Pork in cat food - what's the deal?

[jclark]

Yes, the 66 cases over a 5 year period is pretty small, but the CDC can only document cases that it hears about involving humans. There are no such statistics involving pets unfortunately. It could very well be that there is a decline in Trichinella as people have become more aware of safe practices when it comes to handling meat, but as far as the commercial pet food industry, who knows what goes on in those factories as to whether the handling and processing of meat is being done safely?

Being that many restaurants who serve pork chops recommend that they're cooked medium rare I think we're out of the woods with regards to Trichinella. It's different than cancer or maladies related to old age, etc.

In any case I believe the original intent behind this thread was that Pork in general was bad for cats and there simply is a dearth of evidence proving such.

 

[oneandahalfcats]

Well, to each his/her own I guess when it comes to medium rare pork chops. I have always been of the understanding that when it comes to pork in particular, it should always be well-cooked. Not to the point of burnt, mind you.

 

 

[marc999]

Yeah, so was I....yet, check this out. I've been eating pork @ medium for years. I love pork tenderloin or butterfly pork chops.

For juicy, tender and flavorful pork, it might be time to toss out Grandma’s advice. According to the new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines, pork chops, roasts and tenderloins can be safely cooked to medium rare at a final internal cooked temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit as measured by a food thermometer, followed by a three-minute rest time. .....

Restaurants have been following this standard for nearly 10 years. The new temperature recommendation reflects advances in both food safety and nutritional content for today’s pork, which is much leaner than Grandma’s, and even Mom’s, pork. - See more at: http://www.porkbeinspired.com/pork_promotemperaturechangeannouncement.aspx#sthash.CJLpZFwY.dpuf

News to me as well, I was following Gramma's advice for years haha. 

 

[catpack]

Canned food with Pork:
Natural Choice
Hills a/d; I/d (there's another one too, I think.)
Simply Nourish (Specific Pork varieties)
Instinct (regular formulas of Rabbit, Venison and Pork..not LID formulas) and their Cat's PRIDE line (Rabbit and Tuna formulas.

There are more, those are just the ones I can list off the top of my head right now. I have just gotten in the habit of reading all ingredient labels.

 

[oneandahalfcats]

 
Yeah, so was I....yet, check this out. I've been eating pork @ medium for years. I love pork tenderloin or butterfly pork chops.

For juicy, tender and flavorful pork, it might be time to toss out Grandma’s advice. According to the new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines, pork chops, roasts and tenderloins can be safely cooked to medium rare at a final internal cooked temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit as measured by a food thermometer, followed by a three-minute rest time. .....

Restaurants have been following this standard for nearly 10 years. The new temperature recommendation reflects advances in both food safety and nutritional content for today’s pork, which is much leaner than Grandma’s, and even Mom’s, pork. - See more at: http://www.porkbeinspired.com/pork_promotemperaturechangeannouncement.aspx#sthash.CJLpZFwY.dpuf

News to me as well, I was following Gramma's advice for years haha. 

Mmmm, yes I like pork tenderloin and butterfly chops as well, just not medium rare when it comes to pork. Now, if you are talking prime rib on the other hand, I usually go medium rare here. Had some of this at Xmas and it was awesome!

Just to be clear, I have nothing against feeding raw .. I just think for those who are new and contemplating feeding this to cats and dogs, its important to provide all of the information so that informed choices can be made, rather than just saying there are no issues with pork, or chicken or beef or fish, etc., as all meat has the potential for bacterial development.

 

[mschauer]

Just to be clear, I have nothing against feeding raw .. I just think for those who are new and contemplating feeding this to cats and dogs, its important to provide all of the information so that informed choices can be made, rather than just saying there are no issues with pork, or chicken or beef or fish, etc., as all meat has the potential for bacterial development.

I think you will find here at TCS when it comes to raw feeding we are very careful about NOT making claims like " there are no issues with pork, or chicken or beef or fish, etc., " and that is certainly the case in this thread. 

 

[dianamc]

I knew I'd seen pork liver in a couple of foods. It's in NVI Venison and NVI Rabbit.  It's not in the NVI Beef.

Hound&Gatos uses duck liver in a couple of flavors that we have.  So far Dandy has not cared for that brand.  She will grudgingly eat Lamb, Chicken & Salmon; however, she has just eaten 2 cans of Lamb without a fuss (knock on wood).  She wouldn't touch the H&G pork.

I was surprised to see pork in the foods too.  Dandy has gone off beef now, BTW.  She still eats the NVI fairly well, but only eats the Welllness Beef & Chicken under protest.  She didn't like NVI Venison but I doubt it had anything to do with pork liver.  She likes that rabbit. $$$$. To be fair, she has never made a fuss about her FF chicken flavors, although filling her on those isn't as economical as you would think.

If the fat molecules were bigger in pork, wouldn't that be news for everyone?  At one time, I understood that pork had become much leaner than previously (probably 20 years ago or so, considering my age).

 

[goholistic]

In any case I believe the original intent behind this thread was that Pork in general was bad for cats and there simply is a dearth of evidence proving such.

Wait...how did we come to this conclusion?  

  It was not my intent at all as the OP to say that pork is bad.

From what I gathered of everyone's comments, pork in any form (canned or raw) is probably fine to feed in rotation with other proteins, but not best to feed exclusively...say, as a novel protein for allergies where this is the only thing fed for an extended period of time. As to raw, I'm reading that people have not had any problems with it when fed in rotation with other proteins, and concerns over raw pork that surfaced many years ago may not be as much of a concern today. Of course, some people may choose not feed it at all to avoid the risk.

I don't feed raw, but have been curious as to what seems to be an increase of pork in commercial canned foods. I was watching a cooking show one time, and they had a diagram of a pig and were explaining all the different cuts of meat from various parts of the pig and what they are called. I'm a semi-vegetarian, so I'm like the least knowledgeable in this area, but I find it fascinating. My concern is that they're probably not putting white meat pork chops in canned cat food. Are they using whatever is left over from useable meat? "Pork" I think is just an overall term for pig meat, different cuts of meat from a pig can be lean or really, really fatty.

I purchased a couple cans of the Hound & Gatos Pork, but it has a whopping 45% fat DMB. I have not yet offered it to Sebastian because of a hurdle we're working through right now. He has chronic pancreatitis, and even though I've read that fat doesn't affect pancreatitis in cats as it does in dogs, I think offering a 45% fat food would be pushing it.

 

[mschauer]

 

In any case I believe the original intent behind this thread was that Pork in general was bad for cats and there simply is a dearth of evidence proving such.

Wait...how did we come to this conclusion?  

  It was not my intent at all as the OP to say that pork is bad.

Yeah, I thought that was a mis-statement of your intent. 

From what I gathered of everyone's comments, pork in any form (canned or raw) is probably fine to feed in rotation with other proteins, but not best to feed exclusively...say, as a novel protein for allergies where this is the only thing fed for an extended period of time. As to raw, I'm reading that people have not had any problems with it when fed in rotation with other proteins, and concerns over raw pork that surfaced many years ago may not be as much of a concern today. Of course, some people may choose not feed it at all to avoid the risk.

I think that is accurate except that I don't know of any reason why it shouldn't be fed exclusively; at least no reason except what is true for feeding any single protein exclusively. 

  

I purchased a couple cans of the Hound & Gatos Pork, but it has a whopping 45% fat DMB. I have not yet offered it to Sebastian because of a hurdle we're working through right now. He has chronic pancreatitis, and even though I've read that fat doesn't affect pancreatitis in cats as it does in dogs, I think offering a 45% fat food would be pushing it.

I think you will find that is true of most if not all of the products advertised as something like "95% meat". A large portion of the 'meat' is actually fat. 

 

 

[mschauer]

FYI: There is a problem with the second page of this thread. It can only be viewed if you are logged in. An error message comes up if you try to view it while not logged in. It has been reported to the site administrator.

Never mind! It's already fixed!

 

[jclark]

Questioning pork in cat food

 

[ldg]

Mmmm, yes I like pork tenderloin and butterfly chops as well, just not medium rare when it comes to pork. Now, if you are talking prime rib on the other hand, I usually go medium rare here. Had some of this at Xmas and it was awesome! :bigthumb:

Just to be clear, I have nothing against feeding raw .. I just think for those who are new and contemplating feeding this to cats and dogs, its important to provide all of the information so that informed choices can be made, rather than just saying there are no issues with pork, or chicken or beef or fish, etc., as all meat has the potential for bacterial development.

mschauer already addressed this comment as re: raw feeders and how we present things on this site.

But what everyone seemed to miss about the raw pork issue is that commercial pork, if properly frozen, kills any potential trich. According to the CDC:

Freeze pork less than 6 inches thick for 20 days at 5°F (-15°C) to kill any worms.

http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/gen_info/faqs.html

This does not apply to wild game meats.


As to why more cat foods do not contain pork (especially as it is SO palatable to most cats)? We discussed this in another thread, and my theory is that humans use so much of the pork by-products and garbage not used for meat production in our own products, sourcing might be an issue for cat foods. Think of bologna, hot dogs, sausage, etc. People eat pork feet (or use them for soup stock), they're easy to find in ethnic markets. Think "pork rinds" in any gas station that sells snacky foods. So MY guess is that pork waste costs more than other meat waste, because there's more demand for it in human foods.

I have a friend that just recently transitioned to raw because of her kitty's suspected IBD. She lives in the middle of nowhere, sandwiched between two National parks in CA near the NV border. She has access to almost nothing. So while she does plan to introduce other proteins, she is currently feeding an exclusively pork raw diet, and has been, at this point, for two months. Her cat, who had issues with nausea, gas, diarrhea, inappetance, and was too thin, is now his ideal weight, very muscular, gobbles his meals (as she says) in about 15 seconds. No more nausea, no more gas, no more diarrhea, no more inappetance. She got up the courage two weeks ago to feed him a little bit of organic egg yolk (chicken cat food always made him the sickest). No problem, no reaction. She fed him an entire egg yolk last week - no reaction. So she'll be introducing chicken soon, and from there probably turkey.

But to mschauer's point - we have a kitty, right now, thriving on an only raw pork and pork organ diet. In this instance, it was treated as a novel protein.

 

[oneandahalfcats]

mschauer already addressed this comment as re: raw feeders and how we present things on this site.

But what everyone seemed to miss about the raw pork issue is that commercial pork, if properly frozen, kills any potential trich. According to the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/gen_info/faqs.html

This does not apply to wild game meats.


As to why more cat foods do not contain pork (especially as it is SO palatable to most cats)? We discussed this in another thread, and my theory is that humans use so much of the pork by-products and garbage not used for meat production in our own products, sourcing might be an issue for cat foods. Think of bologna, hot dogs, sausage, etc. People eat pork feet (or use them for soup stock), they're easy to find in ethnic markets. Think "pork rinds" in any gas station that sells snacky foods. So MY guess is that pork waste costs more than other meat waste, because there's more demand for it in human foods.

I have a friend that just recently transitioned to raw because of her kitty's suspected IBD. She lives in the middle of nowhere, sandwiched between two National parks in CA near the NV border. She has access to almost nothing. So while she does plan to introduce other proteins, she is currently feeding an exclusively pork raw diet, and has been, at this point, for two months. Her cat, who had issues with nausea, gas, diarrhea, inappetance, and was too thin, is now his ideal weight, very muscular, gobbles his meals (as she says) in about 15 seconds. No more nausea, no more gas, no more diarrhea, no more inappetance. She got up the courage two weeks ago to feed him a little bit of organic egg yolk (chicken cat food always made him the sickest). No problem, no reaction. She fed him an entire egg yolk last week - no reaction. So she'll be introducing chicken soon, and from there probably turkey.

But to mschauer's point - we have a kitty, right now, thriving on an only raw pork and pork organ diet. In this instance, it was treated as a novel protein.

Hi Laurie. Thanks for your feedback.

I posted that very same link earlier on in the thread in response to comments that seemed to be suggesting that there was nothing to worry about when it comes to trichinellosis in pork, when its clear according to the CDC, that there still can be issues with trichinellosis when the proper precautions are not taken, such as that which you have referenced.

Max and I had a visit with my holistic vet yesterday and we discussed raw feeding and the different approaches. She was all for it and even recommended a local farm that supplies a complete raw food product. She also talked about her concern with some pet owners who have jumped on the raw food bandwagon, but with disasterous results as they either : didn't follow the recipe they were using to the letter, or, didn't incorporate the right amount or type of supplements needed to make raw food complete, or didn't have a good understanding or awareness of working with raw meat or what their pet's particular dietary needs were before selecting the right diet. Here comments were not to criticize but to point out that things can go horribly wrong when raw food feeding is not done properly. I agreed wholeheartedly with her.

I think we can all agree that feeding a raw food diet can be very beneficial, but it does come with some caveats, and for this reason I think that it is important when talking about raw feeding of any given protein, that you need to include something about precautions so that people are aware of what they need to do, to keep things safe. As to the sourcing of pork for commercial diets, you may be onto something with the suggestion that pork by-products may be hard to come by. That said, I don't know that I

would want to feed my cat the same kinds of stuff that goes into a weiner or bologna, or god forbid, pork rinds (eewwww)?

Just sayin ... I would also hope when it comes to expensive canned like Hounds & Gatos for instance that there is something better for the meat source than pork by-products. 

I think its great when a cat can thrive on the species appropriate diet it was built for. I am looking forward with great curiosity and enthusiasm to trying the raw food diet product from this local farm my vet suggested. She plans on carrying it in her clinic but I have already found a source in town, where I can get a one pound tub to start.

 

[mschauer]

I think we can all agree that feeding a raw food diet can be very beneficial, but it does come with some caveats, and for this reason I think that it is important when talking about raw feeding of any given protein, that you need to include something about precautions so that people are aware of what they need to do, to keep things safe.

Which is why there is a sub-forum dedicated to discussing *all sides* of such issues. I strongly urge anyone who is interested in understanding why feeding raw pork is not necessarily a concern, even if it isn't frozen for 20 days before feeding, to review the information provided in the Raw & Home-Cooked resources threads and if they still have a concern to post a question to that forum.

 

[denice]

 
Hi Laurie. Thanks for your feedback.

I posted that very same link earlier on in the thread in response to comments that seemed to be suggesting that there was nothing to worry about when it comes to trichinellosis in pork, when its clear according to the CDC, that there still can be issues with trichinellosis when the proper precautions are not taken, such as that which you have referenced.

Max and I had a visit with my holistic vet yesterday and we discussed raw feeding and the different approaches. She was all for it and even recommended a local farm that supplies a complete raw food product. She also talked about her concern with some pet owners who have jumped on the raw food bandwagon, but with disasterous results as they either : didn't follow the recipe they were using to the letter, or, didn't incorporate the right amount or type of supplements needed to make raw food complete, or didn't have a good understanding or awareness of working with raw meat or what their pet's particular dietary needs were before selecting the right diet. Here comments were not to criticize but to point out that things can go horribly wrong when raw food feeding is not done properly. I agreed wholeheartedly with her.

I think we can all agree that feeding a raw food diet can be very beneficial, but it does come with some caveats, and for this reason I think that it is important when talking about raw feeding of any given protein, that you need to include something about precautions so that people are aware of what they need to do, to keep things safe. As to the sourcing of pork for commercial diets, you may be onto something with the suggestion that pork by-products may be hard to come by. That said, I don't know that I

would want to feed my cat the same kinds of stuff that goes into a weiner or bologna, or god forbid, pork rinds (eewwww)?

Just sayin ... I would also hope when it comes to expensive canned like Hounds & Gatos for instance that there is something better for the meat source than pork by-products. 

I think its great when a cat can thrive on the species appropriate diet it was built for. I am looking forward with great curiosity and enthusiasm to trying the raw food diet product from this local farm my vet suggested. She plans on carrying it in her clinic but I have already found a source in town, where I can get a one pound tub to start.

My kitties conventional vet understands the benefits of raw but she is hesitant to recommend it because of the above.  She can't control the sources that people use and their handling of raw meat.  It's one of those things that if someone isn't committed to doing it right there can be huge issues.  People would then be blaming her for a very sick kitty or worse a kitty that doesn't make it.

 

[mschauer]

Originally Posted by Denice  

My kitties conventional vet understands the benefits of raw but she is hesitant to recommend it because of the above.  She can't control the sources that people use and their handling of raw meat.  It's one of those things that if someone isn't committed to doing it right there can be huge issues.  People would then be blaming her for a very sick kitty or worse a kitty that doesn't make it.

Yes, it is very common for vets to try to dissuade their clients from feeding raw by making it sound like it is very difficult to do. It isn't. You do have to learn a few things but it ain't brain surgery I promise! 

 

[oneandahalfcats]

Yes, I think the aspect of liability may have something to do with it.

 

[jcat]

Can we get back on topic, folks? View media item 206379

 

[oneandahalfcats]

LOL. Hope those guns aren't loaded! ...

 

[goholistic]

LOL....love the pig smiley.

Okay...I'll comment on topic. Sebastian was turning his nose up at the canned rabbit he's been getting (again), so I decided to open up a can of the Hound & Gatos Pork and mix half and half. Boy, is that stuff potent. It smells SO strong that it'll just completely drown out any other food you mix with it. It's definitely not white meat pork chops! It smells like ham, pink in color, and is very fatty looking. I can see why cats like it. However, it made me a little nauseous.  

  Sebastian seemed to like it enough. (He's not feeling all that great, so really, any food is not that appealing to him right now.)

I might pick up the Nature's Variety canned pork and just pick out the peas and carrots. I'm curious to see how different the pork is.