When I picked Sorenne up at school the other day, the kids were dancing wildly in the sunshine to a Justine Clarke song.

I had at least 10 years of Robert Munch books, Sharon Lois and Bram sing-alongs, and Sesame Street TV.

I’ve been doing it again and besides the Wiggles, the biggest kids’ entertainer in Australia seems to be Justine Clarke.

There’s a free TV channel that runs nothing but kids’ programs, and an episode of Play School from 2005 that was on the other day featured then co-host Justine Clarke cutting up raw meat to feed to the dog and her puppies; mixed with brown rice, because what species can’t get enough Asian fusion cooking in their diet.

Cross-contamination was a problem.

With the on-going outbreak of Salmonella Infantis linked to Diamond Pet Foods that has sickened at least 22 humans, National Public Radio in the U.S. summarized a too cutesy brief about the outbreak with this gem: “If keeping track of recent pet food scares is just too complicated, you could always make your own food for Fido.”

The highlighted link took readers to an April 4, 2007 story from NPR, with the redux title, After pet food scare, could homemade be a help?

Phil Klein, the co-owner of Whiskers Holistic Pet Care and billed as an expert in the field of homemade pet food, shared his advice with host Neal Conan. A couple of experts are below.

“CONAN: Yet we’re always told to feed our pets pet food. How come?

“Mr. KLEIN: Well, let me ask you a question. I’m sure that you’re very, very aware, and I’m sure this enlightened audience is very aware of the Egyptian hieroglyphs on the pyramids in which are depicted dogs and cats of that era. Okay? So we know that dogs and cats are at least 3,500 years old and have not changed materially in basic format since then, correct? Okay, who cooked kibble for dogs for the pharaoh?

“CONAN: I didn’t see any checkerboard patterns on any of the obelisks.

“Mr. KLEIN: Okay, my next thing is – our paradigm truly – at Whiskers Holistic Pet Care, our paradigm is how did the dog or cat live in the wild 150 years ago, very specifically in that timeframe. That was before we screwed up our soil so badly so that the nutrients in the ingredients that the dogs and the cats ate in the wild were much more dense than they are, currently.
Be that as it may, if you go into those woods, you find me the trees in which live the Keebler elves cooking kibble, or find me a can opener hanging from a bush.”

Nature can be nasty, brutish and short.

And cross-contamination isn’t child’s play, with pet food or human food.