I recently had a friend post on Facebook that her cute little Chihuahua needed serious dental help.  She posted a picture of his plaque ridden teeth and asked for advise. I found it very interesting that many people were
recommending Greenies or even a “natural” version of a Greenies, but no one suggested the most natural form of teeth cleaning… raw chicken necks.

Of course I felt obligated to post the recommendation of one raw chicken neck per week for onemonth. Understandably so this disgusted some people that have no idea that “raw dog food” even exists, but lucky my friend took the advise. They are on a path to cleaner teeth and have avoided the costly doctors visit for the anesthetic induced cleaning.

Why do dog on a raw food diet have cleaner teeth?

It all has do to with the fact that they do not produce Amylase like us humans.  We start the digestive process in our mouth with saliva which contains amylase.  This enzyme starts to break down food without even having to chew.  Since dogs do not have this, they need to get it from the food they eat.  The cooking process destroys enzymes and this is why when a dog is on a cooked, canned or kibble diet they will quickly build up plaque and tarter.  Taking your dog off cooked food and giving them a chicken or turkey neck will; first, stop the build up and then help to clean the teeth as they grind away at the bones.

A word of caution… 20% of raw poultry at your grocery store has salmonella.  Give your dog the bones outside or keep them contained so you can clean the area they are in when they are done.

A while back a friend and I were having a healthy argument about salt and sea salt.  My friend is the nutritionally versed but not neurotic type of person.  He believes that there is a lot of hype out there and people are getting duped into spending more money on products because they are “Natural”.  I do not disagree with this.  The term natural is not regulated and can is now being put on just about every product.  I even saw an “All Natural” raw chicken breast at the grocery store that was clearly a cage raised bird dripping with hormones and antibiotics, but because they did not add any synthetic chemicals to it, it was “All Natural”.  Long store short… when my friend made fun of me for using sea salt vs. iodized table salt we got into it.  He insisted there was no difference in the two and was even able to pull up a website that even stated there was no difference. 

I knew there was a difference in the two because we use it in our raw dog food formulas and since dogs have no need for salt, it had to be in there for a nutritional reason.  At the time of the argument I was in the middle of cooking dinner and did not have the means or time to argue any further so I dropped it and quickly forgot about it until recently when I was at the store buying more salt and saw the sea salt right next to the table salt.  Like a flood the memory the argument came rushing back along with the answer…

Table salt is mined and processed to give it its fine texture and bright white color.  Sea salt is created through evaporation of salt water or salt deposits.  It contains more minerals then table salt and helps balance electrolytes.  It is also important to know that its not what is in sea salt that makes it better; its what is not in it.  Under US law, up to 2% of salt can have additives.  These are ingredients listed on the box and are usually for anti-clumping or whitening.

There is a minimal amount of sea salt in our raw dog food formulas and we use it for the minerals it provides.  

The Number of Recalls is Growing Rapidly.  Here is Why.

In 2011 the Food Safety Modernization Act was put into action.  This changed the roll of the FDA from a reactive organization whose job it was to pull product after an illness was reported to a proactive organization who is allowed to pull product off shelves, test and recall if there are positive results.  The amount of salmonella is not increasing in pet food, it is just the amount of testing that is increasing.

What Can the FDA do When if Finds Salmonella in Pet Food?

Depending on whom you ask you may get different answers.  Here is what the process was for us.

On March 5^th we received a phone call from the MN department of agriculture notifying us that they pulled product from a retail location and tested it to ensure that the food was nutritionally adequate, at the same time they did a test for Salmonella which came back positive.  Since the food that was tested met the nutritional adequacy statement that is on the label, the MN Department of Agriculture was done with their job and let us know that we should contact the FDA since they passed their test results onto them.

The MN Dept. of Ag faxed us their lab report for our records.  At that time we found out that the product was pulled on 12/19/12 and it was not reported until 3/5/13. 

March 6^th – We referenced our shipping records to identify which distributors we shipped the food and notified them of the recall, advising them to pull any product they had and to notify their customers who received the product.  After this initial investigation we discovered that we shipped 970 pounds of product, 120 pounds was still at the distribution level, 90 was at the retail level and the rest was sold to consumers.  After the official announcement we only received 20lbs of food back from consumers, which leads us to believe that the rest had been fed, with no reported cases of illness.

March 7^th – We started working with our FDA coordinator who outlined the paperwork we needed to fill out and the steps we needed to take.  There was a 10 page questionnaire, online forms for registering the recall, a press release and a notice to retailers and customers that had to be created.  The coordinator provided templates for the press release and consumer notification.  We cooperated with our coordinator and notified the public as required.  The recall procedures were very structured and seemed well practiced by our helpful coordinator.

March 11^th – The FDA agents and the Oregon Department of Agriculture showed up at the plant to swab everything in the plant.  They took samples from forklift tires, raw material, inside the machinery, walls, drains and even equipment in storage.  Of the 64 samples taken only 1 came back positive and this was on the piece of equipment not in use.

March 12^th – A FDA agent calls the plant manager and interrogates him about processes, paperwork and production history.  After the plant manager informs the agent that there was only one positive out of 64 tests (pretty good for a plant that deals with only raw meat products) the agent replays with, “If it was me, I would have done 164 samples”.  This is where it starts to feel like a witch hunt.

March 13^th – The FDA agent that spoke to the plant manager came to the plant to get copies of paperwork and do more investigating.  No results are given at this time and the agent told us that we can’t give information on the next steps but we will let you know when the investigation is over.

March 14^th – The FDA is back at the plant testing equipment, puling product and asking more questions.

March 20^th – We receive test results back showing that of the 360lbs of finished product (180 of it being chicken) all of it came back with a negative result for salmonella… investigation over.

UPDATE:  5/17/2013 – An FDA representative is still “working” on tracking down the recalled product.  They are calling retailers that received the product and us to verify where it went and if it was destroyed.

What to do: Kill Steps & Product Testing

During the recall investigation we started looking at kill steps, additional testing and changes we could make.  Each change we could make costs more money which would force us into a price increase. 

There are several levels of kill steps you can do.  First there is acid sprays of baths that kill 80%-99% of bacteria.  This is effective, but adding an unnecessary ingredient to the food. 

The most effective method is High Pressure Pasteurization.  Unfortunately this is the most costly and the most destructive to the food.  By implementing this method not only are we destroying enzymes, which are why we feed raw, but it would result in a 15% price increase at the retail level.  We believe this method is what has kept Nature’s Variety and Primal away from additional recalls.  Both manufactures implemented HPP within of month of their recalls and had drastic price increase follow shortly after.

The next safety measure that we could implement would be test and hold.  The problem with this it gives you a false sense of security.  Test and hold is not 100% effective which can be illustrated by Bravo’s last two recalls.  Both lots that were recalled by the FDA had a negative result when the product was tested at the plant but positive when tested by the FDA.  You can test 10 samples of one lot of food and get 9 negative results and 1 positive.  This has shown to be ineffective and not a reasonable step.

These “protective measures” that the FDA is taking to ensure that you do not come in contact with bacteria (that are likely in your fridge right now) is increasing your cost of food and denaturing your foods.

I want to clear the air… the FDA did not at any point say that we have to implement a kill step and when asked about the best methods they did not favor one over the other.

Let’s not forget, there are no reported cases of human or pet illness as a result of feeding raw pet food; however, the FDA has received 100’s of reports of sick dogs related to eating chicken jerky treats from China, yet it took them two years to issue a “Health Alert”.