Clean Label Project earns from low-rated pet food sales

The Clean Label Project provides a link to buy even the lowest rated dog and cat food brands via Amazon.com.

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photo by Yastremska | BigStockPhoto
photo by Yastremska | BigStockPhoto

The Clean Label Project, which ranked pet foods based on relative contamination levels, provides a link to buy even the lowest rated pet food brands via Amazon.com. The organization earns a 4 percent commission from these sales. However, Jaclyn Bowen, executive director of Clean Label Project, doesn’t see this as contradictory to the organizations’ mission.

“Pet food brands have made billions of dollars selling false comfort and security to pet owners, but the concern is somehow whether a small non-profit makes 4% off Amazon sales?” Bowen said in an email to Petfood Industry.

Instead, she believes that consumers know far less than pet food companies about the contents of their pets’ food, and that her organization is bridging that information gap.

“But we want consumers to have access to important information, this includes links to all products on our website, so they can do price comparisons, read more about their product choices, and make a fully informed choice,” she said. “To us, it's all about transparency. We provide choices and information, and we let the consumer decide!”

Clean Label Project won’t share data with pet parents

However, Bowen was unwilling to be transparent with pet parents about the organizations’s own data on potentially dangerous chemicals, such as lead, arsenic and melamine, in pet food.

“Clean Label Project does not release raw results for specific products,” she said. “We developed our rating system because we believe that raw results are only useful in the context of the bigger picture, that is, relative to the rest of the pet food category.”

Although the Clean Label Project declined to share with the public those results of the pet food analyses conducted by Ellipse Analytics, they will certify that pet foods meet the organization's standards. That certification program is one of the groups’ four sources of funding.

The Clean Label Project is funded by donations from consumers, grants, the certification program and Amazon affiliate links, according to Bowen.

Clean Label Project’s rankings divide pet foods into three classifications based on the relative concentrations of certain chemicals. Since the rankings are relative and no actual quantities are provided, there is no way for consumers to know if a pet food actually contains a dangerous amount of a chemical, or if it simply has more than another product.

The example of fish versus beef in pet foods

For example, consider a pet food made from a predatory oceanic fish, such as tuna, compared to one made from herbivorous cattle, as one Petfood Industry reader pointed out. The fish might have a higher level of mercury relative to the beef, because mercury bioaccumulates up the food chain.

“Mercury in fish, in general, is a more frequent concern than mercury in beef,” Anne Norris, United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) health communications specialist, told Petfood Industry. However, she noted that the FDA couldn’t speculate about mercury concentrations in fish- versus beef-based pet foods because of sourcing and production variables for particular products.

“Mercury is present to varying degrees in water, air and soil, making its presence unavoidable,” said Norris. “Although the FDA has not issued specific guidance or set levels for mercury, any level of a substance in pet food must be safe for the animal and it is the manufacturer’s responsibility to ensure the safety of its product. The agency can take action if it has a safety concern.”

Without knowing the actual amount of mercury, a pet food consumer can’t make a judgement about any health risk presented by the fish-based pet food. On the contrary, if a consumer avoids all fish products out of fear of mercury, their pets may lose the health benefits of omerga-3 fatty acids, which occur in fish products such as Asian carp dog treats. Biologists have documented that Asian carp, a group of invasive species in the US, have healthy amounts of omega-3 fatty acids with lower levels of mercury than many other fish, since most Asian carp species feed on plankton, in other words, low on the food chain.

That is not to say that all pet foods are free from potentially dangerous levels of mercury. Scientists measured the mercury concentrations in 54 dog and 47 cat foods and published the results so others could verify their findings. Some of the pet foods had mercury levels above those considered safe for other animals, especially those pet foods made from fish.

Pet food manufacturers can avoid mercury-laden fish by paying attention to fish biology, study co-author Mae Sexauer Gustin, PhD, a professor at the University of Nevada – Reno, told Petfood Industry.

“Understanding the species of the fish used would be a good idea,” Gustin said.

In Gustin’s experiment, pet foods made with salmon and trout tended to have the highest mercury concentrations. The study, “Mercury concentrations in wet and dry cat and dog food,” was published in the journal Animal Feed Science and Technology.

Unknown effects of low mercury levels in pet, human foods

The question remains: were the levels of toxins found in pet food by Ellipse Analytics above acceptable levels? Clean Label Project compared the concentrations in pet food to the standards set for drinking water, which the FDA stated is not a valid comparison.

Scientists are still working to define safe levels of mercury accumulated in human blood, such as those that may result from long-term repeated exposure to tiny amounts of mercury in food, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“Do you have proof that the levels that Clean Label Project has released are not dangerous to a pet over the long term?” said Bowen.

Since Clean Label Project has not actually released data about the levels of any of the chemicals, that question is difficult to answer, especially since it would involve proving a negative. For example, there is no evidence that long-term exposure to atmospheric argon is not dangerous to pets. Yet, there is abundant anecdotal evidence that it presents no risk, since pets don't drop dead from breathing that noble gas, which is the third most prevalent component of Earth’s air.

A better analogy would be to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. It can damage cells’ DNA, which can increase skin cancer risks. However, the only way to avoid it completely would be to prohibit a dog from playing outside during the day, or to not let a cat sleep in a sunny windowsill.*

Likewise, it seems logical that widespread mercury poisoning symptoms in pets would result if unavoidable, lifelong exposure to tiny amounts of the heavy metal were a serious health threat to adult animals. However, there is no evidence of this, although mercury and other heavy metals can be deadly in sufficient doses or cause serious developmental defects in fetuses.

“If you, or members of the pet food industry, wish to take the stance that chemicals like mercury, which has been linked to brain damage, are not something that should be minimized wherever possible, then that is your right. Clean Label Project takes the stance less environmental contaminants and toxins is better than more.”

As the Norris noted, avoiding trace amounts of mercury is difficult on this planet. By avoiding large predatory fish, such as albacore tuna, shark and swordfish, pet food manufacturers could reduce the potential for risky levels of mercury, just as the National Institutes of Health recommends for pregnant women.

Even if they don’t take steps to reduce the presence of potentially dangerous substances in their dog and cats foods, pet food manufacturers products may still be available for sale through Clean Label Project’s links to Amazon.com.

*Editor’s note: This paragraph was added June 6, 2017.

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