Shannon Falconer explains why animal-based pet foods are a problem, and looks at the future of alternatives for our furry friends.

Animals have always been a huge part of my life and that’s why I stopped eating meat in my early teens; I couldn’t bear the idea that an animal was being slaughtered for me to eat it. However, while I don’t support the meat industry to feed myself, the principle when applied to my pets, specifically my cats, presents a real conundrum.

Although animal welfare was what initially drove me to stop eating meat several decades ago, another hugely significant impetus to remove animals from the supply chain has since become evident – and that reason relates not only to farmed animals, but to the entire Earth and all animals inhabiting it, including us humans.

Meat production has an enormous environmental impact and is responsible for approximately 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions,1 which is more than all modes of transportation combined. Furthermore, in terms of land use, close to a third of the world’s soil has already been degraded due to livestock. In the US, 41 percent of the country’s land2 (nearly 800 million acres) is taken up by the feed, grazing and confinement of livestock. Pet food plays a large role in those crimes against the planet. A recent study showed that more than a quarter3 of the environmental effects of the animal agriculture industry are directly attributable to the foods that Americans feed their cats and dogs.

In addition to pet food’s massive environmental toll, the manner in which meat is currently produced comes with a whole slew of health and safety concerns for our pets, including:

  • Recalls due to bacterial contamination
  • Overprocessing leading to loss of nutritional value
  • Use of rendered ingredients and ‘fallen animals’ – animals that die before making it to slaughter (ie, from disease, dehydration, suffocation) and therefore are deemed unfit for human consumption
  • The development of antibiotic‑resistant bacteria
  • Pet food contamination by the euthanising agent pentobarbital.

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References

  1. www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/climate/cows-global-warming.html
  2. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/
  3. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301