A nation of animal lovers?

Half of all households in the UK own some kind of pet. Lindsay Whalen looks at the environmental and animal issues in the pet food bowl

Despite lots of brands on the supermarket shelves in the UK, the market is dominated by two companies: Mars and Nestlé. Nestlé's irresponsible marketing of breast milk substitutes in the Third World is the primary reason for the longstanding international boycott of its products. The World Health Organisation notes that 1.5 million children die each year because they are not adequately breast-fed.(28) According to the Food Magazine, in February this year, Nestlé had promoted formula milk to young Hispanic mothers in America.(29) It had provided free samples, posters and leaflets claiming the benefits of its products in Spanish.(29) The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes states that the "manufacturers and distributors should not distribute to pregnant women or mothers of infants and young children any gifts of articles or utensils which may promote the use of breastmilk substitutes or bottle feeding". Although America was one of the few countries to have failed to enact laws to enforce the Code, Nestlé's promotion coincided with the government's first campaign in a century to encourage breastfeeding among low income mothers from ethnic minorities.(29)

Most mainstream pet foods are appealing and addictive for the pets, but an environmental and nutritional horror story. They are packaged in tins, which are inefficient to produce and transport; and contain lots of fat, sugar, salt and fillers. One alternative is to feed your pets fresh, raw food, that is not dried or chemically preserved.
The website www.animalsnaturally.com provides information on ways to feed pets a natural diet. Another sustainable option is buying dry food in bulk that is packaged in cardboard or paper.

Meaty issues
Pet food in today's supermarkets contains meat, poultry or fish or a combination of their 'by- products'.(2) It is made from meat and cereals not required by the human food industry.(3) A meat by-product could apparently be "viscera and blood-soaked sawdust from the floors of a packing house where meat is being processed."(4) Reducing the meat we consume is one of the most important steps we can take to reduce our environmental impact globally. It takes approximately 10lb of vegetable or grain protein to produce 1lb of animal protein, and the grain used to feed livestock often travels a long distance from Third World countries.(1)

Animal testing policy
Animal lovers also need to think about more than the ingredients. Animal-tested pet food is common, and involves nutrition tests on captive animals which can cause stress and discomfort. For example, according to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) website, Nestlé Purina Pet Care kept 48 labradors in a laboratory environment for 15 years. Some of the dogs were fed just half the amount of food of their litter mates, and they were subjected to weekly weigh-ins and annual x-rays, heart scans, ECGs and blood pressure tests.(15) Hill's (Colgate-Palmolive), Iams (Procter & Gamble) and Masterfoods (Mars Inc) all confirmed to Ethical Consumer that they conducted tests on animals. Focus 100, Nestlé , Pets Choice, Town & Country Pet Foods and Wagg Foods did not provide any information so were awarded our worst mark for animal testing policy. Burns, Butcher's, Happidog, Harbingers of a New Age, Suma and Yarrah Organic confirmed that they did not conduct animal testing for pet food.

The irony of using animal testing for products aimed at animal lovers has not gone unnoticed by animal welfare groups. Uncaged Campaigns and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are focusing on Procter & Gamble's pet food subsidiary Iams, whereas BUAV is calling for a boycott of Colgate-Palmolive, Mars, Nestlé, Iams and Eukanuba.(15)

BUAV is also running a 'no animal testing' pet food standard of approved companies. Burns Pet Nutrition, Harbingers of a New Age, and Happidog are all approved by the scheme.(15) Ami, Focus 100, WackiDog, Wagg and Vitalin were not included in BUAV's research. The only difference between Ethical Consumer's and BUAV's results concerned Butcher's Pet Care (FW Baker), which told Ethical Consumer it did not develop any "product using either captive or invasive testing techniques". It did say it conducted 'palatability' tests which involved letting the pets test the food in their homes, and asking their owners for feedback.(5) However, according to BUAV's research, as least one company in Butcher's supply chain permanently housed cats and/or dogs for the purposes of pet food testing.(15)

Veggie pets?
An acceptable solution could be to feed your pet a vegetarian diet. Dogs can readily be fed a vegetarian or vegan diet. Cats are more complicated because they need taurine - an amino acid which comes almost entirely from animal sources. A US company, Harbingers of a New Age, has apparently developed a supplement that can be added to home-cooked cat food to allow cats to live on a vegetarian diet. It also comes with recipe suggestions for home-cooked food. Italian company Ami also produces 'vegetarian cat food'. Both products can be purchased online from www.veggiepets.com, which also provides information on vegetarian pets. The Vegan Society has fact sheets on helping cats go vegan. It has been suggested that cats deprived of meat may turn to other sources, i.e. wild birds and small mammals. Cats already inflict significant damage on populations of these creatures, so it might be irresponsible to encourage this.

Genetically modified
If you don't agree with the idea of vegetarian pets, or your pet simply will not accept a vegetarian diet, buying organic will ensure animals have been farmed less intensively. It is though much more expensive. Organic pet food will also be free from genetically modified ingredients. An ECRA shop survey found that a HiLife brand of pet food was labelled as containing genetically modified soya / maize.(2) Nestlé, Pets Choice, Procter & Gamble, Town & Country Pet Foods (HiLife) and Wagg Foods did not respond to ECRA's request for policies on the use of genetically modified ingredients, so received a small mark in the genetic engineering column. All the other companies claimed not to use genetically modified ingredients.

References
1 Eco Living, Karen Christenson 2000
2 ECRA shop survey 6/10/04
3 'Natural Choice Pet Food', BBC Wildlife September 2003
4 'Wording of Pet Food Labels', FW Cusack, www.home.att.net/~wdcusick/02.html viewed on 4/11/04 5 Email from Butcher's Pet Care Ltd 14/10/04 18 Provimi Annual Report 2003
19 Telephone conversation with a Happidog representative 14/10/04
20 Labour Research: 88,9 1/9/99
21 Big Campaign Website (Boycott Israeli Goods), viewed on 8/11/04
22 The Ecologist: 33,4 1/5/03 23 Multinational Monitor 1/2/03
24 www.stopanimaltests.com viewed on 7/7/04
25 www.iamscruelty.com viewed on 4/11/04
26 Boycott News 31 1/7/02
27 www.captiveanimals.org viewed on 3/11/04
28 www.babymilkaction.org viewed on 16/11/04
29 Food Magazine 65 1/4/04