa.  And believe us when we tell you, it’s easier to figure out the potential problems than it is to solve them.

Here’s what we did when we developed Dog-Wa

Our solution was to take a “belt and suspenders” approach.  We opted to do all we could to ensure the safety, purity, and consistency of Dog-Wa by incorporating as many safeguards as possible.

Since Dog-Wa is a vegetarian product, we did not have to confront the issues around meats.  But we did have to think long and hard about the other issues.

We started with the best ingredients

That’s why our herbs are pesticide-free and not genetically modified.  We sourced our herbs in the United States, focusing on reputable suppliers who farm sustainably and maintain records that are compliant with state and federal guidelines, as well as recommended manufacturing processes.  We selected only Human-Food-Grade ingredients that are grown and made in the United States.  We consulted regulations of the Food and Drug Administration, as well as expert food scientists, to ensure compliance and consider all our options.  We decided not to manufacture in a pet food plant.  Instead, we chose an FDA registered, pharmaceutically licensed facility that makes products for human consumption.  Pharmaceutical standards are higher than food standards.  in fact, they are about the toughest standards out there.  We believed that if we were going to make a product at all, then the highest standards would be the best choice.  And finally, we incorporated a preservative system in Dog-Wa.

What do you mean, you added preservatives for safety?

Is your head spinning?  Did I really just say we add preservatives to Dog-Wa for SAFETY?   After all, preservatives have been bashed for years.  And more and more foods are touting themselves as preservative free.  So what’s safe about preservatives, and don’t manufacturers just use them to make cheap products instead of making something natural?

Absolutely not, so far as Dog-Wa is concerned.

Our position is that you do everything you can to ensure that none of the ingredients in your product are infected with harmful pathogens or other contaminants.  Then you manufacture in the best facilities.  You test your product for salmonella, e. coli, microorganisms, safety, stability, and purity.  And then you incorporate a system to ensure that if there is contamination, it will be controlled.  And that’s what preservatives do.

Preservatives maintain freshness by preventing oxidation.  But they also inhibit the growth of molds, microorganisms, and harmful pathogens.  That means that if there are any contaminants in your product, they won’t grow and multiply until they reach dangerous levels.

Our commitment is to fresh and raw.  We are not satisfied that dried, dehydrated, frozen, or baked ingredients match the nutritional and digestive benefits of fresh plants.  Nor are we convinced that dried herbs are 100% safe and free of pathogens.  After all, if white pepper can be infected, so can herbs.

We understand that many of our customers are concerned about preservatives.  What we have found, however, is that our customers are also open to this kind of discussion.  When we explain our decisions, we find that many people agree with us.  And if they don’t agree with us, they often agree with Whole Foods Market.  If you check out the Whole Foods’ supplement section, you’ll find that they offer products with sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate, the preservatives we use in Dog-Wa.

We believe that the benefits of fresh, raw, and SAFE leafy greens outweigh the drawbacks of preservatives in supplements.  And of course we worked to ensure that Dog-Wa would contain as low an amount of preservatives as possible.  The bottom line is that there is no way to be sure that all the food we eat, or give to our animals, is 100% safe and free of pathogens.  So we have to balance out the pros and cons.  As manufacturers of Dog-Wa, we believe that our responsibility to all of our customers means we have to offer the safest, most beneficial product possible.  And believe it or not, one way we do that is with preservatives.

Copyright Dog-Wa 2009