Author Archives: Michelle Mazur

Cats eating better than their owners

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I’ve just started my first year of veterinary school, and after only two days into the program, I’ve been contacted by at least five pet food companies touting their premium pet food that is healthy for pets and tasty as well.  I suppose that pets enjoy the variety of flavors, but a new study from Australia suggests it’s doing more harm than good.

Deakin University scientist Dr Giovanni Turchini has discovered an estimated 2.48 million tonnes of forage fish – a limited biological resource – is consumed by the global cat food industry each year.

This puts cats ahead of people as far as consumption rates go; pet cats are eating an estimated 13.7 kilograms of fish a year, which far exceeds the Australian average (human) per capita fish and seafood consumption of around 11 kilograms.

Just as obesity has become a major epidemic among Americans, it is also an epidemic among pets.  These tasty canned foods with enticing flavors such as “shredded yellowfin tuna fare” only encourage pets to grow wider around the belly all while pet food companies continue to cook up new ideas for making cats want their food.

What happened to cats eating regular dry food?  Though, even the dry food goes overboard for Fancy Feast, which touts three different flavors for the finicky cat.  With the slogan of “A bowl full of ‘I love you,’” Fancy Feast has definitely gone overboard in pampering cats.  If you love your pet, then why are you feeding it a high-fat meal?

The luxury products containing fish unfortunately are contributing to the overfishing problem worldwide.

Barfing on the BARF diet

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A raw diet for pets is quite a controversial subject.  Processed pet foods are processed with heat, making vitamins and nutrients less available compared to raw diets.  Raw diets are also generally free from additives and preservatives found in traditional pet foods.

However, raw diets cost more money per day and require more time and labor in order to prepare the meal.  There is also a risk of contamination with bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli with raw pet food diets.  A study conducted by Joffe found that 30 percent of dogs on raw food diets had salmonella in their stool.  "Dogs eating raw chicken will secrete salmonella into the environment," explains Joffe. "It can cause everything from mild flu-like problems to life-threatening illnesses."

The most popular version of the raw diet is called the BARF diet, short for Bones And Raw Food or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.  BARF diets are composed mainly of raw meat and vegetables.  Most veterinarians are not happy about these diets because there is no guarantee that the pet is receiving a properly balanced and nutritionally complete meal, and there is also the problem of bacterial contamination.

The Canadian Veterinarian Medical Association doesn’t recommend feeding pets raw food, and neither does the American Veterinary Medial Association.

If pet owners are looking for an alternative to store bought pet food, the optimal word according to the CMVA is "cooked." Make sure to use recipes that call for cooked meats. A healthy recipe includes cooked meat, such as hamburger or chicken, with potato or rice and a mineral supplement.  Proper cooking practices, such as using a meat thermometer and handwashing, are also essential to ensure the safety of the meal.
 

Baking cookies with the Mazurs: Kids make terrible chefs

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We have a delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe in our family and it puts the icing on the cake at our family gatherings.  Over Christmas my immediate family and I spent time with my uncle and his family in Wichita, KS.  My uncle has a seven-year-old boy and three-year-old girl, and after much playing with playdoh and coloring we soon became bored and started looking for a new activity.  Why not bake chocolate chip cookies?  

Well, all we had to say was the word “cookie” and the kids were on board with this activity.  My uncle and my mom were adamant about washing the kids’ hands before we started cooking, but that was a hopeless cause.  Their hands only had a tiny bit of soap on a few fingers, and there wasn’t even much scrubbing involved.  It was just a quick rinse.  And as soon as the kids were done washing their hands, they put their hands right back in their mouths, on the floor, on the dog, who knows where else.

I pointed out to my mom that letting the kids mix the ingredients and mixing the batter was a terrible idea.  They’ll stick their fingers in it, and they’ll sneeze in it.  But it had already been decided that EVERYONE was going to help out with the baking, so the kids went ahead and both took turns stirring the cookie dough.

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a germ-a-phobe, except for some cases  and watching these kids contaminate perfectly good chocolate chip cookies just broke my heart.  I can only imagine what kinds of germs were in that cookie dough, but hopefully all of the germs were killed when the dough was put into the oven.

However, after the oven when the cookies were sitting on the cooling rack there were a few incidents of kids picking up cookies and then putting them back.  The kids were the exact opposite of food inspectors.  Instead of carefully examining the cookies with clean hands, the kids picked up the cookies with dirty hands and brought them quite close to their face (even sometimes touching it to their nose) to sniff and see if they tasted good.

Needless to say, I did not have a one of the cookies.

Handwashing is one of the major tools used to combat food borne illness.  Kids especially must be supervised to ensure that they use an adequate amount of soap and scrub their hands for at least 20-30 seconds.
 


 

Texas: Crypto suspect in child’s death

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6-year-old Rosemary Stagaman of Richardson died last Tuesday morning in Dallas County.  Health officials believe that the death was due to a cryptosporidium infection, but the medical examiner is still waiting on toxicology tests to determine the exact cause of her death.  Her family says she tested positive for crypto after swimming in the Greenwood Hills Community Pool.

Tests will take 10 days to confirm whether cryptosporidium played a part in the child’s death. If it is related, it would be the first death from the waterborne illness in recent memory.

Since June 2008, Dallas County has confirmed 41 cases of crypto. The crypto outbreak in the area began at Burger’s Lake in Fort Worth.  Tarrant County has reported 81 cases of crypto, with 67 of them coming from Burger’s Lake.

All 30 pools of the YMCA of Metro Dallas, along with the city pools, were temporarily closed and hyperchlorinated in an attempt to wipe out the nasty parasite.

Experts are unsure of why there’s been a spike in outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis in recent years.  It could be due to poor hygiene standards practiced by parents.

The crypto parasite has a thick outer shell, making it resistant to normal levels of chlorine.  Available treatments include hyperchlorination and UV filters.  Crypto enters the pool through fecal matter and the infection is especially dangerous to the young an the elderly, as well as the immunocompromised.  Swimmers should wash their hands with warm soap water and also take a shower before entering the pool and after using the bathroom.

The Mazurs and Food Safety

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I like to think of myself as being quite conscious of food safety, but I have learned so much since starting my work with the International Food Safety Network six months ago.  Not only do I think more about washing my hands and cleaning food properly, I’ve told my family members about it as well.

My mom has become a regular reader of BarfBlog and we’ve also discussed a few of the articles at the dinner table.  When we’re out doing things and we see someone doing something unsafe with food (like picking food up off the floor and eating it) one of our favorite things to do is say, “Doug wouldn’t like that.”

It turns out that there are a few things in the lives of the Mazurs that “Doug wouldn’t like.”  A prime example is one of our favorite restaurants on the East side of Wichita.  They serve traditional Indian food, buffet style.  The restaurant is family owned, and as far as I know they have a relatively clean restaurant up to code according to the city.  But during my interview for my job with Doug, we discussed this restaurant and I distinctly remember him telling me it wasn’t a good idea to eat at a buffet.  The food sits out for hours and so many people go up and contaminate it, even with a sneeze guard.

He’s right, buffet style is a food safety nightmare , but unfortunately it hasn’t stopped our family from eating there once every two weeks.  I have yet to get sick from the buffet, so I continue to play the game of Russian roulette with the possible pathogens in the Indian food.  Each time we sit down at that restaurant we all say, “Doug sure wouldn’t approve of this.

Beijing: Serving up water buffalo penis, yak’s testicles, and deer penis juice at the Guo-li-Zhuang restaurant

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China has been known to have a wide array of food items available at markets and restaurants.  Beijing’s Guo-li-Zhuang restaurant offers something even more exotic than fugu (puffer fish)  or fried whale. Here the menu consists almost entirely of penis and testicle dishes  — made from the private parts of deer, snakes, yaks, horses, seals and ducks, among others.

“Chinese eat anything with four legs, except tables. And everything that flies, except airplanes,” says business student Zhaoran, quoting a well-known Chinese saying. This may be true, but even in China a penis restaurant is unusual.

Guolizhuang’s owner, who set it up in November 2005, is proud to combine his own surname (Guo), his wife’s (Li) and his son’s nickname (Zhuang) into its title.  A booking comes with a trained waitress and a nutritionist in attendance, to explain the menu and to boast its medicinal virtues.

At the first thought of eating animal penises, most cringe.  But the Chinese consider it a health treatment for the libido, and repeatedly eating the penis and testicles of an animal is said to help raise the libido of men and cure kidney and erection problems.  For their medicinal effect to work, the dishes have to be consumed regularly.

There is also a wine available that is fast-acting and is said to work better than Viagra (without the side effects).  The wine contains extracts of heart, penis, and blood from a deer; it is said to taste like a bitter lemon.  Ladies are even invited to try some of the dishes.  Penis is said to be good for the skin, but women do not eat testicles in order to prevent masculine features from developing.

The meals served do not come cheap: A yak penis costs €179, while a hotpot with 10 different penis-and-testicle selections served on an attractive, four-sided plate tower with little statues of animals will set you back €89. For particularly discerning palates, the menu also offers deer and sheep fetuses (€36 and €9, respectively).

If you’ve made travel plans to enjoy the Olympics in Beijing, I suggest this restaurant as an adventurous dining experience.

BBC Reporter Stefan Gates speaks with one of the chefs about their menu items.

Topeka, KS: Poop in Lake Shawnee

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Lake Shawnee in Topeka, Kansas recently had a code brown: poop in the lake.  Lakes with swimming areas should have a safe policy in place, but two year lifeguard Gray Botswell was told to go into the water and retrieve the fecal matter with his bare hands.  When he refused, he was asked to go home and not to return. Girlfriend Kristen Whithorn who has been a lifeguard at the lake for four years also walked off the job after she was told that she couldn’t speak to media about her boyfriend’s incident.

It sounds like there was no proper policy in place, so the guys in charge decided that the lifeguards would just have to take care of the problem.  However, removing fecal matter with bare hands isn’t ideal. It’s much better to try to protect the hands somehow or to fish out the poop with a scoop.

The director of parks and recs for Shawnee County, John Knight, says that a new policy is in place for lifeguards at Lake Shawnee if poop is found in the lake again.  The lake water has been tested for E. coli but results have not been released.

Public beaches on the coast are often tested for fecal coliforms and E. coli.  Both are indicator organisms of the presence of harmful bacteria in the water.  If the levels of bacteria are too high, the swimming area may be closed for a period of time.  But the same system does not exist for many lakes with swimming areas.

When swimming in lakes, oceans or rivers, children should not drink the water they are swimming in.  There is the possibility of human fecal matter and also wildlife fecal matter in the water.

Jamie Oliver: Slaughtering chickens to raise awareness about slaughtering chickens

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I’ve never been much of a fan of cooking shows.  The chefs talk, they cook, they even sometimes teach poor food safety.  Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has taken the typical format of a cooking show and added an extra twist; audience members witness the killing of the chicken used in the meal.  Animal rights groups and poultry farmers are outraged over his new television show “Jamie’s Fowl Dinners.”

The show serves up a giant dose of shock and awe as chicks are gassed to death and an adult chicken is killed for the meal.  Yet throughout the show Oliver insists that he is trying to raise awareness about how chickens are treated in the poultry industry.

"I don’t think it’s sensational to show people the reality of how chickens live and die at the moment. It may be upsetting for some people but that’s how things are. And if seeing some of the practices helps to change the shopping habits of just 5 per cent of people watching, then it will be worth it.”

Channel 4 factual entertainment boss Andrew Mackenzie said: "Jamie’s simple message, in quite an overt way, will be: ‘If you know what happens to a chicken before arriving on your plate, would you change the way you think about chicken? Would you still eat it?’"

Oliver had criticized Sainbury’s supermarket over its involvement on his show and has since apologized for it.  It appears that his main goal to is encourage people to purchase free-range and organic chicken raised in less intensive facilities.  However I found that most of the program depicting the slaughter of chickens seems to push people towards vegetarianism rather than purchasing their chickens from another source.  You be the judge.

AVMA’s new veal welfare policy

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The American Veterinary Medical Association announced last week that they had passed a groundbreaking policy on veal calf housing that promotes both animal health and welfare. The resolution passed by a landslide 88.7 percent vote.

The new policy states "that the AVMA supports a change in veal husbandry practices that severely restrict movement, to housing systems that allow for greater freedom of movement without compromising health or welfare."

The former policy consisted of only a few points on living conditions, including that the area the calves are kept in permits them to stretch, stand, and lie down comfortably.

"This is encouraging on two levels," explains Dr. Ron DeHaven, AVMA chief executive officer. "First, we are proactively seeking to improve the welfare of veal calves, and second, the resolution still affords the AVMA Animal Welfare Committee the opportunity to do a comprehensive analysis of the science and to consider all relevant perspectives of veal calf production."

The confinement of veal calves and other farm animals is one of many issues that animal activists are passionate about.  Currently the Human Society of the United States is leading a campaign in California to pass legislation know as Proposition 2.  Prop 2 is aimed mostly towards egg-laying hens, pregnant sows, and calves raised for veal in order to improve their living conditions.  Perhaps the steps taken by the AVMA with new veal calf policies will help to continue their campaign.

Reptile firm in Florida convicted for selling turtles

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Turtles do not make good pets.  The best people to attest to it would be Julie and William Godwin, the parents of three-week-old Shanna Godwin, who was killed in Feb. 2007 by Salmonella Pomona from a pet turtle in their home.

To combat the public health impact of turtle-associated salmonellosis, in 1975 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned commercial distribution of turtles less than 4 inches in length.
It has been estimated that the FDA ban prevents some 100,000 cases of salmonellosis among children each year.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report on cases of turtle-associated salmonellosis in humans during 2006-2007, and the report concludes that the ban "likely remains the most effective public health action to prevent turtle-associated salmonellosis."

This week Strictly Reptile Inc. in Southern Florida was convicted for violating the ban on the sale of turtles with a shell length of less than 4 inches.

At least 103 cases of turtle-associated salmonellosis have been reported since May 2007, and many of those infected were children under the age of 10, the CDC said.  This makes it quite evident that turtles are still problem pets in people’s homes.