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What are Mycotoxins?

Mycotoxins are one of the most common food hazards that can make pets ill are certain types of mycotoxins - toxic substances that are by products of certain species of mold fungii that infect grain crops, especially crops that are exposed to moisture late in the growing season or during storage and transport.

This is a far more serious situation than bacterial contamination since mycotoxins cannot be cooked out of pet food production.

The two most frequent mycotoxins are Vomitoxin which as the name suggests causes severe vomiting and can result in a pet's death. Vomitoxin commonly affects wheat and barley.

The second is Aflatoxin, a toxin that is manufactured by one of several strains of Aspergillus. Corn is the most common host to the mold that makes aflatoxin. Liver damage and death can result when a pet eats food contaminated with aflatoxins.

How Prevalent Are Mycotoxins in Pet Food?

Mycotoxin contamination is not an uncommon occurrence in pet food. Corn, wheat middlings and soybeans are the usual pathway ingredients. In a pass it down the road strategy, grain dealers often dump products which are deemed unfit for human consumption on the pet food industry to avoid suffering economic losses.

There are few government regulations in place so many pet companies do not institute quality control programs that detect mycotoxins in their products.

Usually you'll hear about mycotoxins in the news only when a massive contamination has affected a huge amount of pet food or a large number of pets. This occurred in 2007 and 2005, when 19 of the pet foods manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods was recalled after scores of deaths were traced to Aflatoxin in their foods.

Many owners are unaware of the mycotoxin problem, what with busy lives or lack of information. Even vets may not be aware of the mycotoxins poisoning as they are usually focused on treatment rather than source. However, toxin poisoning should be considered anytime a pet is sick with a liver or neurological problem and fed dry food, especially foods containing corn, wheat and barley.

Prevention of Mycotoxin Contamination

Manufacturers have a number of strategies they can use to prevent contamination. First, start with ingredient purchasing contracts from reliable manufacturers, but also include inspection and testing of each load of raw ingredients before delivery is accepted. This is generally difficult for high volume production facilities and explains why the largest mycotoxin poisoning involved large companies... Nature's Recipe in 1995, Doane Pet in 1998, Diamond in 2005 and Menu Foods in 2007.

What Can Pet Owners Do?

Try and feed your pets a natural home prepared meal using human grade ingredients. That's what I have been doing for the past few months and my dog's itching has disappeared completely. Just as important, he is happier and enjoys the food.

Consider how your local pet store responded to the problems and how proactive they are about storing the right brands and keeping up to date.

Research the foods and brands that you are feeding your pet. There are a wealth of holistic brands out there that take extreme care in making sure their foods are human grade and fully tested.

Given the bottom line approach that most large corporations take, if you are circumspect, you are not alone. Identify safe sources of pet food - it may well be your kitchen - so that you are safe than sorry.

Be alert to your pets response to their food. Vomiting and diarrhea are the most obvious signs of a problem with the food.

With all but perennially fussy pets, it's significant when a pet declines or is reluctant to eat a food. If the pet is increasingly reluctant the deeper you get into a bag, that is also a signal.

Stop feeding a pet food it does not want to eat or is very reluctant to eat. If your pet becomes ill after eating a food, contact the vet to discuss your pets symptoms.

A History of Problems

In October 2004 the Whole Dog Journal published an article "When Foods Go Bad" that wrote about how pet owners could protect their pets from serious harm from toxin adulterated food. It outlined the lessons learnt from previous disasters.

Lessons Learnt

Always store pet food in the bag it came in or if you use a container, keep the bag so that you have the date/code information if a problem arises. This information can be critical in arriving at a proper response should a problem arise.

Dont feed your pet any food that looks or smells bad. If a dry food is covered with green spots, hairy structures or is moldy, contact the local retailer and do not feed any to the pet!

If the pet has a bad reaction to one food, do provide your pet with another food from a different company while you monitor his response.

Maximize Your Pets Health

Whole foods are more desirable than food "fragments". So this means
Yes to Wheat, NO to wheat gluten, wheat mill run, wheat bran.

Yes to Chicken, NO to Chicken by product meal.

Yes to Unprocessed

First, unprocessed foods enjoy less exposure to potentially harmful agents in the course of processing storage and transport.

Second, fresh and minimally processed foods are more nutritious than ingredients that are several operations, months and miles from harvest. Processing reduces the vitamin content, and can destroy unique nutrient properties such as enzyme, antioxidants and flavonoids.

Avoid low cost pet foods that use fillers and comprised of parts of food that human food manufacturers have no use for.

Avoid fillers such as peanut hulls, cereal fines, tomato pomace, beet pulp. Use human grade meat if possible. In particular, avoid plant derived proteins, especially wheat corn and their glutens.