New study of dog food looking at environmental contaminants

[Kamela & Beckett]

Anyone else seen this?

http://www.kgun9.com/lifestyle/totally-tucson/are-pet-foods-safe-fo...

It's a study of contaminants in pet foods. Surprisingly Acana and Origen have several foods in the bottom 10. Several of the top 10 recommended foods are what I thought were low quality brands carried by grocery stores, etc.

Thoughts?? Karen??

[Ron English]

I think it would be wise for Champion to get out in front of this with some data of their own to respond to these "findings". Many of us don't have the expertise to refute these from a scientific point of view. I'm not saying these claims are true or valid.

[Cheri & Bonny]

Interesting to note that all the Origin and Acana recipes are their fish formulas. Wonder if it has to do with higher levels that are found in fish...

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

They also are not making the levels in these foods available. 

After looking at their FB page, it appears they have a particular grudge against Champion Foods. I have to believe there is some corporate interest behind this. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

So the organization in question, Clean Label Project, is apparently an environmentalist group who is not at all focusing on nutrition or really even "clean" food, since clean food doesn't contain artificial colorings or preservatives. There's definitely an agenda here, which appears to directed at consumers and specifically, parents and pet owners, perhaps in the hopes that these groups will become more active in fighting the current political agenda of decreasing regulations on environmental contaminants & pollutants such as pesticide and industrial wastes. A worthwhile cause to be sure, but it really has nothing to do with nutrition, safe or otherwise, and this study is extremely misleading. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

LOL, I now have an admission from this Clean Label Organization that they did not consider nutrition when devising this study or their ratings:

I cannot understand your criteria for this study. You give Pedigree a 4 star rating, when the food contains the artificial preservative BHA, as well as the artificial colorings yellow #5 and #6, blue #2, and red #40, all of which are known carcinogens? You have a strange idea of what constitutes a "healthy" or "safe" diet!

Like · Reply · 2 hrs · Edited

Clean Label Project Our study looked at the toxin levels of over 130 different contaminants, and the ratings are a scale. A five star rating is cleaner than a one start rating. We did not factor nutrition into the results as we did not include it in our testing. 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

"Uh, we don't really care about anything but our own agenda and it is not nutrition or health or quality."

[Kamela & Beckett]

When I first saw the study a few days ago, they were including nutrition ratings. When you'd look at a food there were 3 bars, purity, nutrition, and value. I was shocked because Pedigree and other brands like that got higher nutrituon ratings than Acana and Orijen. They've obviously removed that rating. And for good reason!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Talk about transparency, lol. 

[Leslie, Yogi & Maci Bear]

Karen, do you respect their data about contaminants? As far as you're concerned, is the Origen or Acana fish still a safe bet?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Absolutely. I'm not even the tiniest bit concerned. I don;t feel one bit differently about the Champion fish based foods than I did yesterday before I saw this. 

They haven't even shown us any data. We don;t know which "contaminants" were found in which foods, or at which levels. And if you look at their FB page, they really do seem to have a grudge against Champion Foods. It's very clear to me that this study is not reliable or meaningful. 

[Amy and Annabelle]

The "study" sounds like horse hockey to me. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Me too.

I was looking at the board of directors of this group, and not one of them has a background in nutrition or science.