Ethoxyquin and Pet Food Preservatives

Before we even get into the ethoxyquin debate, we need to start with some basic information. First, keets, like humans, are meant to eat fresh food. We thrive best on fresh veggies, fresh milk, freshly caught fish, and fresh bread. I don't think anybody would contest that. If you freeze broccoli, ship it across the country, let it sit frozen for a year, thaw it out and microwave it, you have already destroyed a TON of the vitamins that were in that original broccoli plant. It's a simple fact of life.

Second, many humans and pets make that trade-off daily for a number of reasons. We're too lazy to cook a real meal. We don't have enough money for an apartment with a stove - all we can afford is a microwave. We simply have no land available to have even a tiny garden. We are out at a jobsite where they do not allow us to bring in our own food, so all we can eat is the junk food / fast food there. Sometimes we can "help it". Sometimes we honestly can't. So there are going to be times that we MUST eat food with preservatives. Remember, preservatives are one of the only reasons that we can feed as many humans and pets as we can in modern days. If we didn't have preservatives, then most things you saw on the grocery shelves would be mouldy and rotten.

OK, so we understand that healthy food is almost universally fresh food - but that we deliberately make trade-offs in life to buy NOT fresh food for whatever reason. In order to make that trade-off, we get foods with preservatives so they are still edible when we get around to eating them. For example, if you got a can of cat food WITHOUT preservatives, then it would go rancid pretty quickly. So either you buy your meat fresh daily for your cat - or you buy canned food with preservatives. Most people choose the latter, for simplicity's sake. Remember - if you DID want to feed your cat fresh meat daily, you could certainly do that! And your cat would really love it. It would just mean you had to go to and from the store each day, and pay the gas / grocery bills.

Ethoxyquin is a preservative that helps a food last longer. For example, in human food, ethoxyquin is used in paprika to keep the red color bright. It's used at about a volume of 100 parts per million (ppm). There is a FDA Page on ethoxyquin that says that you can start to harm rats if you feed them ethoxyquin in levels of 5,000 ppm or more. That's 50 times the rate used in human food. You could just as easily say that a glass of wine a day is fine for a human - but 50 glasses of wine in a day is harmful. Well, duh!

The Ethoxyquin Debate
OK, so here's the debate. We all agree that meat products / fatty products, if just put on a shelf, will go rancid. That would kill pretty much any animal, to eat that rancid item. We agree that most pet owners are just too lazy to go buy fresh meat for their pets every day :) We want convenience. So we have to put SOMETHING into the meat to keep it from going rancid quickly. That something is ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin is a preservative that helps the meat stay edible. Right now, ethoxyquin is put into pet foods at a level of 150 parts per million. The FDA feels this is a safe level.

Some pet owners feel that this is too much - that at this level it causes liver damage in some pets. Studies are being done to see if the ethoxyquin is still able to "keep the meat safe" at lower levels. Remember, this is a serious trade-off we're considering here. On one hand we have meat that will go rancid and kill pets, if it is not made safe. On the other hand, we have a few pets that can get liver damage, if they get too much ethoxyquin. So at what point do we lover the ethoxyquin levels so *no* pet ever gets liver damage - vs a number of pets now get poisoned by rancid meats.

Yes, there are going to be organic pet food makers who claim that organic food is better. And you know what, I agree with them. If you can get fresh food for your pet, it's always going to be best. I feed my keets fresh lettuce. That is much better than buying them dried, preserved lettuce bits that were shipped to me from China. I feed my keets fresh carrots which are better than feeding them dried preserved carrot bits from Venezuela. If you are willing to get fresh, unpreserved food for your pet and feed him daily - AVOIDING ALL CHANCE OF RANCID / BAD FOOD - then you are a great pet owner and should be pleased with yourself. However, most pet owners will NOT go through this trouble. They will buy fresh food, let it sit around and then feed the going-rancid or going-mouldy food to the pet figuring it's "close enough". The pet then gets food poisoning and dies.

You have to be completely realistic here. You only have X hours in your day you are willing to devote to your pet. You only have Y budget of money. If you were a millionaire and had a special Pet-Servant to care for your pet, then that pet-servant could run to the store to fetch fresh food every day. The pet-servant could carry the food in a special cooler that was sterile, and make sure the pet received the freshest, best, most nutritious food around. That way the food would be infection-free and your pet would be the healthiest pet in your entire state, probably.

But few of us are millionaires and few of us can spend the hours each week necessary to get fresh food. We are going to shop at most once a week for our pet, and that food has to last all week. We are not going to be super sterile about how we store that food. A pet's body is usually much smaller than ours - so if they get a small amount of "bad food" it could kill them. To their body, that is still a large amount. So to me, preservatives are a critical way that most of us can ensure our pets stay fed with at least some reassurance that the food hasn't rotted. But if you have the money and time, by all means spend more for organic food, and make sure you get it fresh, frequently, because it's going to go bad quickly. That is the responsibility you take on when you make that choice for your pet's diet.

NOTE: I AM NOT A VET! If you have ANY concern about your parakeet's health and safety, no 'far off person' on the web will be able to accurately diagnose the issue. You need to bring your keet to a real, live vet to see the symptoms first hand and take appropriate action.

Parakeet Medical and Safety Information