Natural Balance Recalled

[Sophist]

Are you TRYING to give me a heart attack?


Fortunuately, I do not use the canned at all, and I have never fed them any of the venison ones.

My three would be crushed if I had to take away their Natural Balance rolls.

[ramanth]

My three would be crushed if I had to take away their Natural Balance rolls.

I hear ya. I've been using the venison NB rolls as training treats for Chipper.

[Vela]

OMG I fed Soda the canned venison when she first came home before she was transitioned to raw!!! Thank GOD above she only ate half a can, she didn't like it, I fed the rest to the other two. They ALL had diarrhea and one of them threw up, but I wasn't sure which. Ugh CRAP. I am going to have soda's kidney's tested to make sure there was no damage that might show up later. I'm just disgusted. Home made raw (i just bought a heavy duty meat grinder) and premade raw and EVO RM is ALL my dogs get from now on. The only treats they get are homemade and chicken jerky. I can't beleive this.

[Jadapit]

Honestly, at this point and time I dont think I would feed any of the Natural Balance. Take a look at what the president of the company had to say on the matter:


Natural Balance President Herrick was so shaken by the melamine finding that he imposed a new policy Tuesday to hold all company foods in a warehouse until an offsite lab tests each batch for melamine. He won't ship anything until it has tested clean, he said.

My husband is going back to Aspen today. I'm sending the two bags of NB back with him, I dont trust any of it right now. I hope the pet shop owner will let my husband get a different brand or give him the money back.

This whole thing is a nightmare, how many more foods with the brown rice could be affected? Here is something else that scares me to death.

Local veterinarians who've tracked kidney ailments nationwide have tentatively identified five more foods, not at this point under any recall, that they plan to have tested as soon as possible.


What five foods could it be? How many of us could be feeding one of those to our beloved fur kids? Grrrrrr.....

Here is the article.....






Fears grow on pet food
New findings expand the threat beyond wheat gluten.
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg - Bee Staff Writer
Last Updated 12:08 am PDT Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1



The monthlong pet food recall expanded Tuesday with a troubling twist, for the first time involving foods that do not contain wheat gluten but still tested positive for a potentially lethal chemical.

The finding makes it much tougher to tell people what to safely feed their pets and fuels suspicions that the chemical melamine is being deliberately added to some pet food ingredients to bolster apparent protein.

Natural Balance, a Pacoima-based company, is "99.9 percent sure" that a rice protein made in Asia is responsible for the melamine detected Tuesday in some of its venison-based pet foods, company President Joey Herrick said.


"It was pretty shocking," he said in a phone interview after the company recalled several of its venison foods. "I was livid."

Herrick declined to name the supplier of the rice protein or the country it came from, saying only that a large American company acquired the ingredient for Diamond Pet Foods, which makes some Natural Balance products.

Because both wheat gluten and rice protein enhance the protein content of pet food, "it certainly is suspicious" that melamine now is associated with both, said Bob Poppenga, a UC Davis veterinary toxicology professor.

Melamine isn't an edible protein, but it has plenty of nitrogen, which can be used as a marker for protein in chemical analyses.

So, if someone wanted to use less of the relatively pricey sources of vegetable protein, such as wheat gluten, and throw in cheaper starches instead, adding melamine to that mix would still make it look like a protein-rich product, numerous veterinary nutritionists and toxicologists have said. With such speculation swirling, the rice protein-melamine link further alarmed pet owners as it began appearing on Web sites Tuesday, said Gina Spadafori, a Sacramento-based author who runs a pet Web site.

"I see people who are being almost panicky," she said. "Last week, it was easy for veterinary associations to say if you want to feel better, just avoid wheat gluten," Spadafori said. "Now for this expansion to be an entirely different protein source ... I don't think right now anybody can say, 'Go feed this, it's safe.' "

Natural Balance President Herrick was so shaken by the melamine finding that he imposed a new policy Tuesday to hold all company foods in a warehouse until an offsite lab tests each batch for melamine. He won't ship anything until it has tested clean, he said.

Local veterinarians who've tracked kidney ailments nationwide have tentatively identified five more foods, not at this point under any recall, that they plan to have tested as soon as possible.

The Veterinary Information Network, used by about 16,000 of the estimated 35,000 U.S. veterinarians, noticed the five foods kept recurring in vet-described disease reports, said Paul Pion, the Davis vet who co-founded the service. Pion said it would be premature to name the foods.

He hopes to get suspect food samples to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis to start testing as early as today. As the recall expands, "my sense is it's time for every manufacturer to go testing for melamine," Pion said.

The notion that melamine could be a deliberate additive -- not an industrial mistake -- arose as early as April 5, when Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said that the pet food recall could turn into a criminal investigation if investigators find that melamine was added deliberately.

Later, the New York Times reported that the Chinese company that supplied tainted wheat gluten to Menu Foods sought to buy large amounts of melamine through Internet trading sites.

More than 4,000 pet deaths have been reported on Spadafori's petconnetion.com site. Others have estimated recall-related deaths at hundreds to thousands of pets nationwide.

All the 100 or so products recalled previously had involved wheat gluten, the vast majority of them dog food, cat food and treats manufactured for many labels by the Canada-based company Menu Foods.

Amid complaints that the multiple recalls were hard to follow, the FDA tried to assemble all the recalled foods on a single list, now over 5,000 items long, on its Web site at www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/petfoodrecall/

As of Tuesday evening, the Natural Balance recalls hadn't appeared there. Natural Balance recalled two products Monday and added more Tuesday after learning of the melamine test results. It has pulled back Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and Venison and Green Pea dry cat food.

For pet owners, vets said, the important thing to be aware of is any behavior change that seems linked to either a new food, or even a new bag of the same food. Symptoms could include loss of appetite, vomiting, lethargy and excess drinking or urinating.

[Vela]

I fed her a LOT of the chicken and beef and brown rice....for two weeks while I changed her food. I think she's okay...but I am going to have her checked to be sure. I DO applaud this company for caring more about pets than about their profits, I realize they had no idea and they have taken quick action, but I won't/can't feed their foods.

EVO uses no grains at all, only potatoes....so that's it for me, along with raw. I just can't take that chance. I hope ANYONES pets who ate this are okay.

[Zippy]

My gosh! I don't know what to feed my babies anymore.I am feeding Blue bluffio right now.I am thinking of switching to chicken soup for the cat lover's soup adult cat food.Does anyone esle feed that?

[mugsy]

I made the comment to Mike last night that people are going to stop buying anything that has rice in it and we will be screwed!! We have a lot of foods that do not have rice, but, a huge number do.

KayAnn, email the store: [email protected] and tell Mike what you have experienced with Timberwolf please. He wants to keep up on all complaints that he hears about each food. Thanks!


J.P. Tell your husband to tell the store that NB will reimburse the store for every bag brought back. That should take care of it and if they have questions tell them to call them.

Zippy, just an FYI, if it makes a difference to you, Chicken Soup is rated as one of the best, but, it is also made by Diamond.

We had one bag of cat food brought back last night and one dog food today. And I thought we were safe!

[Ginger's Mom]

Zippy, I also feed Blue Buffalo and have e-mailed them. I will pm you if/when I receive a response. All I can say is they do use the Rice Protein paste according to their list of ingredients on the dry dog food. I have found an Innova/Evo dealer near me, and think I just may have to switch over to that.

[ramanth]

My gosh! I don't know what to feed my babies anymore.I am feeding Blue bluffio right now.I am thinking of switching to chicken soup for the cat lover's soup adult cat food.Does anyone esle feed that?

We just switched the cats to that and I've had no problems at all.

[JenBKR]

It's all getting to be too much. I'm afraid of what to feed mine. I have been feeding Chicken soup for the dog/cat lovers's soul, and they all love it. I guess I will just stick with that until I hear something different. I haven't had any problems at all with it, but it's still scary.

Does anyone know if Science diet dry dog food has been on the recall list at all? My friend feeds that to her dog and she said he's been throwing up a lot lately. I just wondered if it had anything to do with the food.....