How the FDA regulates what pets are fed

Pet food is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Pet foods aren't required to have "pre-market approval" by the FDA, although agency guidelines say it is supposed to ensure that ingredients used in the foods are safe and appropriate.

The FDA says it generally investigates pet food-making facilities only when it has a good reason. The first time the FDA inspected Menu Foods' Emporia, Kan., plant — where the tainted foods were produced — was after Menu Foods alerted authorities.

The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine regulates pet-food labels. In addition to guaranteeing certain nutrients, the FDA requires that pet-food makers:

• Use at least 95 percent of an ingredient that is part of the name. So a food called "Beef for Dogs" or "Tuna Cat Food" must contain at least 95 percent beef or tuna.

• List ingredients in order of weight. And when two ingredients are used in a name — FDA guidelines use the example "Lobster and Salmon for Cats" — the first ingredient must be dominant, meaning there has to be more lobster in that can than salmon.

• Use at least 25 percent of an ingredient that is in the name if it also is called "dinner," "platter," "entree," "formula" or something similar. That means that only a quarter of "Beef Dinner for Dogs" has to be beef.

Animal activists have called the rules confusing and misleading. Some charge that commercially manufactured pet food can contain meat from sick or diseased animals and other inferior ingredients.

But Ron Faoro, president of the California Veterinary Medical Association and a veterinarian in Santa Barbara, said he has found most commercial pet food safe and healthful.

"Pet food in general is of far higher quality than what people think," Faoro said. "People think it's ground-up lungs and claws and beaks. That may exist with the real low-end generic foods, but I think that [other] foods are expensive because they do put good-quality ingredients into them."