“Fresh” pet meat is full of preservatives and can harm your pet.
Beware of the so-called fresh pet meat in the supermarket.
Poppy came in to see me 10 days after a vaccination. Her skin was bright red and she had scabs all over it. What had changed? I had prescribed green lipid mussel for her terrible joints. The problem arose because green lipid mussel smells and tastes bad. So Mimi, Poppy’s owner went and bought a new product – ‘Fresh Chicken Chunkers’ from Woolworths Double Bay. The so-called ‘Freshly’ made meat has a long expiry and in tiny writing that took me a while to find it stated ‘NO SIGNIFICANT PRESERVATIVE ADDED’.
In Pet food there is no legislation on labelling preservatives. Sulphites are added to pet food to reduce the odour produced by replicating bacteria and to reduce the brown discolouration of the meat.
We know that sulphites inactivate thiamine that can be life threatening for cats and dogs especially young and older cats. We know in humans that sulphites headaches, irritable bowel syndrome signs, food intolerance, behavioural disturbances and skin rashes. They have also be a factor in asthma exacerbation in people.
Please don’t feed your pet any fresh pet meat. You should feed dry food or human consumption meat, which by the way is actually cheaper than the fresh pet meat.
If you are after more information a reference below was published in the Australian Veterinary Journal.
Thiamine deficiency due to sulphur dioxide preservative in ‘pet meat’ – a case of déjà vu
Australian Veterinary Journal
Volume 83, Issue 7, Date: July 2005, Pages: 408-411
R. MALIK, D. SIBRAA