Dog Community

Posted : 3/31/2007 9:41:59 PM

ORIGINAL: ron2

I'm still not clear why we even get wheat from China....

We didn't get the wheat from China. It contains aminopterin which is banned in America. Menu Foods of Canada got it from China. Then american companies, such as Innova and Nutro and Purina sub their wet food production to Menu Foods, ship it to the US distribution centers where it gets the Innova, Nutro, or Purina label slapped on it. And companies, such as Innova, Nutro, and Purina say that "we make all our own food right here."

All these companies can claim stringent quality control but do they really have it? They should have caught it in their shipments from December. So, what was a problem seemingly only for Diamond food processing is evidently an industry wide problem. And this problem means that each food is not always better than the other, just have different recipes. So, if Innova claims to have low grains, that means your dog or cat got maybe a gram less wheat gluten than maybe Nutro. How comforting.

As the company pres of Innova stated in his video, they had to choose between discontinuing wet food or build their own factory. Either way, all the money they thought they were saving by having the wet food "outsourced" will be more than spent trying to recover from this debacle. Same goes for Purina and Nutro. I would personally like to see some people lose their jobs over this. Small compensation for even a few pets losing their lives.

Purina yes ( junkfood), not Innova....... Nutro is better than average crap food, but not by much.....

dyan

Posted : 3/31/2007 9:51:39 PM

Bob, you need to avoid the ingredient wheat gluten and also IMO menu foods regardless of the brand. Not sure why you keep going on about the grocery store brands

Really!

dyan

Posted : 3/31/2007 9:58:05 PM

And this problem means that each food is not always better than the other, just have different recipes.

There is talk of high end and low end made by the Menu company. They make is it 90 or 95% of moist

et food...there are a lot of brands that are NOT in the recall but made at Menu. It is because there is no wheat gluten in them. I don't believe that there is hardly any difference in the low end to the high end.

mollymoo

Posted : 3/31/2007 10:13:44 PM

Monday I`m sending back 18 cans of Wellness and 8 cans of Nutro Natural Choice healthy desserts. I know they are not on the recall list but the way things are going I`m not going to take the chance on any of the canned foods. Call me paranoid. I`m just not going to take any chances (period).

willowchow

Posted : 3/31/2007 10:53:51 PM

Bob--Dyan's got it right--there are many good brands that use Menu and are not involved in the recall because they simply don't use wheat gluten. So, far it's only product with that ingredient that's recalled.

Here's the link, as you can see many foods both high quality and poor quality are manufactured by Menu.
[linkhttp://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210]http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210[/link]

glenmar

Posted : 4/1/2007 7:04:26 AM

Bob, I tried to email you but it popped back with a "permission" to email thing. Please contact me.
Thanks.

Bobsk8

Posted : 4/1/2007 7:59:22 AM

ORIGINAL: willowchow

Bob--Dyan's got it right--there are many good brands that use Menu and are not involved in the recall because they simply don't use wheat gluten. So, far it's only product with that ingredient that's recalled.

Here's the link, as you can see many foods both high quality and poor quality are manufactured by Menu.
[linkhttp://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210]http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210[/link]

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Brands like Canidae. Natural Balance, etc.. all state that they have no products made by menu foods, on this list. That is what I was referring to....

jenns

Posted : 4/1/2007 8:47:29 AM

ORIGINAL: willowchow

Bob--Dyan's got it right--there are many good brands that use Menu and are not involved in the recall because they simply don't use wheat gluten. So, far it's only product with that ingredient that's recalled.

Here's the link, as you can see many foods both high quality and poor quality are manufactured by Menu.
[linkhttp://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210]http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210[/link]

Yes but there are two big differences - first of all, the higher end companies do not use wheat gluten because it is not a healthy ingredient. It is a meat substitue used to form the cuts, or chunks or whatever you want to call them so that the uneducated owner thinks they are feeding their dogs meat slices when they are in fact feeding them chunks of wheat gluten. Also, the better companies have strict standards on what ingredients go into their food, while the lower end companies are leaving it up to the manufacturer, just like all the proponents of lower end foods like to keep repeating that "ingredients don't matter as long as your dog is doing fine". Well now you can see the ingredients DO matter and I hope people really start paying attention to what is being put into that bag of food. It is not a coincidence that none of the super premiums are not on the recall list.

tony

Posted : 4/1/2007 9:38:13 AM

Brands like Canidae. Natural Balance, etc.. all state that they have no products made by menu foods, on this list. That is what I was referring to....

Just for the record Natural Balance is co-mnaufactured by Diamond and we all know Diamond has had it's share of problems lately. I remember reading a while back that Natural Balance was banned from selling food in Isreal, because of quality issues, not sure if that is still the case, but the bottom line is that any company can have a problem and most have.

willowchow

Posted : 4/1/2007 9:46:42 AM

Brands like Canidae. Natural Balance, etc.. all state that they have no products made by menu foods, on this list. That is what I was referring to....

And, if you continue to look you will see that many of the same caliber companies DO use menu but are not involved in the recall.

Jenn--I did state that they were not involved in the recall simply because they don't use the suspect ingredient.

The point was it seemed like Bob was continuously stating that the lower end, "garbage" foods were the ones using menu and they by no means are the only ones. They have an enormous client base from Purina to Eagle Pack, etc.

The even bigger point is that we need to know what we are posting and not just posting misinformation and half truths. And, that's not only for people reading but for our dogs so we know what we can and can not feed safely at this point.

jenns

Posted : 4/1/2007 10:29:22 AM

ORIGINAL: abbysdad

Just for the record Natural Balance is co-mnaufactured by Diamond and we all know Diamond has had it's share of problems lately.

NB food is not manufactured at Diamond, it is bagged there, and the problems with Diamond had to do with ingredients. copy and pasted from another thread:

" Dry food is made at their own plant then shipped to the Diamond plant where it is bagged. They have their own people on site all of the time. Canned food is made at their own plant, then shipped to American Nutrition in Utah where it is canned Natural Balance has their own line at American Nutrtion and no other canned foods are run through NB's equipment. "

Just making sure that we are not posting false info.

sooner

Posted : 4/1/2007 10:42:44 AM

ORIGINAL: jenns

NB food is not manufactured at Diamond, it is bagged there, and the problems with Diamond had to do with ingredients. copy and pasted from another thread:

" Dry food is made at their own plant then shipped to the Diamond plant where it is bagged. They have their own people on site all of the time. Canned food is made at their own plant, then shipped to American Nutrition in Utah where it is canned Natural Balance has their own line at American Nutrtion and no other canned foods are run through NB's equipment. "

Just making sure that we are not posting false info.

That appears to be false as well. This is an e-mail from NB:

“In regards to our products, please know that our dry and canned formulas are “co-packed” at a separate facility in the United States. Our dry products are co-packed at a Diamond facility and our canned products are co-packed at American Nutrition. What this means, is that we use their machinery to manufacture our OWN products. We also have our OWN quality control over seeing any manufacturing/production of our products. Further, all of our products are tested prior to production, after production, and then once again at our facility before the product ever leaves for distribution.”

From here:http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=223

tony

Posted : 4/1/2007 10:52:42 AM

Exactly, if you ask Diamond, they will tell you that they produce Natural Balance. During the Diamond recall they sent out a letter saying so, I recall it being posted on this forum and many others. If you ask Natural Balance, they do a little song and dance. This is also from the petsiteusa web site.

Please note: Contrary to what I was told by Natural Balance, Diamond has confirmed that they manufacture dry food for Natural Balance. Additionally, American Nutrition has verified that they manufacture canned food for Natural Balance.

[linkhttp://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210]http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=210[/link]

willowchow

Posted : 4/1/2007 11:00:17 AM

It's really just the same type of situation with a different company, different ingredient. Natural Balance probably wasn't effected by the Diamond recall because they don't use corn, right? It's the same thing, a company like Natura wasn't effected by this recall because they don't use wheat gluton.

jenns

Posted : 4/1/2007 11:02:49 AM

ORIGINAL: willowchow

It's really just the same type of situation with a different company, different ingredient. Natural Balance probably wasn't effected by the Diamond recall because they don't use corn, right? It's the same thing, a company like Natura wasn't effected by this recall because they don't use wheat gluton.

Exactly - the manufacturing equipment isn't the problem - it's the ingredient. And both NB and Natura are very strict about what ingredients they use.

Wheat Glutton