Reasons why tuna treats for cats need to be limited

There are three main reasons why tuna treats for cats should be limited:

• Mercury poisoning and light lead poisoning
• Tuna is overfished. In the interests of conservation tuna needs to left alone to recover
• Tuna is an unbalanced food for cats

Would it be possible to slightly poison your cat if you fed them canned tuna all the time?

Canned tuna wouldn't cause lead poisoning in your cat, but there are other health concerns with feeding it all the time. Here's the breakdown:

• Lead: The amount of lead in canned tuna is very low and regulated for human consumption. It's unlikely to be enough to poison your cat.
• Mercury: Canned tuna, especially albacore, can be high in mercury. Frequent consumption can lead to mercury poisoning in cats, causing problems like loss of coordination and vision issues.
• Nutritional Imbalance: Canned tuna lacks essential nutrients cats need for a complete diet. Long-term feeding can lead to deficiencies and health problems.

Here's what to do instead:

• Treats: Offer canned tuna as an occasional treat, not a main food source. Opt for skipjack tuna due to lower mercury content.
• Cat Food: Feed your cat a high-quality, balanced cat food formulated to meet their nutritional needs.

If you're worried about your cat's diet, consult your veterinarian. They can recommend a healthy feeding plan and address any concerns about mercury or other potential issues

Why is canned tuna high in mercury?

Canned tuna can be high in mercury because tuna are high up the food chain. Here's the science behind it:

• Mercury's Origin: Mercury enters the oceans from natural sources like volcanoes and human activities like industrial pollution.
• Bioaccumulation: Bacteria convert mercury into methylmercury, a form absorbed by small fish.
• Predatory Cycle: Larger fish, like tuna, consume these smaller fish, inheriting their mercury. Unlike other toxins, mercury doesn't get flushed out, so it accumulates in the tuna's tissues over time.

Species Matters:

• High Mercury: Albacore tuna, a larger species, tends to have the highest mercury content.
• Lower Mercury: Skipjack tuna, a smaller variety, generally has lower mercury levels.

Safe Consumption:

• Variety is Key: Include various types of seafood in your diet to avoid exceeding recommended mercury limits.
• Government Resources: The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) https://www.fda.gov/ and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) https://www.epa.gov/ provide guidelines on safe fish consumption.

By understanding where mercury comes from and how it accumulates in tuna, you can make informed choices about incorporating this nutritious fish into your diet without exceeding safe mercury levels.

Is there lead inside tuna?

Yes, there can be trace amounts of lead in tuna. However, the levels are typically very low and well below the safety limits set by regulatory agencies.

Lead is a naturally occurring element that can also enter the environment through human activities such as pollution. Fish absorb lead from the water they live in and the food they eat. Larger, predatory fish like tuna tend to have higher levels of lead than smaller fish because they accumulate lead over time as they consume other fish.

According to a study published in the journal Food Chemistry, the lead content of tuna can vary depending on the species, with albacore tuna having the highest levels and skipjack tuna having the lowest levels. The study also found that the lead content of tuna was higher in canned tuna than in fresh tuna. This is likely because the canning process can concentrate lead from the bones of the fish.

While there is some lead in tuna, the levels are generally considered to be safe for human consumption. The FDA has set a maximum allowable level of lead in canned tuna of 0.3 parts per million (ppm). Studies have shown that consuming tuna at moderate levels (less than two cans per week) is not associated with any adverse health effects.

If you are concerned about your lead intake, you can limit your consumption of albacore tuna and choose skipjack tuna instead. You can also limit your overall intake of canned tuna and choose other types of seafood, such as salmon or shrimp, which are lower in lead.

Is tuna being overfished worldwide?

Yes, tuna is being overfished worldwide. Here's a breakdown of the situation:

• High Demand, Strained Stocks: The global demand for tuna, particularly bluefin tuna prized for sushi, has driven fishing pressure beyond sustainable levels for several species.
• Overfished Species: Pacific bluefin tuna is a prime example, once depleted to just 2.6% of its unfished level. Atlantic bigeye and Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna populations are also experiencing overfishing due to rising catch levels.
• Impact on Ecosystem: Overfishing disrupts the marine food chain as tuna are top predators. This can lead to population imbalances and harm the overall ocean ecosystem.
• Conservation Efforts: International organizations and some regional fisheries management bodies have implemented measures to control catches and rebuild populations. However, challenges remain in ensuring truly sustainable fishing practices.
• Skipjack Resilience: While currently abundant, skipjack tuna, the most common canned tuna variety, could become vulnerable if not managed properly.

Overall, tuna overfishing is a serious threat to the health of our oceans and these fish populations. Look for tuna products that are certified sustainable by organizations like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to support responsible fishing practices.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Dog owners do not know what is in their dogs' food

A study commissioned by Butternut Box conducted by OnePoll, came to the conclusion that millions of dog owners in the UK have no idea what is in their pet's food. There were 2000 participants and 48% of them were able to name just three ingredients. 23% of the participants struggled to understand the ingredients listed on dog food labels.

I'm sure, by the way, that the same would apply to cats. There is certainly, as far as I am concerned, a big disconnect between pet food manufacturers and consumers in respect of labelling ingredients.

44% of participants were confused by what they perceive as contradictory advice about a healthy dog diet.

And because of this lack of understanding of what is in dog food, 36% of the participants admitted that they are worried about their dog's health in the context of their diet.

RELATED: Two Companies Ordered to Pay More Than $7 Million for Adulterated and Misbranded Pet Food Ingredients.

Four in 10 found planning their dog's diet stressful and certainly more stressful than trying to work out their own diet with 41% admitting that they would want clearer labelling on dog food packaging.

Clearly, a healthy diet can help a dog to be healthy and help to eliminate or at least manage health problems.

The argument is that there is a need for greater transparency and information about dogs' diets in order to help owners to make better more informed choices.

Comment: there is probably a general suspicion about the quality of pet food made by big business. The problem applies to cats and dogs and other pets. There are some ingredients in pet food such as rendered, hydrolysed or pasteurised animal by-products along with artificial colourings, flavourings and preservatives.

It's believed that the manufacturers try to avoid drawing attention to these additives in order to preserve the food and make it look better but which are arguably detrimental to health by making the labelling more opaque and harder to understand.

RELATED: Worst Pet Food Ingredients

For 45% of dog owners, price is the deciding factor and 13% were swayed by the packaging. That is the appearance of the packaging encourage them to purchase the product.

27% of dog owners said that their dog was a fussy eater and 17% said that their dog turns up their nose at the food if he or she does not think that it is up to scratch. 11% of dogs refuse to eat their food.

Around 30% of dog owners say that the dog shows more interest in the food that they are eating then the dog food that has been put down for them resulting in 61% of dog owners feeding their beloved pooch human food at least once a week with around 25% of owners admitting that their motivation for doing this is guilt.

That said, 23% provided human food for their dog in the belief that fresh, human quality food is better for a dog than commercially prepared dog food about which they don't know enough.

The conclusion is that there is a need for dog owners to better understand the ingredients in dog food and the same would apply to cat food. And on the other side of the coin, they would appear to be an obligation on pet food manufacturers to be more transparent about dog food ingredients and to minimise additives which might be detrimental to dogs' health.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Emulsifiers in cat food might harm cats due to inflammation

If you know a bit about cat food ingredients, you'll know that emulsifiers and stabilisers are sometimes used in wet pet food. An example would be lecithin, an emulsifier that can be used in wet pet food. They act as a glue to the processed foods to hold them together. To that information I can add, today, a report in The Times, on a study in which scientists examined the health implications of emulsifiers, a group of E-number additives added to industrially produced foods such as bread and chocolate for the human market!

Does this list of ingredients in cat food mean anything to you? Me neither.

And it has been found that people who consumed many emulsifiers were more likely to suffer heart disease and stroke even when adjustments have been made for factors such as weight and overall diet.

The study which has been published in the British Medical Journal, monitored the diets of 95,000 French adults over seven years. They examined the average daily intake of eight groups of emulsifiers. The scientists suggested that the 5% increased risk of heart disease was because additives can damage the gut by disrupting the community of bacteria known as the microbiome. This leads to inflammation that increases the risk of other conditions.

Sidebar note: am I the only one (I am sure that I am not) who finds it next to impossible to read wet cat food label ingredients? There's a long list of ingredients which by and large looks meaningless to me. I don't know whether the ingredients are harmful to my cat or not. I don't know what many of them mean. I don't know what purpose they serve as an ingredient. I have to do research which is troublesome. There is an argument that pet food labelling listing ingredients should be much clearer and understandable by non-expert laypeople, the typical cat owner.

So, what can we take from this is cat owners? I think we can look at the wet food labels from time to time to check whether there are additives and emulsifiers in it. A small task but I think that cat owners should know about quality cat foods and poor-quality cat food. It doesn't take much to work it out and these kinds of harms can be insidious. They are in the background. Cat owners don't know that they are taking place. They rely upon pet food manufacturers to create pet foods which are healthy but they aren't always.

It is difficult cat owners especially with increased prices on pet food due to inflation. Sometimes they opt for the cheapest dry cat food but, in my view, after many years of research on cat foods, a cheap dry cat food fed exclusively is likely to cause health problems. There has to be some wet cat food in their as the primary food source and it should be high quality without emulsifiers.

Wood-eating yeast in cat food is okay

If you are concerned about sustainability and the environment and most people aren't in my judgement you might be interested to know that a wood-eating yeast in cat food has been found to be highly palatable and digestible. 

Torula yeast. Picture believed to be in the public domain.

It's a fungus and it can be used as a pet food ingredient. The yeast is called torula yeast (Cyberlindnera jadinii). It feeds on woody biomass and that's useful because there's a lot of forests being cut down and therefore a lot of biomasses lying around facilities which can be used to grow this yeast.

Apparently, it is easy to manipulate and extrude and therefore it can be converted into a pet food ingredient conveniently. It doesn't contain allergens or heavy metals, but it does provide amino acids. Unbeknown to many cat owners some cat foods contain heavy metals.

Torula yeast is approved as an ingredient by the AAFCO in America. It has a safe history of use. A Kansas State University study compared cat food made with torula yeast and others made with chicken meal, soybean meal and pea protein extract. 

It came out of the tests well on my reading of a summary of the study. Crude protein digestibility is similar to the other three ingredients. Chicken meal had a higher gross energy digestibility than the yeast, but the fungus was similar to the other diets.

When torula yeast is deactivated and dried it looks like a powder. It adds a smoky flavour to foods. It has a meat-like taste. It's been added to dog food, cat food and human food. And therefore, cat food manufacturers who claim that they only use human grade ingredients can add torula yeast without lying!

In human food the yeast sometimes substitutes monosodium glutamate as a flavour enhancer. It can improve the texture and flavour of many foods. As I understand it torula yeast is sprayed onto dry cat and dog food as a flavour enhancer.

For those people who do actually read the label for the ingredients of cat food, if they bump into torula yeast as an ingredient they should not be concerned on my understanding and having carried out some research. But this advice is provided without liability! Please do your own research ✔️😎.

Commercial cat food does not need to be entirely grain-free

For years now there has been an ongoing discussion about the quality of commercially prepared cat food and how it is ostensibly stuffed with grains to pad it out and make it more profitable for the manufacturers. Cat lovers want to see their canned cat food to be 100% meat because domestic cats are 'obligate carnivores'. The phrase 'obligate carnivores' is constantly used and it conjures up an image of flesh-eating. Cats can only eat flesh and nothing else. This is a misconception.

It is a misconception because the paradigm prey animal for the domestic cat is the mouse. The mouse eats 10% of its weight every day and it feeds off grain, seeds and fruit. When a cat eats a mouse, they eat the whole animal in my experience. My cat can eat a mouse in about 60 seconds and he certainly eats the stomach contents. He therefore eats grains. Perhaps commercial cat food should contain 10% grains but no more. Perhaps they put more than 10% in.

It is actually more pronounced than that because in the video on this page, which is a YouTube short, he clearly likes to eat bird seed which is grain. The seed was put into a birdfeeder and chucked onto the grass by the birds. My cat wandered in and decided to eat it. Grain contains nutrients. It is a source of protein and carbohydrates. Perhaps there is roughage in there as well. The point that I am making laboriously is that domestic cats eat grain one way or the other and therefore it is not so bad that it is in commercially prepared cat food. It is normal.

RELATED: Reduce domestic cat hunting by feeding them grain-free food and playing with them.

It is an argument that cat food should not be entirely free of grain as it is part of their natural diet. "YouTube Shorts" are designed to be very short videos made with a smartphone and therefore they are in the vertical format. TikTok works on this format and method. YouTube reformat the embedded video to a horizontal format. I'm not sure why. I think the video makes the point.

I had to make the video because YouTube told me that unless I made some more videos, they would stop monetising them on YouTube. I have not made a video for about 10 years! At one time they were highly successful with one of my videos being viewed 11 million times. They made many thousands of pounds in advertising. Advertising is far more profitable on YouTube videos than it is on websites in my experience.

I do not expect the video to be in any way successful. If it achieves a thousand views over five years I will be delighted!

Pet food prices are going to go up because the products contain wheat

This is a quick note to remind ourselves that cat and dog food prices are going to go up because both Russia and Ukraine produce a lot of wheat and Putin's invasion of Ukraine has disrupted production and exportation of wheat to the rest of the world, which will force up prices of wheat and therefore the prices of products containing wheat which includes cat and dog food.

Wheat is more expensive thanks to Putin's war. Image by FelixMittermeier from Pixabay

Did you know that cat food contains a product called wheat middlings? Wheat middlings are the product of the wheat milling process that is not flour. It's a source of protein which is used in pasta and breakfast cereals as well as fodder for livestock and pets.

Ukraine is known for its production of wheat. The country is being devastated by the invasion. The price of wheat has risen by almost 75% so far in 2022 and is now at its highest since 2008.

Ukraine and Russia are top exporters of wheat. Ukraine is described as the 'breadbasket of Europe'. The price of wheat is expected to rise by up to 20%. Covid has also forced prices up. This is in part due to supply chain costs.

Russia and Ukraine combined account for about 25% of global wheat exports.

Postscript: there's an interesting article on the Truth about Pet Food website concerning wheat middlings. Susan Thixton who runs that site has a colleague who is an expert on pet food. His name is Dr. Gary Pusillo. He said that he's been seeing ergot alkaloid problems in supplements and foods containing wheat middlings and other wheat products. What is this?

Susan Thixton tells us that ergot alkaloids are mycotoxins produced by fungi of the genus Claviceps. I take that to mean that they are toxins produced by a fungus on the wheat which finds its way into the food that people and pets eat.

There was a recent big pet food recall in the UK because of contamination by mycotoxins. A lot of pets died and the story fizzled out which is usually the case because the manufacturers like to dampen down publicity which harms them commercially. The link below discusses the story.

RELATED: Is there a cover-up over mycotoxins in cat food in the UK?

Ergot problems in dogs and cats might be misdiagnosed as a bacterial related problem. Cats and dogs become ill quickly. The mycotoxins can cause convulsions, diarrhoea, excessive salivation, breathing problems and ataxia. Sometimes cats detect the contamination and reject the food. But if the flavour masking agents are strong in the food, they prevent the cat from detecting this toxin.

Wheat in cat food can also cause allergies in cats. Marks & Spencer in the UK are promoting a gluten-free diet with gluten-free products. Why are they doing this? It's been done for health benefits because there's a long list of health benefits if you take up a gluten-free diet such as eliminating bloating, reducing the frequency of headaches, reducing lactose intolerance and reducing joint pain. The most common source of gluten is wheat. That's the connection in this story.

Wheat should not be in cat food. Cats don't eat wheat naturally. It's a cheap source of protein - a plant protein - to increase the profit margin for pet food manufacturers. It's unnatural in cat food and there are these potential health problems associated with it.

"Ocean fish" and "white bait" is shark meat in cat food. Do you care?

A research study tells us that endangered sharks are being used as "white bait" and "white fish" and "ocean fish" in cat and dog food. These are generic terms. There is no attempt to specify exactly what this food is. And the question is whether cat owners would stop buying cans of cat food if the products were properly labelled and shark meat specified in the labelling.

Blue shark. Photo: Joost van Uffelen / Getty Images

A lot of people nowadays are concerned about the environment. They are concerned about marine wildlife and overfishing. The argument is that the pet food manufacturers should be more transparent and honest.

This is particularly so since the shark populations have declined by more than 70% over the past 50 years. They found through DNA testing that some of the shark meat in cat food comes from sharks which are endangered. The sale of their bodies and body parts are under some degree of control in terms of their trade as specified under CITES or through classification by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The most common identified shark in cat and dog food was the blue shark. The species is not listed in CITES or classified as threatened by the IUCN but scientific research indicates that it is overexploited and the fishing of it should be regulated.

Another commonly encountered shark species in cat food is the silky shark. This species is listed under appendix 2 of CITES.

The fact that there is mislabelling on cat and dog food which misleads purchasers also leads to the unsatisfactory state of affairs that many environmentally conscious customers are contributing to the overfishing of endangered sharks.

The study that I am working off in writing this article suggests that many "pet owners and lovers would be alarmed to find out that they are likely contributing to the unsustainable fishing practices that have caused massive declines in global shark populations".

Overfishing of sharks has a negative impact on ecosystems' stability and function. Separately, a study found that the removal of sharks from the oceans has been linked to the "amplification of detrimental climate change effects".

In the United States, the most commonly encountered shark species in pet food was the short fin mako. In the current study all the pet food was produced, canned or packaged in Thailand.

In all, through DNA analysis, they found nine species of shark in pet food. One proposition is that the shark fin trade is contributing to this. Sharks are caught for their fins only and the bodies are thrown away as I understand it. Perhaps these bodies are being used in pet food. It is suggested that this might be beneficial because the bodies are being wasted. I would suggest that the better course of action would be to stop killing sharks for their fins.

Silky sharks are often caught as bycatch i.e. they are not targeted fish but they are caught in nets and killed when fishing for other species. This occurs during tuna fishing for example. Once their high-valued fins have been removed their carcasses make their way into the pet food industry chain which possibly account for the high prevalence of the meat from this shark species in pet food.

In conclusion, they state that "seafood fraud and the deliberate mislabelling or substitution of products is an increasingly recognise global problem".

Would you change your purchasing habits if they listed shark meat on cat food ingredients? Do you read the ingredient listings? Do you care? Are you concerned about the endangerment of many shark species? What do you think about killing sharks for their fins and throwing the rest of the shark away? Lots of questions. I would like you to comment on this if you have time.

The study referred to is: DNA Barcoding Identifies Endangered Sharks in Pet Food Sold in Singapore (04 March 2022 ).