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What’s Really in the Bag: The Pet Food Industry’s Dirty Secret

An Essay on the Hidden Ingredients, Deceptive Labels, and Chronic Disease Epidemic in Commercial Pet Food

Lies are Unbekoming | February 23, 2026

The label on a popular dry cat food lists its ingredients in this order: poultry by-product meal, ground yellow corn, wheat, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, brewers rice. Most people reading that label assume the poultry by-product meal is the primary ingredient — a protein source feeding their obligate carnivore. They’re wrong. Corn is the primary ingredient. The company split it into two categories — ground yellow corn and corn gluten meal — so that each individual corn listing falls below the poultry by-product meal on the label. Combined, the corn outweighs everything else in the bag.¹

This is not a labelling error. It is standard industry practice, known as “splitting,” and it is legal under the guidelines of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). It is also the first clue that the commercial pet food industry operates in a space between what owners believe they are buying and what they are actually feeding their animals. The gap between those two things is wide enough to make animals sick — and the evidence suggests it has been doing exactly that for decades.

What the Label Conceals

Pet food labels are required to list ingredients. They are not required to tell you what those ingredients actually are.

The term “meat by-products,” for instance, sounds like it involves meat. Under AAFCO guidelines, acceptable meat by-products include lungs, spleens, kidneys, brains, livers, blood, bones, low-temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. Livers infested with parasites qualify. Lungs filled with pneumonia qualify. If an animal is diseased and declared unfit for human consumption, the carcass is acceptable for pet food. Parts of animals where they have been injected with antibiotics, hormones, or other drugs — so-called “stick marks” — are cut from carcasses intended for human consumption and redirected to pet food.²

The term “meat meal” conceals even more. Meat meal is the dried product of a rendering plant, and rendering plants are the final destination for material that no other industry will touch. As investigative journalist Ann Martin documented over a seven-year investigation, rendering plants accept dead zoo animals, road kill too large for roadside burial, grocery store waste including the Styrofoam trays and plastic wrap, restaurant garbage, and condemned material from slaughterhouses. They also accept “4-D” animals — dead, diseased, dying, and disabled livestock — from factory farms. Before the slaughterhouse ships these condemned parts to the renderer, workers spray them with crude carbolic acid or cresylic disinfectant, both classified as poisons by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In Canada, the denaturing agent is called Birkolene B. When Martin asked the Ministry of Agriculture for its composition, she was told it was a “trade secret.”³

At the rendering plant, all of this material — including, in many cases, the flea collars, ID tags, and plastic bags — is ground together in massive vats, cooked at temperatures between 220°F and 270°F for twenty minutes to one hour, and centrifuged to separate the fat from the solids. The fat becomes the source of “animal fat” in pet food. The remaining solids are dried and ground into “meat meal.”⁴

The AAFCO ingredient definitions that govern these terms apply identically to pet food and livestock feed. When Martin contacted the chair of AAFCO to confirm this, the reply was unambiguous: “The feed ingredient definitions approved by AAFCO apply to all animal feeds, including pet foods, unless specific animal species restrictions are noted.”⁵ No species restrictions distinguish what goes into food for a family dog from what goes into feed for industrial poultry.

This is what the label means when it says “meat meal.”

The Fat Sprayed on Kibble

Open a new bag of dry pet food and you’ll notice a distinctive, pungent odour. That smell comes from rendered animal fat or, increasingly, discarded restaurant grease.

Restaurant grease has become a major component of feed-grade animal fat over the last fifteen years. The grease is typically stored in fifty-gallon drums kept outside for weeks, exposed to temperature extremes with no protocols for future use. Rendering companies collect this grease, blend different types together, stabilise the mixture with powerful chemical antioxidants to slow further spoilage, and sell the blended product to pet food manufacturers.⁶

The fat is sprayed directly onto dried kibbles or extruded pellets after manufacturing. Its primary purpose is not nutritional. The spray transforms an otherwise bland or distasteful product into something animals will eat. As a 1996 Animal Protection Institute report put it, pet food manufacturers are “masters at getting a dog or cat to eat something she would normally turn up her nose at.”⁷ Taste appeal, not nutritional quality, is paramount.

The pet food manufacturing process extends this principle across every stage. The raw material — already nutritionally questionable — is extruded through machines that subject it to steam, pressure, and high heat, puffing it into shapes like popcorn. Then it is sprayed with fat and chemical flavour enhancers. Whatever nutritional value the raw ingredients had is further degraded at each step.

As veterinarian Randy Wysong, a long-time critic of industry practices, observed: “Processing is the wild card in nutritional value that is, by and large, simply ignored. Heating, cooking, rendering, freezing, dehydrating, canning, extruding, pelleting, baking, and so forth, are so commonplace that they are simply thought of as synonymous with food itself.” To compensate for this destruction, manufacturers must “fortify” the finished product with synthetic vitamins and minerals — because the ingredients they started with are not wholesome, the quality is extremely variable, and the manufacturing practices have destroyed whatever nutrients the food contained.⁸

Chemical dyes then create the appearance of quality. Sodium nitrite prevents colour fading. Red Dye #40 gives kibble a meaty look. Both agents have been linked to cancer or birth defects in laboratory animals and are banned in some countries. The cosmetic effect is for the buyer, not the animal. Animals don’t care what colour their food is.⁹

Grains for Carnivores

Two of the top three ingredients in most dry pet foods are some form of grain product. Corn is the most common, but wheat, soy, and rice also feature heavily. The grains used in pet food are typically the cheap dregs of the human food chain — material that did not pass inspection for human use because of excessive levels of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, or mycotoxins. Little, if any, testing is undertaken to determine the levels of these toxic substances once they reach the pet food plant.¹⁰

The grain problem is especially severe for cats. Cats are obligate carnivores. Their physiology is designed for a high-protein, moisture-rich diet derived from prey. A diet built around corn makes no biological sense for a cat, but from the manufacturer’s perspective, corn provides a far cheaper protein source than meat. In one dry cat food Martin examined, corn appeared in four different forms — a staggering carbohydrate load for an animal that requires at least half its diet as protein. Grains cannot supply cats with sufficient arachidonic acid, vitamin A, or vitamin B-12. They also lack the natural form of taurine, an amino acid critical to feline survival, which is why manufacturers add synthetic taurine as a supplement.¹¹

The “high protein” labels splashed across packaging are another layer of deception. As veterinarian Alfred Plechner documented, manufacturers use excessive amounts of cheap, inferior-quality protein to reach a minimum percentage that animals can actually utilise. In California, the state’s FDA requires 18 percent protein in dog kibble, knowing that animals may absorb only 5 to 9 percent of it. For cats, which require twice the protein of dogs, the gap between labelled protein and usable protein is even wider. The rest — the indigestible fraction — becomes a burden on the kidneys and digestive tract.¹²

The Euthanised Animals in the Vat

The most disturbing ingredient in commercial pet food is one that never appears on any label.

In Los Angeles alone, more than 200 tons of dogs and cats were rendered each year as of the early 2000s. The National Animal Control Association reported that of approximately 13 million household pets euthanised annually in the United States, 30 percent were buried, 30 percent were cremated, and the remaining 40 percent — roughly 5.2 million animals — were sent to rendering facilities.¹³

The path is straightforward. When a pet is euthanised and the owner does not take the body home for burial or pay for cremation, the carcass is collected by a dead stock removal company and delivered to a rendering plant. There it joins the rest of the raw material — the condemned livestock, the road kill, the grocery store waste — in the same vat. The remains, including collars, tags, and flea collars, are ground and cooked together. The end product is meat meal.¹⁴

Pet food manufacturers deny this. The Pet Food Institute (PFI), which represents more than 90 percent of pet food produced in the United States, insists that none of its members use rendered companion animals. Martin pressed the PFI repeatedly on this point, asking a direct question: do any of the pet food companies actually test the raw material they purchase from rendering plants to determine if it contains rendered companion animals?

In 2004, the PFI admitted that pet food companies do not test the raw material for the sources of animals rendered. When Martin asked the same question again before the third edition of her book, the PFI chose not to respond.¹⁵

The industry’s “proof” that pets aren’t in the food rests on a single study. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) tested dry dog food samples in 1998 and 2000 for dog and cat DNA. The results, which the FDA did not release until 2002 — and which Martin obtained only after filing Freedom of Information Act requests at least twice — showed no detectable dog or cat DNA. But the test was conducted on finished kibble, not raw material before rendering. The sample size was less than an eighth of a cup from a five-pound bag. And as multiple scientists confirmed to Martin, the rendering process itself — cooking at temperatures above 220°F — destroys DNA. Testing rendered product for DNA is, by design, incapable of finding what was there before the heat destroyed the evidence.¹⁶

The same FDA study did find something else: sodium pentobarbital, the drug used to euthanise companion animals.

The Euthanasia Drug in the Food

Sodium pentobarbital is a barbiturate administered intravenously to euthanise dogs and cats. Federal law restricts its use to administration under the direction of a veterinarian. The American Veterinary Medical Association’s own report states that in animals intended for human or animal food, “chemical agents that result in tissue residue cannot be used.”¹⁷

A 1995 study by three veterinarians at the University of Minnesota established that sodium pentobarbital “survived rendering without undergoing degradation.” Even boiling the liver of a calf euthanised with pentobarbital for twenty minutes did not reduce the drug levels.¹⁸

The FDA/CVM’s survey found pentobarbital in numerous brands of dry dog food. The first survey, in 1998, detected the drug in 30 of the sampled products — including brands sold by Heinz, Ol’ Roy (Walmart’s brand), and ProPlan. The second survey, in 2000, measured actual concentrations, finding levels ranging from 3.9 to 32.0 parts per billion across 10 positive samples.¹⁹

When asked to explain the source, the FDA initially claimed it was likely from rendered cattle or horses. But the FDA’s own published study subsequently revealed that none of the 31 dog food samples tested positive for equine-derived proteins, and acknowledged that cattle are “only occasionally euthanized with pentobarbital, and thus are not considered a likely source.” The study concluded that it “does not define the source (i.e. species) responsible for the contamination.”²⁰

The logic is not complicated. The drug is found in the food. The drug survives rendering. The drug is primarily used to euthanise dogs and cats. The FDA could not identify an alternative source. Yet no enforcement action was taken.

When Martin contacted the FDA/CVM and asked what steps were being taken to remove pentobarbital from pet food, she was told: “CVM is not planning to undertake any special enforcement efforts to detect pentobarbital in pet food.”²¹

No long-term studies have been conducted on the effects of daily pentobarbital ingestion by companion animals over years or decades. What is documented is that veterinarians began reporting dogs developing tolerance to pentobarbital — the drug becoming less effective when used for euthanasia — which is precisely what prompted the FDA study in the first place.²²

The Regulatory Illusion

Every pet owner Ann Martin spoke with during her years of investigation was convinced that a government agency closely regulated pet food manufacturers. A pet supply store owner became incensed when Martin told him the industry was essentially self-regulated. He was certain that inspectors examined every ingredient. Martin had believed the same thing once.²³

The reality is layered in the appearance of oversight without the substance of it. AAFCO, the organisation whose logo appears on pet food labels, is a non-government commercial enterprise. It has no regulatory authority, no inspectors, and no laboratories. It publishes model guidelines and encourages states to adopt them voluntarily. As Rodney Noel, former Chair of AAFCO, explained to Martin: “AAFCO on its own cannot enforce any of the models that it produces. It has no regulatory authority. It has no inspectors or laboratories. Any inspection of a pet-food plant is done by a state agency or the FDA.”²⁴

When Martin contacted state representatives to determine what testing actually occurs, the answers were revealing. New Jersey’s agriculture department: “We check the nutritive values for the product. We do not check the ingredients.” Utah: testing covers only “guaranteed analysis and product registration.” Georgia: “Drug screening is done in various livestock feed, but not pet food.” Only eight of fifty states that Martin contacted actually tested pet food at all — and that testing verified only whether the percentages of protein, fat, and fibre matched the label. The source of those nutrients was irrelevant. The required levels of protein, fat, and fibre could theoretically be achieved by combining old shoe leather, crankshaft oil, and sawdust.²⁵

AAFCO’s feeding trials — the basis for the “complete and balanced” claim on labels — use eight dogs, last six months, and measure four blood values. Two of the eight dogs are allowed to drop out and the trial remains valid. The dogs must simply not lose more than 15 percent of their body weight. These trials give no indication of how the food affects animals eating it for years. The taurine deficiency that killed cats went undetected for the same reason — a few months of observation cannot reveal what a lifetime of nutritional inadequacy produces.²⁶

The Pet Food Institute completes the picture. PFI is the industry’s self-described “public and media relations resource, representative before the U.S. Congress and state and federal agencies.” It is funded by the companies it claims to oversee. PFI’s Affiliate Members listed on its website include rendering companies such as Griffin Industries, Darling International, Valley Proteins, and Baker Commodities — and Baker Commodities is documented as picking up euthanised pets.²⁷

The pet food industry is, in every meaningful sense, self-regulated. And it is a $14.3 billion industry, according to Euromonitor’s 2005 figures, with no incentive to change what works.²⁸

From the Bag to the Body: How Commercial Food Creates Chronic Disease

If this were only a matter of aesthetics — unappetising ingredients processed into something edible — it would be a consumer issue and nothing more. But the evidence from veterinary practice connects commercial pet food directly to the epidemic of chronic disease now seen in dogs and cats.

A 2015 study by Banfield Veterinary Hospitals, examining 2.4 million dogs and 480,000 cats, documented what holistic veterinarians had been reporting for years: chronic disease in companion animals was rising at alarming rates. One in four dogs and one in three cats were overweight or obese — a condition rare when Richard Pitcairn began veterinary practice in 1965. Overweight and obesity in animals, Pitcairn argues, can actually be signs of malnutrition: the body keeps signalling hunger because it is not getting the nutrients it needs from the food, even as the calorie load pushes weight upward.²⁹

The specific disease pathways are traceable from ingredient to organ failure.

Kidney Failure in Young Cats

Cats evolved as desert animals. Their kidneys were designed to be extraordinarily efficient at conserving water. Historically, they ate a fresh food diet of prey containing roughly 70 percent body fluids. Kibble is 5 to 10 percent moisture. A cat fed exclusively on kibble operates in a state of chronic dehydration for its entire life.

Jean Hofve, DVM, puts it directly: “I have seen kidney failure in cats four or five years old, and that is really upsetting. It’s different if the cat is seventeen or eighteen years old. But there is no excuse for this in young cats. These animals must have a wet diet. It protects their kidneys.”³⁰

Many pet foods also contain excess levels of vitamin D, calcium, and phosphorus, which are directly toxic to the kidneys. Messonnier notes that while definitive proof is lacking, it is worth considering that years of feeding diets containing excess and potentially toxic levels of these nutrients could produce chronic damage and ultimately kidney failure.³¹ The commercial pet food industry has never funded a study to test this hypothesis.

Holistic veterinarians report seeing kidney problems in younger animals than they encountered in earlier decades. The quality of pet food, they say, no longer creates or maintains healthy organs.³²

Taurine Deficiency and Fatal Heart Disease

In the late 1980s, veterinary researchers discovered that an often-fatal heart disease in cats — dilated cardiomyopathy — was caused by a deficiency of the amino acid taurine. Cats who were not getting enough taurine from their food developed enlarged, weakened hearts. Some went blind. Many died.

The deficiency occurred because commercial cat food formulas contained inadequate amounts of taurine. The manufacturing process — rendering, extruding, and high-heat cooking — destroys this amino acid, and the formulas were not compensating for the loss. Cat foods are now supplemented with synthetic taurine, and dilated cardiomyopathy has become uncommon. But it took an unknown number of dead cats to force the correction. The AAFCO feeding trials, which last a few months and measure four blood values, were not designed to detect a nutritional deficiency that kills slowly over years.³³

As Messonnier observes: “We do not know what ingredients future researchers may discover that should have been supplemented in pet foods all along.”³⁴

Feline Hyperthyroidism: A New Disease

Hyperthyroidism in cats was first recognised in 1979. It did not exist before that — or at least, it was never diagnosed. Its emergence coincides precisely with the expansion of commercially manufactured canned cat food in the 1970s.

Researchers at UC Davis found that cats eating commercially prepared canned food had approximately twice the risk of developing hyperthyroidism compared to cats that did not eat canned food. A 2004 Purdue University study examining 169,576 cats over twenty years confirmed that hyperthyroidism increased significantly from 1978 to 1997, and that consumption of pop-top canned foods was associated with greater risk. In female cats, the increased risk was specifically associated with pop-top cans. The mechanism is not fully understood, but the temporal association, the dose-response relationship, and the biological plausibility — canned food lining compounds acting as endocrine disruptors — all point toward the commercial diet.³⁵

This is a serious and sometimes terminal disease, and treatment is expensive. It emerged from nowhere in the late 1970s, and its rise tracks precisely with the commercial pet food practices of the same era.

The Allergy Epidemic

Food allergies have become an everyday condition in veterinary practice. The market for “limited antigen and novel protein” diets is now a multi-million dollar business — a business that exists because animals are developing intolerances to the ingredients in the standard commercial food they’ve been eating.³⁶

Plechner, who spent decades treating allergic animals, identified kibble as a concentrated delivery system for the most allergenic ingredients. His “Allergic Hit List” — the foods most likely to trigger reactions — reads like a standard kibble ingredient panel: beef, milk, wheat, corn, yeast, fish meal, plus chemical additives. The dehydration of kibble concentrates these allergens further; water acts as a diluter, and when little moisture is present, the allergen load becomes more potent.³⁷

The pattern extends beyond food allergies. Many animals become hypersensitive to flea bites, pollens, soaps, sprays, and environmental contaminants — reactions that holistic veterinarians trace back to immune systems already overwhelmed by processing the daily insult of commercial food. The food doesn’t just fail to nourish. It actively destabilises the immune response.³⁸

There is a further dimension that receives almost no attention: bacterial contamination. Commercially manufactured meat meals and by-product meals are frequently contaminated with bacteria because the source material is not always freshly slaughtered. Animals that have died from disease, injury, or natural causes may not be rendered for days. Dangerous E. coli bacteria are estimated to contaminate more than 50 percent of meat meals. The cooking process during rendering kills bacteria, but it does not destroy endotoxins — toxic substances that bacteria produce in unrefrigerated tissue. One study of commercial pet foods found endotoxins present in all samples tested, some in very large amounts. These endotoxins persist through manufacturing and are carried into the finished product that ends up in the feeding bowl.³⁹

What Veterinarians See

Joseph Demers, DVM, who uses acupuncture and Chinese medicine in his Florida practice, treats animals suffering the consequences of kibble daily. His description is clinical: “The animal on a diet of dehydrated food becomes dehydrated. The body builds up a lot of heat, which needs to be eliminated. Eventually you see burping, throwing up of bile in the morning, and upset stomachs. You see thick saliva, dry stools, and an animal panting after its evening meal even though the surroundings are cool.”⁴⁰

Demers turns many of these animals around within a month, simply by adding moisture and broth to the diet. The intervention is not complex. The damage was caused by what the animal was eating, and it reverses when the diet changes.

This observation — that animals improve rapidly when commercial food is reduced or eliminated — is the most consistent finding across holistic veterinary practice. Richard Pitcairn describes it as one of the earliest and most reliable insights of his career: switching animals from highly processed pet foods to quality fresh foods produced visible results, repeatedly. Problems resolved, coats became shiny, and animals got what he calls “a new lease on life.”⁴¹

The improvement is not subtle, and it does not require months of treatment. It requires a different bag — or no bag at all.

A Way Out

The commercial pet food industry will not reform itself. It is built on the economics of rendering: cheap raw material, processed into products that animals can be made to eat through the application of sprayed fats and chemical flavour enhancers, sold under labels that obscure what is inside. The regulatory structure does not inspect ingredients, does not test for contaminants, and does not fund long-term feeding studies. The system is operating as designed.

But the solution is available to any pet owner willing to act on what the evidence shows.

The core principle is straightforward: feed fresh, whole food appropriate to the species. For cats, that means a diet built on animal protein — ideally raw or lightly cooked — with adequate moisture. For dogs, fresh meat combined with whole grains, vegetables, and appropriate supplementation. Even modest changes produce results. Adding broth to kibble addresses chronic dehydration. Replacing a portion of dry food with fresh meat improves protein quality. Rotating food sources prevents the allergen accumulation that comes from feeding the same formula for years.⁴²

If homemade preparation isn’t feasible, the label itself reveals the hierarchy of quality. Look for a food where a specific, named meat — not “meat meal,” not “meat by-products,” not “poultry by-products” — appears among the first two or three ingredients. Avoid foods preserved with BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin. The absence of ethoxyquin on the label does not guarantee it is absent from the food, since suppliers can add it before shipping to the manufacturer — but its presence on the label is a clear signal to walk away. Natural preservatives like mixed tocopherols (vitamin E) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) don’t extend shelf life as long, but they don’t carry the unanswered questions either.⁴³

Veterinarian Carolyn Blakey captures the consensus among holistic practitioners: “The best and most inexpensive food you can feed your pet is food you prepare yourself.”⁴⁴ For those who cannot prepare meals from scratch, a growing number of smaller manufacturers now produce foods using human-grade ingredients, whole grains, fresh proteins, and natural preservatives — without rendered material, chemical dyes, or mystery meals.

The label on the bag in your kitchen tells only half the story. The other half has been documented, investigated, and confirmed by veterinarians and journalists working independently across decades. The ingredients are a matter of public record. The disease patterns are visible in every veterinary clinic. The connection between the two is not speculative. It is the exposed wiring of a system that has been feeding animals the by-products of industrial waste and calling it nutrition.

The package insert lists what is inside. Most pet owners never see it — the marketing doesn’t mention it, the veterinarian doesn’t volunteer it, and the regulatory framework doesn’t require clarity. But the evidence exists, and it says what it says.

References

  1. Martin, Ann N. Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food (New Sage Press, 3rd edition). Chapter 2: “The Deceptive Practice of ‘Splitting’ in Labeling.”
  2. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 2: “Unravelling the Mystery Ingredients.” AAFCO ingredient definitions for “meat by-products.”
  3. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 4: “The Rendering Process”; Chapter 2 on denaturing agents. OSHA classifications of crude carbolic acid and cresylic acid. Canadian Ministry of Agriculture correspondence on Birkolene B.
  4. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 2: “The Rendering Process.” National Renderers Association, Essential Rendering: All About the Animal By-Product Industry (Kirby Lithograph Company, Arlington, Virginia, 2006).
  5. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 2: “Can This Really Be True?” Personal correspondence with AAFCO chair confirming ingredient definitions apply equally to pet food and livestock feed.
  6. Messonnier, Shawn, DVM. Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats (Prima Publishing). Section on “Animal and Poultry Fat.” See also Animal Protection Institute Report, 1996.
  7. Animal Protection Institute of America, investigative report, 1996. Cited in Zucker, Martin. The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats.
  8. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats. Section on “What Happened to the Nutrients?” Wysong, Randy L., DVM, on processing and nutritional destruction.
  9. Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats. Section on chemical additives, colouring agents, and sodium nitrite in pet food. See also Messonnier, sections on additives in processed pet foods.
  10. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 2: “Toxic Substances in Grain.” See also vomitoxin recall affecting Nature’s Recipe (1995) and Doane Pet Care / Ol’ Roy (1999), killing 25 dogs.
  11. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 2, observations on corn in cat food, and AAFCO grain ingredient definitions. Taurine supplementation requirements.
  12. Plechner, Alfred J., DVM, and Martin Zucker. Pet Allergies: Remedies for an Epidemic (Very Healthy). Chapter on “Kibble — A Sackful of Trouble.” California FDA protein requirement cited.
  13. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 4: “Meat Meal Product.” National Animal Control Association statistics on companion animal euthanasia and disposal, 2002.
  14. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 4. See also Quebec Ministry of Agriculture correspondence confirming rendering practices: “Dead animals are cooked together with viscera, bones and fats at 115°C for twenty minutes.” Also: “The fur is not removed from dogs and cats.”
  15. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 4: “Testing for Cats and Dogs in Pet Food.” Personal correspondence between Martin and the Pet Food Institute, 2004 and subsequent. Nancy Cook, VP of Technical and Regulatory Affairs, PFI.
  16. FDA/CVM, “Report on the risk from pentobarbital in dog food,” March 28, 2002. Martin’s FOIA requests, 1998–2003. Myers, Michael J., PhD, et al., “Development of a polymerase chain reaction-based method to identify species-specific components in dog food,” American Journal of Veterinary Research, Vol. 65, No. 1, January 2004. Joe Donnenhoffer, Roch Diagnostics, on PCR testing limitations.
  17. “2000 Report of the American Veterinary Medical Association Panel on Euthanasia,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 218, No. 5, March 1, 2001, p. 685.
  18. O’Connor, John J., DVM, MPH; Stowe, Clarence M., VMD, PhD; Robinson, Robert R., BVSc, MPH, PhD, “Fate of Sodium Pentobarbital in Rendered Material,” American Journal of Veterinary Research, Vol. 46, No. 8, August 1995, pp. 1721–1723.
  19. FDA/CVM surveys of dry dog food for pentobarbital, 1998 and 2000. Published results, March 2002.
  20. Myers et al., American Journal of Veterinary Research, January 2004. FDA/CVM’s contradictory statements on pentobarbital source.
  21. Personal correspondence between Ann Martin and Stephen Sundlof, DVM, Center for Veterinary Medicine, May 18, 2005.
  22. United States Animal Health Association, “Report of the USAHA Committee on Feed Safety,” 1998. Veterinary reports of pentobarbital tolerance in dogs cited in Martin, Food Pets Die For, Chapter 5.
  23. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 6: “Pet Food Regulations.”
  24. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 6. Personal correspondence with Rodney Noel, DVM, former Chair of AAFCO, April 16, 2007.
  25. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 6. Correspondence with AAFCO state representatives: Robert Hougaard (Utah), David Shang (New Jersey), Arty Schronce (Georgia). Colorado Department of Agriculture testing criteria.
  26. AAFCO feeding trial guidelines cited in Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 6.
  27. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 4: “Testing for Cats and Dogs in Pet Food.” PFI Affiliate Members listing, including Baker Commodities, Inc.
  28. Euromonitor market data cited in Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 7.
  29. Pitcairn, Richard H., DVM, PhD. Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats. Banfield Veterinary Hospital, State of Pet Health 2015 Report (study of 2.4 million dogs and 480,000 cats). http://www.banfield.com/state-of-pet-health.
  30. Jean Hofve, DVM, cited in Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Cats.
  31. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats. Section on “Kidney Disease.”
  32. Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Cats. Section on “Kidney Failure,” citing multiple holistic veterinarians.
  33. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats. Section on taurine deficiency and dilated cardiomyopathy. See also AAFCO trial limitations.
  34. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats. Commentary on unknown future supplement requirements.
  35. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 11 on hyperthyroidism. UC Davis case-control study; Purdue University study examining 169,576 cats over twenty years, published 2004.
  36. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats. Section on “The 100% Myth — Problems Caused by Inadequate Nutrition.”
  37. Plechner and Zucker, Pet Allergies: Remedies for an Epidemic. “Kibble — A Sackful of Trouble.” Allergic Hit List.
  38. Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats. Section on food intolerances and immune hypersensitivity.
  39. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats. Section on “Contaminants.” E. coli contamination estimate. Pitcairn, Complete Guide, on endotoxins in commercial pet food.
  40. Joseph Demers, DVM, cited in Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Cats. Section on kibble and Chinese medicine perspective.
  41. Pitcairn, Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats. Chapter 3: “What’s Happening to All Our Food?”
  42. Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies. Sections on “The Broth Plan” (Demers), “The Three-Minute Plan” (Goldstein), and easy diet upgrades.
  43. Martin, Food Pets Die For. Chapter 3: “Preservatives and Additives in Pet Foods.” Ethoxyquin discussion. Messonnier, Natural Health Bible, on preservative labelling requirements.
  44. Carolyn Blakey, DVM, cited in Zucker, The Veterinarians’ Guide to Natural Remedies for Cats. Section on homemade meals.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | Comments Off on What’s Really in the Bag: The Pet Food Industry’s Dirty Secret

Project Artichoke: 70 Years Ago, CIA Discussed Hiding Mind-Control Drugs in Vaccines

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 24, 2026

In the 1950s, the CIA brainstormed ways to secretly perform mind control on humans — including concealing drugs in vaccines and widely consumed food products, a newly unearthed CIA document revealed. The Daily Mail first reported the story on Monday.

The seven-page document, “Special Research for Artichoke,” is dated April 23, 1952. It describes a series of ideas for how to develop chemicals designed to alter human behavior and thought.

The proposals contained in the document were part of the CIA’s top-secret Project Artichoke, which ran from 1951 to 1956, according to the Daily Mail.

The document, declassified in 1983, recently circulated on social media. However, it was not published in the CIA’s online reading room until last year.

“Some of the suggestions are controversial,” the document states. The proposals included administering drugs in secret as part of a “long-range approach to subjects.”

According to the document:

“This study should include chemicals or drugs that can effectively be concealed in common items such as food, water, coca cola, beer, liquor, cigarettes, etc.

“This type of drug should also be capable of use in standard medical treatments such as vaccinations, shots, etc.”

CIA experimented on humans as part of Project Artichoke

The document also included a special field of research for “bacteria, plant cultures, fungi, poisons of various types, etc.,” that are “capable of producing illnesses which in turn would produce high fevers, delirium, etc.”

This included “species of the mushroom” that “produce a certain type of intoxication and mental derangement.”

Also among the proposals was a suggestion to research “diet” or “dietary deficiencies” on prisoners and on people undergoing interrogation, including using “specially canned foods having elements removed.”

The document included proposals for both short-term and long-term use on humans. Drugs deemed most suitable for long-term use would be designed to produce an “agitating effect (producing anxiety, nervousness, tension, etc.) or a depressing effect (creating a feeling of despondency, hopelessness, lethargy, etc.).”

According to The Daily Mail, the CIA experimented on humans as part of Project Artichoke. The experiments often involved “vulnerable subjects, including prisoners, military personnel and psychiatric patients.” The experiments were usually performed “without informed consent.”

According to Ben Tapper, a Nebraska chiropractor who was included in the “Disinformation Dozen” list in 2021 for questioning vaccine safety, the document exposes “a disturbing reality that government agencies have historically explored ways to manipulate human behavior through chemical and biological means, including concepts involving food and medical interventions.”

“This is not speculation or conspiracy, and it should deeply concern every American who values bodily autonomy and informed consent,” Tapper said.

Precursor to the CIA’s MK-Ultra mind control experiments?

The Daily Mail cited CIA documents suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies were concerned that enemy nations had developed their own mind and behavioral control techniques. This led the agency to prioritize the development of its own methods.

Project Artichoke “served as a precursor” to the MK-Ultra program, which the CIA launched in 1953. That program “broadened mind-altering experiments on a larger scale,” the Daily Mail reported.

Many of the documents related to this type of experimentation were destroyed in 1973, “leaving the full extent of the research and how far it progressed unknown.”

Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., CEO of Daily Clout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity,” told The Defender that the documents further confirm a long history of intelligence agency research targeting human thought and behavior.

“Sadly, it’s long been established that our intelligence agencies, and those of our enemies, have sought to alter human consciousness and behavior, often without the subjects’ consent. The existence of MK-Ultra, the clandestine project into which Project Artichoke evolved, is well documented,” Wolf said.

John Leake, vice president of the McCullough Foundation and author of the forthcoming book, “Mind Viruses: America’s Irrational Obsessions,” said, “Researchers have long suspected that the Church Committee’s revelation of the CIA’s notorious MK-Ultra mind control experiments, mostly using LSD, had the effect of obscuring the agency’s much larger Project Artichoke.”

Leake cited evidence suggesting that a 1951 mass poisoning in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, in which 250 residents experienced severe hallucinations and seven people died, was a Project Artichoke experiment. The outbreak was officially attributed to contaminated bread from a local bakery.

Leake said the 1952 document is “consistent with the suspicion that the CIA was seeking to discover mind control methods for even large populations.”

In 2024, a Reuters investigation revealed that the CIA operated a secret propaganda campaign involving vaccines in the Philippines. The campaign attacked what the agency perceived as China’s “growing influence” in the country by targeting the Chinese-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine through the use of phony online accounts spreading “anti-vax” messaging.

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda,” said the Project Artichoke revelations “make it clear that the CIA has posed an enormous threat to U.S. citizens, in addition to the horrors it unleashes on non-U.S. target governments and populations.”

Project Artichoke wanted to enlist help from Army’s Chemical Warfare Service

The 1952 Project Artichoke document also included a recommendation to involve the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service in the project’s efforts, citing its experience with “exhaustive studies along these lines.”

This proposal bears a resemblance to recent suggestions that COVID-19 — and the response to the pandemic — were coordinated at high levels of government, military and intelligence agencies.

Last year, former pharmaceutical research and development executive Sasha Latypova and retired science writer Debbie Lerman released the “Covid Dossier,” presenting evidence of the “military/intelligence coordination of the Covid biodefense response in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy.”

According to Latypova and Lerman, “Covid was not a public health event” but “a global operation, coordinated through public-private intelligence and military alliances and invoking laws designed for CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) weapons attacks.”

Leake said “it is far from clear” that the Church Committee hearings of 1975 “put a complete end to CIA covert programs.” He cited the possible laboratory development of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as an example.

“The laboratory creation of SARS-CoV-2 with gain-of-function techniques developed at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the U.S. military’s involvement in developing and distributing of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, should … be regarded as possible outgrowths or even continuations of Project Artichoke,” Leake said.

Experts question similarities between Project Artichoke, COVID vaccines

In a Substack post today, epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher drew a potential connection between Project Artichoke and the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Hulscher cited recent peer-reviewed studies that identified the vaccines’ adverse impact on neurological health and “surging rates of cognitive decline.”

Hulscher wrote:

“Disturbingly, since 2021, over 70% of humanity received a neurotoxic agent masquerading as a ‘vaccine.’ The same goals outlined in the CIA document (vaccines/drugs capable of covertly inducing anxiety, depression, and lethargy) are now being observed in COVID-19 vaccinated populations. …

“… If the CIA was secretly discussing covert methods to alter human behavior in the 1950s, it would be no surprise if similar classified projects emerged in the decades that followed.”

A 2024 paper published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry investigated psychiatric adverse events among over 2 million people in South Korea. The study found that “COVID-19 vaccination increased the risks of depression, anxiety, dissociative, stress-related, and somatoform disorders, and sleep disorders while reducing the risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

A 2025 study published in the International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science found “alarming safety signals regarding neuropsychiatric conditions following COVID-19 vaccination, compared to the influenza vaccinations and to all other vaccinations combined.”

This included increases in schizophrenia, depression, cognitive decline, delusions, violent behavior, suicidal thoughts and homicidal ideation.

“The fact that mRNA vaccines were designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and inflame the brain — or at least, they were known to do so, during their manufacture and distribution — should give us pause in light of this news,” Wolf said.

Wolf said the latest revelations, “while shocking, provide all the more reason for us to be critical of opaque, coercive or untested vaccination programs, additives in food and water, and toxic or opaque geoengineering programs.”

Tapper said the revelations reinforce “the urgent need to protect individual liberty, medical freedom, and ethical boundaries in science and public health.”

“The lesson here is simple: vigilance is necessary when governments claim authority over the human body and mind,” Tapper said.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Project Artichoke: 70 Years Ago, CIA Discussed Hiding Mind-Control Drugs in Vaccines

Drug traffickers trained in Ukraine attack state forces in Mexico

By Lucas Leiroz | February 24, 2026

In recent days, Mexico has made headlines worldwide due to the increase in internal violence in the country. After the local government launched an offensive against drug trafficking and eliminated a major criminal leader, the country’s main drug cartel began a series of attacks against state forces, killing several soldiers and civilians, destroying military equipment and infrastructure.

The combat capacity of the criminal forces is surprising world public opinion, but little has been said about how the professionalization of organized crime in Mexico is directly related to the current situation in the Ukrainian conflict.

The wave of violence began after the Mexican government launched a special operation against the Jalisco Cartel. Using police and military troops and with broad support from the army, state forces eliminated Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho,” identified by experts as the leader of the Jalisco Cartel.

The action was praised by the international press, as well as by US authorities, such as Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who called the operation a “great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world” – thus easing months of tensions between the US and Mexico, which had been escalating since Donald Trump’s inauguration.

“I’ve just been informed that Mexican security forces have killed ‘El Mencho,’ one of the bloodiest and most ruthless drug kingpins. This is a great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world (…) The good guys are stronger than the bad guys,” Landau said.

However, the operation was quickly met with extreme violence by the criminals. Police officers began to be hunted down in the streets in various regions of the country, mainly in the suburbs of Jalisco. Cartel members blocked roads, attempting to prevent basic supplies from moving in the country. Photos and videos circulate on the internet showing scenes of extreme violence in the streets of Jalisco, where police officers, soldiers, and innocent civilians were indiscriminately murdered by the criminals.

These photos and videos are also surprising internet users by revealing the true level of combat power of Latin American cartels. It’s possible to see in the images soldiers armed with heavy weaponry and wearing modern and sophisticated tactical uniforms. At first glance, anyone would think those men were officers of the Mexican army, but they are just members of local cartels.

It has long been known that Mexican cartels – and Latin American cartels in general – have become rapidly and dangerously professionalized. These criminal organizations in Mexico already possess access to complex equipment such as armored vehicles, anti-aircraft batteries, suicide drones, and grenade launchers, as well as various types of short- and medium-range rockets. The criminals also frequently use flamethrowers, landmines (both anti-tank and anti-personnel), and other advanced military equipment.

It is regularly stated by various experts that in Mexico, cartels have already acquired a combat capability superior to that of regular police and military forces. This is a natural consequence of the fact that these organizations have acquired considerable financial power over time – with their funds being equivalent to the GDP of some small countries – which guarantees the possibility of acquiring military equipment on the black market.

However, there is a factor being ignored in the Western media coverage of the case: Ukrainian influence. Since the beginning of the conflict, thousands of Latin American mercenaries have fought for the Kiev regime. When they survive the harsh fighting against Russian forces, these criminals return to their countries and pass on the knowledge and experience acquired on the battlefield to their partners.

Over time, Mexican cartels (as well as Colombian and Brazilian cartels) have created a systematic scheme for sending their members as mercenaries to Ukraine, which has allowed for rapid military professionalization and the acquisition of combat experience for these criminals, giving them an advantage against state forces – which act according to laws that restrict the use of force and lack war experience.

Several reports have been published by specialized websites showing that Mexican criminals are using techniques learned in Ukraine. In images of current hostilities, it is even possible to see the Ukrainian flag on some uniforms and armored vehicles of the criminals. Also, the use of drones has become one of the main specialties of the drug traffickers, largely learned during the Ukrainian conflict – in which drones are an essential factor in the dynamics of combat.

To solve the problem, the Mexican state will need to do much more than simply eliminate a cartel leader. “Decapitation” attacks don’t work in the long term because criminals quickly recruit new leaders from within their ranks. It is necessary to confront the ranks of criminals in the long term, with constant military attrition, in addition to destroying the drug production and transportation infrastructure used by criminals.

On the other hand, it will also be necessary to create measures to cut off the source of knowledge and military equipment that supplies organized crime in Mexico. Sophisticated intelligence operations must be established to sever contact between local cartels and the Kiev regime, arresting mercenaries and neutralizing arms smuggling – since it is known that many Western weapons sent to Ukraine end up in the hands of these criminals, further increasing their fighting power.

If Mexico is not efficient in addressing this problem, there will be a much deeper crisis in the country, considering the American interest in expanding its regional interventionism using the excuse of “anti-trafficking operations.” Trump himself does not rule out the possibility of using force on the Mexican side of the border in an “anti-terrorist operation.”

Obviously, this is just an excuse to defend American interests abroad, but the only way Mexico can disrupt US plans is precisely by being efficient in combating crime alone or with the support of countries genuinely interested in the same objective. Naturally, the Mexican government should seek Russian support, since it is in Moscow’s interest to neutralize the international ties of the Kiev regime, including arms trafficking and the recruitment of mercenaries.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Drug traffickers trained in Ukraine attack state forces in Mexico

The tragic reality of Brazilian mercenaries in the Ukrainian conflict

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 23, 2026

The episode involving the death of Bruno Gabriel Leal da Silva, a 28-year-old Brazilian who served as an international mercenary in the so-called “International Legion” in Kiev, exposes a dark and rarely discussed side of the war in Ukraine. According to reports from the Kiev Independent, Leal da Silva died after being severely beaten by fellow soldiers, in a systematic practice of physical punishment that, according to local sources, included torture, burns, simulated drowning, and even sexual assault. The incident occurred in the Advanced Company, a unit under the command of another Brazilian, Leanderson Paulino, and reportedly lasted around 40 minutes, with witnesses present who were unable to intervene.

This case highlights a reality often overlooked in Western analyses of the conflict: the presence of individuals with violent histories or psychological instability being incorporated into Ukrainian neo-Nazi ranks. The fact that Leal da Silva had not yet formalized his contract and planned to leave Ukraine makes the episode even more concerning, revealing a culture of impunity within certain units that appear to operate above basic rules of combatant safety and protection.

Beyond the human aspect, there are diplomatic and governance implications that deserve attention. Brazil, for example, lacks clear mechanisms to monitor or protect its citizens who engage in foreign conflicts. While there is a state effort to maintain legality and prevent Brazilians from becoming victims of trafficking or exploitation, incidents like Leal da Silva’s reveal significant gaps.

On the other hand, the case also exposes the fragmented and often arbitrary nature of Ukrainian forces that receive foreign volunteers. The Advanced Company, as the reports indicate, employed coercive and disciplinary methods that constitute systematic torture. The existence of such practices, confirmed by the Kiev government itself, which has launched an investigation, raises questions about the type of supervision and internal accountability in units operating with autonomy and limited transparency.

Furthermore, it reveals the presence of potentially dangerous elements capable of acting with indiscriminate brutality, confirming that the foreign recruits are not motivated by any humanitarian or “solidarity” sentiment – many are violent, psychopathic profiles, used as instruments of coercion within the conflict.

The incident, therefore, should not be seen merely as an isolated fatality, but as a symptom of larger problems: the lack of effective control over foreign military units, the absence of protection for basic rights in war zones, and the infiltration of criminal behavior into combat environments. Although Ukrainian authorities claim to have initiated investigations, it is evident that the Ukrainian fascist regime treats its own soldiers with disdain – especially the foreign “volunteers,” who are seen as mere cannon fodder. It is unlikely anyone will be held accountable in this recent case – and if anyone is, it will certainly be other Brazilian mercenaries who participated in the crime, not Ukrainian officers who consented to the practices.

From a strategic perspective, episodes like that of Leal da Silva offer material for reflection on how Ukrainian hostilities have become arenas not only of confrontation between states but also of internal battles over discipline, power, and abuse within contracted forces. The war in Ukraine, far from being only a geopolitical clash, has also become a laboratory of military behavior, with criminals, killers, and psychopaths from around the world enlisting in the Ukrainian “Foreign Legion,” awaiting a license to torture and kill.

The greatest danger, moreover, will be the return of these mercenaries – the survivors – given their irrational instincts and war experience. It is no coincidence that Russia has made it clear that all international fighters are considered priority targets.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | | Comments Off on The tragic reality of Brazilian mercenaries in the Ukrainian conflict

Zelensky Refused to Discuss Druzhba Pipeline Issue – Fico

Sputnik – 24.02.2026

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he wanted to discuss the situation around the Druzhba oil pipeline with Volodymyr Zelensky, but the Ukrainian side was only ready to talk after February 25.

“I was interested in speaking with the Ukrainian president by phone and getting an answer to the question of when and whether oil supplies to Slovakia would be restored. We received a message that the Ukrainian president was ready to talk after February 25,” Fico said in a video message on Monday.

Fico noted Slovakia has information that the Druzhba pipeline is operational, but the Ukrainian side, in turn, has not allowed the Slovak ambassador to Ukraine to visit the part of the infrastructure that is allegedly damaged.

“Stopping the oil flow is a purely political decision aimed at blackmailing Slovakia in international matters related to the war in Ukraine. Slovakia is an independent state and will not allow itself to be blackmailed,” Fico added.

On February 13, the Slovak Economy Ministry announced that oil supplies to the republic via the Druzhba pipeline had been suspended. The ministry expected them to resume in the coming days, but it did not happen. On February 18, the Slovak government declared a crisis situation due to oil shortages, deciding to allocate up to 250,000 tonnes of oil from state reserves to the Slovnaft refinery. Fico said that Slovnaft would halt exports of petroleum products, including diesel fuel, to Ukraine, focusing all production on the local market.

Later, Fico said that Slovakia will halt emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine starting Monday, as oil flow from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline has not resumed yet.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Deception | , | Comments Off on Zelensky Refused to Discuss Druzhba Pipeline Issue – Fico

U.S. General Caine Warns: STRIKING IRAN is a HUGE RISK /Glenn Diesen & Lt Col Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – February 23, 2026

The Pentagon is raising concerns to Trump about an extended military campaign against Iran, advising that war plans being considered carry risks including U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force.

The warnings voiced by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, within the Defense Department and during meetings of the National Security Council, current and former officials said, but other Pentagon leaders also have noted similar worries.

Such discussions are always part of the contingency-planning process before military operations, some officials said, noting that military leaders—especially the Joint Chiefs chair—provide prudent estimates of possible casualties and other potential costs of military operations.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , , , | Comments Off on U.S. General Caine Warns: STRIKING IRAN is a HUGE RISK /Glenn Diesen & Lt Col Daniel Davis