Risk of Microplastics in Plant-Based Pet Foods Possibly Lower?
We are questioning plant-based pet foods as being possibly lower risk of containing microplastics which was found to affect over 75% of pet foods as shown by the BBC article below.
Where could the microplastic risk come from?
Like so many of you, we sat down as a family in 2001 to watch Sir David's Attenborough's Blue Planet. We were shocked then by how much plastic affects our ocean from fishing nets left in the sea to waste from our plastic overuse being pumped into the oceans.
What is more shocking is that the Blue Planet documentary aired 25 years ago (!) Can you imagine now after 25 years, how much worse our ocean is?!
It is now a worrying statistic that fish and marine life feed on these microplastics that are so abundant in the ocean an on the ocean floor. These microplastics along with heavy metals such as Arsenic, Lead and Mercury then end up in their fat, liver and kidneys of fish and crustaceans!
We then have a process called BIOACCUMULATION where the byproducts of the fishing industry (yes fish kidneys, livers and fat) are crushed up to either be put directly into dog and cat food, or fed to chickens to allow for the extremely fast growth we now expect with Frankenchickens.
The livers and kidneys of the fish are the 'excretory organs' that have the function of getting rid of toxins in the body of a fish, so the fat, liver and kidneys will have a far greater accumulation of these microplastics (as well as the heavy metals that they get also from our increasingly affected oceans).
(Read here why cats should NEVER be fed fish as land mammals who never in their history swam in water to catch their food!!!)
And the process of BIOACCUMULATION of these microplastics, doesn't stop at our chickens, it continues into our pigs!
The affected livers and kidneys and fat of the Frankenchickens that are being produced today (enormous heavy fat chickens made to grow so fast for greater financial return), are either put into dog and cat food, or crushed up and fed to our omnivorous intensively farmed pigs, also made to grow extremely fast for greater financial return.
ALL of these microplastics and heavy metal contamination in our farmed pigs again accumulates in their excretory organs - livers and kidneys and fat which are used in almost every type of meat-based dog and cat food where they mention 'meat and animal derivatives' as an ingredient. There is no care as to the long term health of these pigs as they are slaughtered at 5 months with fatty livers full of the feed additives added just for fast growth.
Some companies specify the actual organs of the pig used in the food such as one of the veterinary renal diets that includes the liver of pigs for dogs with kidney disease as shown below.
These dogs need a pure diet to support their remaining kidney function, but instead they are being fed in this instance on the liver of a slaughtered 5 month old pig as part of this veterinary prescription diet:
What about raw feeding and microplastic risk?
The biggest selling point that the dangerous trend of feeding dogs and cats with raw food; is that it is 'natural'!
The very organs used in raw feeding are exactly those mentioned above - liver, kidneys, tripe - all full of these BIOACCUMULATED heavy metals and possible microplastics from the intensively farmed animals being fed fishmeal to make them grow faster (yes even our herbivorous cattle that are intensively raised for meat are fed fishmeal full of microplastics so that they too grow as fast as possible)
Those of you around in the 90's will remember the horrors of mass slaughter of up to 4 million cows (!) affected by mad cow disease caused by these cattle being fed mashed up brains of other cattle in their feed!!!
It is understandable why pure plant-based ingredients are found to be healthier than meat-based byproducts from a published study. (Zafalon et al)
What other possible contamination from plastic do we have with meat-based pet foods?
Please remember that our farmed cattle and dairy cows (yes sent to slaughter at the age of 6 when their milk production drops and their fertility drops and they cannot produce that calf every year after being artificially inseminated and having their calves removed soon after birth - tortuous and unnecessary when we have delicious plant-based milks)....but again I am getting distracted from microplastics!
Now every one of our cows and cattle used for meat or dairy, are never given names as they are commodities, and only given numbers so they can be followed from birth to growth to slaughter. They are labelled with plastic ear tags!
Some even have 2 plastic ear tags to make this process easier for the farmers and abattoir workers when the cattle and retired dairy cows (and even male calves) are led for slaughter and onto trucks to be able to recognise them from any side.
Is plant-based a solution?
Please note that lead author of the scientific research paper regarding microplastics in pet food in the UK does explain that there is some risk of microplastics with plants.
In the words of lead author Emily Thrift "Microplastics have been found to move into the tissues of plants and having carried out assessments of allotments, conventional and organic vegetable and crop farming there were large amounts of microplastics found in the soil, as well as, herbivorous small mammals and invertebrates."
Our products at Just Be Kind have not been tested for microplastics, so we cannot ensure no risk, but we only use pure plant ingredients in ALL of the foods that we stock at Just Be Kind, AND we have gone one step further by ensuring that the foods we stock and sell are all made from non-GMO ingredients to reduce pesticide risk!
NO soya is used in any of our products as organic soya is VERY expensive to use and we greatly admire ethical vegan company Benevo for using organically sourced non-GMO soya in their dry puppy food.
It took us a few years to register our UK's Best Wet Food trays Give A Dog A Bean, Jumping Jack and Gentle Rosie with the Vegan Society - we didn't want to compromise on quality and only the best organic ingredients are used for your dog (especially those with sensitivities or kidney issues needing a pure diet).
There should be little risk of bioaccumulation with our pure wholefood plant-based recipes, AND we did away with having our 3 recipes in tins as tins come packaged with plastic, whereas our trays come in sustainable cardboard boxes with NO plastic - what a success! 💚
Why we produced Omega 3 Daily Algae Oil
Now that you have a better understanding of the concern with feeding both our dogs and cats with fish oils with the heavy metal build up and possible microplastic risk, you can see why we sourced a company in The Netherlands to make our pure Omega 3 Algae oil with NO contamination risk as it is made from Algae grown enormously sustainably on land!!
Our Omega 3 Daily is superior to anything on the market for us - yes only the best for your animals that share your home !!
