Channel Episode: Choosing Healthy Cat (and Dog) Food with Susan Thixton

Hello CatCrazies! Get ready for an enlightening episode from the CatCrazy Channel! I’m diving into the world of healthy cat food with none other than Susan Thixton, founder of the Association for Truth in Pet Food. If you've ever wondered why your cat rejects certain foods or what truly goes into pet food, this episode is for you. Susan, a passionate consumer advocate, shares her journey and expertise on holding the pet food industry accountable. Watch (or read the transcript below) to learn how to make the best food choices for your feline family and ensure their health and happiness. This is a must-watch for every cat lover!

Petra Luna  0:00  

Well this might just be the most important episode I've done so far since this is all about healthy cat food, and pet food in general, I've bought and tried every kind of pet food over the years, and they all sound so great when you see their commercials and advertising. But then I see my cats not liking to eat it or even throw up after eating. So what to do? I'm talking with Susan Thixton today, who is the founder of the Association for Truth in Pet Food, and one of a handful of consumer advocates fighting to hold the pet food industry accountable to existing food safety regulations. Coming up!

Hi there, and welcome to my CatCrazy Channel. This is going to be an episode that's a bit longer than usual, but very much worth watching. If you love your pets, which I'm sure you do, and I know you do when you're watching, then watch this video till the end, because there's a lot of useful information for you in here. When it comes to cat products, or pet products in general, look how far we've come. Years ago there was no cat litter. They used sand and now look at the variety. Same was food. Years and years ago cats got table scraps, and some big pet food companies started making pet food from all kinds of sources, including diseased animals, etc. They threw it all together and called it pet food. Now we know what kind of supplements our living room tigers need, and many small companies are coming up with all kinds of great food options. Some do freeze-dried and frozen raw food and cooked and pâtéd, human-grade, organic, made in the US, etc., etc., etc. Whatever you and your cat's hearts desire. So it is easy to get confused nowadays because of all the great advertising tactics. Does natural really mean anything? What is best for your cat? Your cat relies on you to make that decision because they are no longer hunting for their own food. They are dependent on your choice. So you want to make sure you will make the right decision to keep your pets as healthy as possible for as long as possible. They are family members. Yes. That's why you want to listen to a trusted source who is dedicated to bringing you the truth, the truth about pet foods. And this is going for cats and dogs. I'm talking about both of them, cats and dogs, today. So here comes my interview with Susan Thixton the founder of the Association for Truth in Pet Food. 

Hi, Susan. Hi, thank you for joining me today. I know you're very dedicated when it comes to animals, and also to the truth about pet food. And so tell us a bit about your journey, why you started this, and your website truthaboutpetfood.com.

Susan Thixton 3:31  

I got started because a pet food killed my dog. This was 25-plus years ago. My dog almost overnight got a tumor on her pelvic bone. My vet then knew more about pet food than probably most veterinarians do today. I was blessed in that respect. And I took her in and he said she had bone cancer, this was a tumor. And I had about two weeks. He said her cancer was more than likely caused by a chemical preservative used in the factory. And I had no idea what a chemical preservative was. He explained to me it was used to extend the shelf life. I didn’t even know what shelf life meant back then, but I made my first phone call to a pet food company. And I asked them how long that food would stay fresh. And they very proudly told me the pet food would stay fresh for 25 years. I’ll never forget that conversation for as long as I live. It was horrifying. And that moment changed my life forever. This veterinarian—this was before the internet—that vetrinarian gave me textbooks that he had, and I read everything he gave me. And then as the internet became more accessible to everybody, you know, you can get online and find research and textbooks and everything. And then I began digging into the stuff. I started the website…2006 is when I started the website, the very end of 2006. And pet owners asked me to go to the regulatory meetings, and so I started going, and the direction it sort of led to was regulations, to me understanding the regulations and giving that information back to pet owners so they can understand them as well.

Petra Luna  6:03  

Yeah. And and I remember in 2007, it started with like, where lots of dogs and cats started dying, you know, from that. And one, you know, our cat died a little later, but he was one of the only cats reported to the FDA. So that was my cat Chopin. So what can we do? Or how can people find out what kind of pet food is safe for their pets? And I mean, cats and dogs? I am usually about cats, of course, but I know you do both cats and dogs. So what can they do to find out?

Susan Thixton 6:41  

Well, the biggest thing for pet owners to understand is that most pet foods are not food. They are feed like cow feed, chicken feed. They're regulated the same as feed. They are not regulated the same as food. And food is held to a higher level. The only pet foods that are truly food are ones that are labeled human-grade with those two words on the pet food label. You'll have a lot of companies claim on their websites, or in marketing, that they use human-grade ingredients. You can’t trust that. We have caught many of them in lies about that. But you can trust when the words are printed on the pet food label, human-grade, you can trust that the regulatory authorities have done their job and validated that claim.

Petra Luna  7:51  

Wow. Okay. So with regard to brands, like the bigger brands have all the advertising budgets in the world, right? So do you think they are more trustworthy? Or do they have more money to market? You know, what do you prefer? Smaller labels? Bigger brands. Does it matter? Are they equal? What do you think?

Susan Thixton  8:14  

It just depends, you know, if they use human-grade ingredients, and real food, edible food, it wouldn't matter how big they were, but unfortunately, at this point in time, all of the major brands, they are all feed-grade. And I'm not saying that all feed-grade products you use in theory are ingredients. But the issue is that they can, they are allowed to by the FDA. And just to give you an example of how bad that can be, the FDA directly allows feed-grade pet foods to use sourced ingredients from diseased animals and animals that have died other than by slaughter. And as graphic and horrible as this is, a cow dies in a field, it lays there for three days, a truck comes from the rendering facility and pulls that dead carcass, the decomposing carcass into the truck, it's taken to a facility, ground, powdered and cooked—ground and cooked until it becomes this powdered meat, and that goes into pet food with no warning or disclosure to consumers. So knowing that any feed-grade pet food is allowed you use that inferior quality without telling me, without telling anybody, I can't take that risk for my own pets. I have two dogs and five cats and I can't do it. So to me, it has to be a human-grade food product, either commercial product, or I make food for my pets as well. It's not as hard as you think if you find a good recipe. My cooking has never killed anybody. And pet food can’t make that same claim, so…

Petra Luna  10:24  

Do you have the recipe that you want to share? 

Susan Thixton  10:27  

Well, Dr. Karen Becker, she has recipes—cat food specific recipes. I don't remember the title of the article, but on healthypets.mercola.com [now barkandwhiskers.com], if you click on Dr. Karen Becker, in her section, and you I can send you that link if you'd like. She’s got cat food recipes there. There's a lot, there's a lot of recipes. Dr. Lisa Pearson is the cat guru, and her website, catinfo.org, she has recipes on that website as well. 

Petra Luna  11:09  

Wow, that's fantastic. I would love to share that. So I would put that below the video so that my viewers can watch this. That's fantastic. Thank you. So how can you verify the information that you're getting? I know that you’re doing the Petsumer Report which people can actually become a member of your reports—become a member of the Pet Food Consumer Organization, and you know, get more information from this. I'm just saying like, you're going to these companies and ask them to verify? How can you trust them?

Susan Thixton  11:56  

That's a very good question because it's hard to know if they're telling you the truth or not. And especially for a pet owner. I'm neck deep in this, you know, I've been doing this for many years. And I can maybe, maybe spot somebody that's not being honest with me quicker than an average consumer only because of years of doing this. But with pet owners, you know, the first question for any pet food that you're considering or are already giving your cat or dog, ask the manufacturer if ingredients are human edible. That's a really significant question. And look at their response. A lot of times they will respond by going, Oh, yes, all of our ingredients are sourced from USDA facilities. They didn't answer your question. You asked if the ingredients are human edible. They told you where they're sourced from. Well guess what? Condemned, diseased, animal material is also sourced from USDA slaughter facilities. It’s condemned from. So really reading between the lines, if they do not directly answer your question, to me, that's a yellow flag. You know, that's a caution. 

Ask them country of origin of ingredients. I'm not saying that everything from China is a risky ingredient. It absolutely is not. But China does have a bad history. Chinese-sourced ingredients and dog treats have a bad history in pet food. So at least the pet owners need to be aware where the country of origin is that, you know, this pet food is source from. Often manufacturers, you’ll ask what's the country of origin of all ingredients? And they'll tell you different countries, but they neglect to tell you supplements and supplements are an ingredient. So there's another caution flag, you know, if they're less than forthcoming with their responses, that's a caution to me. 

When I formed my list of pet foods that are produced that I trust to be my own pets, I asked manufacturers to provide me documents. They provide a letter, and I have to sign nondisclosure agreements with them, that I understand. Good companies are very protective over their suppliers, rightfully so, they work really hard to get this trusted supplier and they don't want another company stealing that supplier from them, which puts the consumer in a very difficult position. But you know, as the company, how can you guarantee me, if the company responds, that they’re all human edible ingredients? Ask them all, you know, I'm nervous. Tell them, I’m nervous, how can you guarantee me this? What can you do to make me feel better? And also, I neglected to say that supplements can also be feed-grade. Some pet food is human-grade, the same kind of supplements—vitamin C, vitamin B, vitamin D, minerals—they're the same type, same quality, held to the same manufacturing standards as the supplements we take. But then there’s feed-grade supplements. And often feed-grade supplements are allowed to contain, like, as an example a supplement that’s allowed in animal feed in general, zinc hydroxy chloride, it's more commonly used in livestock feed, but you'd be shocked at the amount of lead that is allowed in that supplement. So there's quite a few supplements, if you look at the ingredient list, on a can or a bag of pet food, there's a lot of supplements and if you can imagine each one of those is allowed to contain amounts of lead, collectively, that’s a lot that your pet is consuming every single day.

Petra Luna  16:39  

Oh my God. And then you wonder, you know, like when you're talking about deceased animals that sometimes go into the pet food, it’'s not regularly but it can be, right? Some are worse than others. Sometimes you get a batch of food, and they're all fine. And then the next batch, they all throwing up. And you wonder why that is, right? They don't want to eat and you don't want to force them to eat it either. Because if they don't like it, there's a reason for it, right?

Susan Thixton  17:12  

And then with inferior grains, there's a lot of pet foods that include grains, corn, wheat, soy, and we just recently had multiple aflatoxin, mycotoxin recalls. Even if they're below the allowed limit, that FDA allows in pet foods, collectively over years those toxins add up. The FDA just last week put out a notice, an educational article about aflatoxins in pet food and it was the first time to my knowledge that they acknowledge that these toxins collect, they keep building up in a pet’s system. So even if they're eating a food with just a mild level of mycotoxins, that toxin is adding up in these pets livers over time. So. And there again, the the best ingredients, whether it be grain, whether it be meat, is diverted to the human food chain. What's less, is then diverted to pet food. So that's where again, I circle back to the human-grade status of pet food. It gives me a comfort level that my pets are at the very least getting the same quality of food that I'm eating, and they deserve that. They don’t deserve to eat a lesser quality.

Petra Luna  19:02  

That's very true. So if I’m understanding you, would the supplements also have to be human grade? 

Susan Thixton

[nods]

Petra Luna

Really? Because I'm supplementing with torrin, because cats need torrin. And so I have to now look at the label of the brand that I'm using to see if that is human-grade. I don't even know so that is very, very interesting. I'm going to check this next. 

Susan Thixton

I’m opening a can of worms.

Petra Luna

No, no that can of worms has been open since my Chopin died. You know that was jerky treats from China. It had propylene glycol in it, antifreeze, but anyway, so let's not get into that.

Susan Thixton 19:58  

Those things are why we do what we did today. You know, we're trying to prevent other people from going through the same pain that we went through. It is devastating to think that I fed my dog this food that had so many chemical preservatives in it, that it gave, you know, that it would stay fresh for 25 years. You know, it's just devastating that I feel like I contributed to her death. I did it unknowingly. You did unknowingly. You know. But that's what we do what we do to try to prevent others from making those same mistakes.

Petra Luna  20:45  

Right. And especially unknowingly, I can tell you that because like, on these labels, they say, Made in America, and then they say, like in very tiny things, except for this and this and this and this and this , that comes from the moon, or somewhere else, you know. So anyways, Susan, your dedication is amazing, I love this, I have been following you for a long time now. And, you know, how can, if somebody is now interested in helping, I know, they can become a member that is like $18 a year or something, then they can buy your list, which is awesome. I have it right here, and that is a really, really good source. And this is like, every year you have a new list. And this is very good. And people can buy that for $10. But how can they help you if they want to donate more? Is there anything that you suggest that they can do? Because I'm sure many people want to help

Susan Thixton 21:50  

The best help is to spread the education. When when you see something and you learn from it, share that with other pet owners, that's really significant. We are all grassroots, you know, and it's a bunch of pet owners, and we love our pets, and we want them to live a healthy, long life. And so we share information of how to do this. But pet owners can bite the bullet, I offer the list, it's the same document for different prices. So if you feel like you want to and can afford to purchase it for more money, that helps us. I am 100% supported by pet owners. I take no money from pet food companies. I had a pet food company that was on the list last year, actually two years ago, that didn't come back last year. And last year they told a pet owners, at least one that I know of, that they didn't want to pay my fee to be on the list. And that was absolutely false. They are selected. Pet owners refer me to different types of pet foods. They answer questions after provider verification. They pay no money. I don't even allow a pet food company to take me to lunch. I don't do it. It’s all from consumers, how I support myself.

Petra Luna  23:29  

Well, thank you, Susan, so much. This was so helpful. Fantastic. I hope that many people will sign up on your website and get your list of you know, foods that you would recommend for this year, for 2021. Thanks again, and I hope to talk with you again soon. Bye. 

Can cats with a certain color be more prone to being deaf? And here's the answer to the quiz of the day. Many pure white cats with blue eyes are deaf. It is a congenital deafness caused by a degeneration of the inner ear. Deafness can occur in white cats with yellow, green, or blue irises. That's all for today. Your wonderful cat people. Thank you so much for your support. Now hit that like button below and subscribe to my channel. And don’t forget, cats rule and so do you!