Is it safe for people to eat dog or cat food?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got a 13-year-old boy’s honor riding on this.

There was a brisk discussion on our front porch Saturday afternoon, in between Pokemon trading card sessions and discussions of whether Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Rock was the better wrestler, and the subject of dog food came up.

“You can’t eat dog food or else you die,” was the opinion of the world-weary kid from down the street.

My son begged to differ. “They steam it when it’s put into cans in the factory,” he told him. “So it won’t kill you, it’s just nasty.”

Matters deteriorated quickly; I was appealed to. I had to say that I thought it was OK to eat, but that I would check.

Well? Canned or dry, dog or cat, also dog biscuits and those bizarro “treats”, are they safe for people to eat?

The kid from down the street staunchly maintains that he knows a kid who ate one of those “pig ears” and had to go to the hospital.

2

Well, based on my current state of health, I would say dog food is okay to eat.

I’ve eaten dog food before on a lost bet (it was canned alpo) and nothing happened to me afterwards. This was about 3 years ago and I had to eat half of the can.

So, there’s your scientific analysis. :slight_smile:

3

My cousing ate some dog bisquits once, and his only complaint was that they were very salty. I think anything a dog or cat can eat will also be safe for humans, the biggest danger is making folks around you PUKE while you eat it. Things we can eat, however can be dangerous for pets, such as chocolate and aspirin.

4

<looks around> Um…just between the two of us…I’ve had the dry stuff, and I didn’t die…But I am now WEIRD!!!

5

Probably OK, I would guess, and unlikely to hurt you to eat a bit of it occasionally. I knew a guy in a college dorm once who thought Purina puppy chow was a good snack food - whether he really thought this or just enjoyed the reaction he got, I don’t know, but he would sit around eating the damn stuff.

I remember tasting the canned dog food when I was a kid - it was kind of bland and gritty - they put ground bone meal in it. If anything, it would be the bone meal I’d worry about. Cat food tends not to have the bone meal and may be marginally more palatable if you can get past the
smell.

6

As a young child, I would eat anything that didn’t eat me first. THerefore, I ate both dry dog and cat food, and I am still alive to tell the tale.

7

My friend’s boyfriend snacks on dog biscuits all the time. He eats them at least once a day, and granted he is a nutter, but perfectly healthy. (He even tries to get us to taste them as he says they are good)
As for the canned variety, can’t see why it would kill you, but that is sooooo nasty.

8

Actually, NTM, during the Y2K hullabaloo, we lowly kennel cleaners at the vet clinic were discussing which dog or cat food, of the many varieties we stock, would make the best spaghetti sauce should civilization come screeching to a halt.

And one of my ex-coworkers used to munch on Milk Bones. She just delivered a healthy baby boy, so I’m assuming it didn’t cause her any harm!

Honestly, I can’t think of any reason why dog or cat food would hurt you. It certainly wouldn’t be a balanced diet, although some of the new dog foods would probably come pretty close. (They have peas and carrots and rice and other yummy stuff.)

One of those dried up pig’s ears might be another story, however. Not that there is anything wrong with the pig’s ear, but unless it is chewed up very, very thoroughly you will swallow some very tough, sharp pieces of tissue. We once had a little dog in the clinic whose intestines had been ripped up pretty bad by one of those types of snacks after he gulped down whole chunks. My vet doesn’t allow us to give them as treats, and discourages clients from feeding them.

So, the little boy may well have had to be hospitalized after eating the pig’s ear, but not because it was poisonous or contaminated or anything. It may have damaged his stomach and/or intestines or caused a blockage due to its indigestibility.

If you want to be absolutely, positively sure I will try to ask my vet tomorrow at work.

9

Coosa, it’s not that big a deal; short attention span of 13-year-olds, etc., but I WAS curious anyway.

Also, since I posted the OP, adult (supposedly!) feedback at this end says, “Oh, yeah, you should never eat canned dog or cat food, 'cause you’ll get that mad cow disease.” This person believes this; should I? (Not the Better Half, somebody else.)

10

There have been documented cases of felines getting mad cow disease and intensively reared mink too.

This has been put down to feed, but you would have thought that there would be an epidemic of it by now, unless that is, the projected incubation period is greater than the lifespans of the animals concerned.I’ve seen figures of up to 20 years bandied about.

11

Milk Bones have a rather piquant little flavor.

As for the mad cow disease angle, I’d say it’s BS. I can’t believe that cows condemned to die due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy have their bodies (and more importantly, their brains) used for pet food.

For more info, check out the official mad cow disease home page. (though I’m a little hazy on who would have the authority to declare this the “official” home page)

-ellis

12

When Bluesman was going through survival school, he and his teamates were given canned dog food by the “partisans” that were helping them escape and evade.

He survived it quite nicely, even enjoyed it (he was very hungry by that time), and I kind of doubt the USAF would risk its people getting mad cow disease.

13

Think you might find that BSE has been traced to the major nerve groups and spine.

14

There once was a National Lampoon True Fact (which doesn’t mean it wasn’t an urban legend, but let’s go on) that said Campbells was trying out a new type of beef stew. It wasn’t selling all that well, but they got a letter from Rudd Weatherwax saying his dog (i.e., TV’s Lassie) loved the stuff. So Campbell changed the assembly line to add a dog biscuit to each can and sold it as Mighty Dog.

I doubt there’d be any health hazard to eating dog or cat food. There’s nothing in them that isn’t edible for humans (though unappetizing). I wouldn’t make a steady diet of it, but it’s unlikely to kill you.

15

When my brother was really little, he’d trot his li’l pajama clad self downstairs in the early mornings and help himself to dry cat food out of the bin we kept it in. How did my parents figure this out? His breath…

As for the pig ear-- I apologize in advance for having no links or scientific data to back this up, but I’ve heard that sometimes, they treat pig ears (and other rawhide type chewies) with stuff that isn’t even healthy for dogs. Supposedly some of these items are meant primarily to be chew toys, not edibles.

16

Don’t some of the big companies have pet food tasters? (people who sample random batches to ensure uniform quality.) I recall hearing this, but so far a search hasn’t produced any evidence to back me up.

I did occasionally share a Milk Bone with our dog when I was growing up - they were good, just really dry. They never hurt me, unless you want to count that slight barking problem.

17

I’m sure eating it over a prolonged period of time wouldn’t kill you, but I’ll bet it would cause some minor health problems.

It’s just like feeding a dog cat food and it getting sick because it isn’t getting the necessary proteins and vitamins .

That’s why there isn’t just one generic pet food, because different animals have different requirements.

And if pet food had the ability to take a person’s life, wouldn’t there be a warning on the label??

18

We did a thread some time back about pet food, though I can’t recall when or the main heading.

Yes, you can eat it a few times with no harm and some forms you can eat repeatedly – like biscuits.

I, however, would NOT make a diet of it because the USDA standards do not apply for pet foods and within the last 25 years, major pet food companies have been holding our pets in disregard in comparison to sales. Cancer rates among household pets has soared to nearly 1 in 3 thanks to the crap they put in the food these days.

Here is why you should not eat the stuff:

A: Many pet food plants accept spoiled meats from grocery stores and stacks of road kill. Often they ‘forget’ to take the plastic wrappings from the meats before sending the mass to the grinders and don’t care what form of road kill is presented.

B: Many accept euthanized pets from vets. That means the diseases which killed the pets go into the mix – along with whatever medications were used to try to save the pets life or to terminate it.

C: Road kill often contains animals suffering from rabies.

D: While cooked into a form that almost guarantees the destruction of any diseases, many veterinary chemicals can remain in the mass.

C: Most pet foods mix in much salt to attract the animal and much corn. The corn is not easily digested by the animal, which means it is eating bulk but not getting much nourishment. Corn is cheap. Better ‘fillers’ are not.

D: Many fish based pet foods are chock full of flakes of fish bone and scale. (Note the debris around the dishes often left by cats who eat the fish based foods – little chunks of bone.) Fish are ground whole into a pulp, and include the waste from any fish processing plant – like heads, fins, guts and skins.

E: The better, more expensive pet foods are safer, use higher quality meats and better vegetable fillers. The cheaper the food, the worse it is.

Look at the Fancy Feast Flaked Tuna food. Look at any flaked tuna cat food and get an eyeful of the crap shoved on our pets.

19

It would probably make your hair nice and shiny though.

20

My brother once cooked up a mess of alpo chili and served it to him drunk colledge buddies. They were all alive last time I checked. And they liked the chili!!!

michael