The AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials).

In her article, "What¹s Really for Dinner? The Truth About Commercial Pet Food" in The Animals’ Agenda, Nov/Dec 1996 Tina Perry points out that more than 95 percent of US companion animals derive their nutritional needs from a single source: processed pet food. Pet food manufacturers have learned to make a mixture of inedible scraps, fortify it with artificial vitamins and minerals, and preserve it so that it can sit on the shelf for more than a year. The meats are often chicken heads, feet, and intestines, cow brains, tongues, esophagi, and other products unsuitable for human consumption. She goes on to elaborate on other ingredients commonly found in commercial dog food.

James Morris and Quinton Rogers, professors with Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of California at Davis Veterinary School of Medicine, assert that there is virtually no information on the bioavailability of nutrients for companion animals in many of the common dietary ingredients used in pet foods.

In February 1990, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer John Eckhouse wrote an exposé entitled"How Dogs and Cats Get Recycled into Pet Food" in which he reported that euthanized companion animals were found in pet foods. Although pet food company executives and the National Renderers Association vehemently denied the report, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the FDA confirmed the story. The pets serve a viable purpose by providing foodstuff for the animal feed chain, said Lea McGovern, chief of the FDA¹s animal feed safety branch.

Although manufacturers claim that millions of companion animals can thrive on a diet consisting of nothing by commercial pet food, research and an increasing number of veterinarians implicate processed pet food as a source of disease or as an exacerbating agent for a number of degenerative diseases.

After extensive research, the Animal Protection Institute (API) published a Pet Food Investigative Reportto educate companion animal care givers about pet food ingredients, ingredient definitions, labeling, and dietary ailments resulting from processed commercial pet food, including the most commonly known brands.