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How a Pile Up of Dead Cows Led to the Discovery of What’s In Pet Food. And It’s Much Worse Than You Think.
“Fresno County declares emergency as cow carcasses pile up. Plant to temporarily close” and “Merced County declares an emergency, as cattle carcasses pile up from rendering plant issue.” It’s just the sort of headlines I dread. Even though I know what the rendering industry does – which is recycling dead livestock, animal by-products, expired meat and used cooking oil –…
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Pet Food Rendering Plant Makes People Want to Puke and Has Children Run Screaming For Cover
A pet food rendering plant in Quebec has residents reaching for the barf bag every time they go out of doors, describing the stench as something akin to “vomit times ten.” Children living near the rendering plant can’t play outside without being overpowered by the nauseating, purifying stench. Children run inside saying, “Mommy, daddy, it feels like I’m going to…
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Eating the Dead: Pet Food Only a Zombie Could Love; The Circular Madness of Upcycling Dead, Dying, and Diseased Animals into Food for Animals
Have you ever wondered, before you tuck into that BLT, what the pig you’re eating used to eat? Considering the animal feed industry is poised to start using fly larvae protein [AKA maggots] in animal feed, I thought you’d like to know what do animals that are raised for their meat eat? I think making animal feed out of worms…
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Encyclopedia of Sh*t You Don’t Want to Know About, But Should: The Pet Food Industry Edition
It is not uncommon in my line of work, while digging around for information, to unearth some – how shall I put it – pretty unsavory tidbits. Being somewhat used to examining the underbelly of the animal feed business, hardened by the nitty-gritty of the rendering industry, jaded by images of diseased carcasses, used to seeing what vats of slaughterhouse…
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Barf Bags de Rigueur for Residents Near Rendering Plant in Rochester NY That Cooks Up Ingredients for Pet Food
When people drive through Rochester New York for the first time, they usually remark how lovely it is. That is, until they roll the windows down. When they do, they are assaulted by a stench that some say is bad enough to gag a maggot. If you ask the locals, they’ll tell you they’ve had to put up with the…
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Pet Food Industry’s Darkest Secret: Chemically Denatured Condemned and Inedible Material
You’ll never see it listed on a pet food package. Yet, it is in nearly every single brand of pet food on the market. What is it? It’s not an ingredient at all – it’s a process – called denaturing. Because denaturing is a process, and not an ingredient, you’ll never see it listed as an ingredient. However, you can…
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Diamond pet food plant smells like freshly roasted ass
Often, as I read about a pet food plant that neighbors complain emits the smell of freshly roasted ass, I wonder: Why is that? All sarcasm aside, I know the reason. But knowing the reason and accepting it are two different things. In fact, just today I read about a Diamond pet food plant that has been stinking up the…
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Stench From Valley Proteins’ Rendering Plant Causes Writer to Wonder, “What We’re Feeding Dogs.”
People who live in Fayetteville, North Carolina, near the Valley Proteins rendering plant describe the misery of living with the suffocating stench that emanates from the plant. “There is stink, and there is stink,” writes a local reporter. “There is stink you can live with, and there is stink that makes every breath a chore.” He said it made him…
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A Rare Look Inside a Rendering Plant; Shocking First Hand Account
Rarely do we get a first-hand account of the secret world behind the walls of rendering plants where animal feed and pet food ingredients are made, giving us a glimpse inside the dark world of animal waste recycling (or rendering) to see why the ingredients made there could be poisoning American pets. Little is known about the inner workings of…
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What’s a Dead Truck? Hint: It’s Has to Do With Pet Food.
Man with an iron stomach In a four part series, on Discovery Channel’s show Dirty Jobs, we are taken on fascinating, albeit gruesome, look into the unsung laborers who make their living doing the unthinkable: Working at a rendering plant. The show, with its intrepid host Mike Rowe, takes us through the ghastly work involved in rendering a cow. The…
