This is a simple innocuous little question. But I always have a few seconds pause before I answer - because there is so much information charging through my brain!
The simplest answer is that I feed wet food. And I do my best to check all the ingredients and make sure that it is fit for a CAT. That means animal products, not grains or vegetables or modern thickeners that have been linked to human ill-health - personally, I will not eat anything with carageenan or the no. E407. Unfortunately, pet food does not have to list specific ingredients. (I have had to write to various companies to try to get the information on E407, and it has been hard to get information. The upshot, is that I'm finding that most times 'thickener' is listed, it IS E407.)
Part of my answer would also be that I strive for variety, and I do this so that there will always be food my cats will eat, even if there are recalls, or a vet or boarding stay is needed, or a company stops making or changes their recipe. I also try for variety to reduce risk. There have been thousands of pet deaths from eating commercial pet food, and they are still ongoing. So I figure if the amount they eat of any one thing is small, the risk from that one thing is small.
Interestingly, I haven't heard any information about recalls here in Australia. I have to wonder if information is not made public, or maybe I'm just not tapped into the right information channels? My American and European friends are always circulating the latest recall information. Maybe we aren't affected here in Australia because that global company has different manufacturing sites - and the ones closer to this side of the world are not affected? I choose to be cautious.
In my hunt for information, I did get myself alarmed at the fact that Australia WAS irradiating imported pet food as a quarantine control measure...and I didn't know about this, or the deaths it was causing. If you check country of origin labelling, a lot of pet food comes from overseas. I love the fact that our island has such strict customs controls. It means for one thing, that we don't have to be so restricted in what we eat in terms of fresh produce, as many diseases have thus far been kept out. Unfortunately, the irradiation measure on pet food caused a lot of cat deaths. So CAT food is now exempt from irradiation. Dog food isn't, as dogs weren't affected...so just make sure your cat isn't snacking from the dog's dish.
The simplest answer is that I feed wet food. And I do my best to check all the ingredients and make sure that it is fit for a CAT. That means animal products, not grains or vegetables or modern thickeners that have been linked to human ill-health - personally, I will not eat anything with carageenan or the no. E407. Unfortunately, pet food does not have to list specific ingredients. (I have had to write to various companies to try to get the information on E407, and it has been hard to get information. The upshot, is that I'm finding that most times 'thickener' is listed, it IS E407.)
Part of my answer would also be that I strive for variety, and I do this so that there will always be food my cats will eat, even if there are recalls, or a vet or boarding stay is needed, or a company stops making or changes their recipe. I also try for variety to reduce risk. There have been thousands of pet deaths from eating commercial pet food, and they are still ongoing. So I figure if the amount they eat of any one thing is small, the risk from that one thing is small.
Interestingly, I haven't heard any information about recalls here in Australia. I have to wonder if information is not made public, or maybe I'm just not tapped into the right information channels? My American and European friends are always circulating the latest recall information. Maybe we aren't affected here in Australia because that global company has different manufacturing sites - and the ones closer to this side of the world are not affected? I choose to be cautious.
In my hunt for information, I did get myself alarmed at the fact that Australia WAS irradiating imported pet food as a quarantine control measure...and I didn't know about this, or the deaths it was causing. If you check country of origin labelling, a lot of pet food comes from overseas. I love the fact that our island has such strict customs controls. It means for one thing, that we don't have to be so restricted in what we eat in terms of fresh produce, as many diseases have thus far been kept out. Unfortunately, the irradiation measure on pet food caused a lot of cat deaths. So CAT food is now exempt from irradiation. Dog food isn't, as dogs weren't affected...so just make sure your cat isn't snacking from the dog's dish.