February 2013 Petsumer Report adds new reviews from Brothers Pet Food, Canine Caviar Pet Food, Lotus Pet Food, and Stella and Chewys Pet Food.
Canine Caviar Dog Foods
Canine Caviar dry foods are manufactured at Hi-Tek Rations in Dublin, GA; can foods are made at Evangers in Illinois. Meat meal ingredients are made from muscle meat only (no bone or internal organs). For more information visit www.CanineCaviar.com
Gourmet Turkey Dog Food Can
Petsumer Report Rating: 
Ingredients: Ground Turkey, Water Sufficient for Processing, Carrageenan Gum, Cassia Gum.
Red Flag Ingredients: Carrageenan
US Only Ingredients: Yes with the exception of lamb meal and venison meal from New Zealand, kelp from Norway
Natural Preservatives: Yes
Shelf Life: 2 years
Crude Protein: 9% Crude Fat: 10% Crude Fiber: 3% Moisture: 76.5%
Calories: 429 kcal/13.2 oz can
Plus
The Canine Caviar Representative stated meat ingredients are USDA inspected and approved (human grade). Company stated cans are BPA free (see note below).
Minus
Contains carrageenan; controversial gum linked to serious illness.
Rating Note: Moisture ingredient is not scored. However, the additional moisture in can foods are of great benefit to cats and to a lesser extent dogs.
To learn more…
…about Carrageenan Click Here
…about BPA Click Here and Here
Susan’s Comments
This pet food contains no supplements (vitamins/minerals). Because of this, I would guess this is not a balanced diet and is recommended only for supplemental feeding.
To my knowledge, large cans (such as the 13.2 oz pet food can) are not currently available BPA free. This pet food company stated “cans are BPA free”; I would guess this means only the small cans not the large cans. Not a complete answer provided by this company.
To explain the rating – only the first five ingredients – the majority of the food – are rated and listed in bold type. Grey Font ingredients imply ingredients providing pets little to no nutrition, and Red Font ingredients are Red Flag ingredients that are potentially dangerous to pets. Quality ingredients are listed in bold black font. Five quality ingredients gives the pet food a five Paw Print rating. Four quality ingredients gives the pet food a four Paw Print rating, and so forth. Four Paw Prints is the highest rating possible for a canned pet food. Do not rely on the paw print rating alone; read the Plus/Minus information and manufacturer information at the top of each page.
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Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author, Buyer Beware
Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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2013 List
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SO MUCH FOR THE MYTHS
CONSIDER THE FACTS ON CARRAGEENAN FOR A CHANGE
Q. What is Carrageenan??
A. Carrageenan is a naturally-occurring seaweed extract. It is widely used in foods and non-foods to improve texture and stability. Common uses include meat and poultry, dairy products, canned pet food, cosmetics and toothpaste.
Q. Why the controversy?
A. Self-appointed consumer watchdogs have produced numerous web pages filled with words condemning carrageenan as an unsafe food additive for human consumption. However, in 70+ years of carrageenan being used in processed foods, not a single substantiated claim of an acute or chronic disease has been reported as arising from carrageenan consumption. On a more science-based footing, food regulatory agencies in the US, the EU, and in the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) repeatedly review and continue to approve carrageenan as a safe food additive.
Q. What has led up to this misrepresentation of the safety of an important food stabilizer, gelling agent and thickener?
A. It clearly has to be attributed to the research of Dr. Joanne Tobacman, an Associate Prof at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She and a group of molecular biologists have accused carrageenan of being a potential inflammatory agent as a conclusion from laboratory experiments with cells of the digestive tract. It requires a lot of unproven assumptions to even suggest that consumption of carrageenan in the human diet causes inflammatory diseases of the digestive tract. The objectivity of the Chicago research is also flawed by the fact that Dr Tobacman has tried to have carrageenan declared an unsafe food additive on weak technical arguments that she broadcast widely a decade before the University of Chicago research began.
Q. What brings poligeenan into a discussion of carrageenan?
A. Poligeenan (“degraded carrageenan” in pre-1988 scientific and regulatory publications) is a possible carcinogen to humans; carrageenan is not. The only relationship between carrageenan and poligeenan is that the former is the starting material to make the latter. Poligeenan is not a component of carrageenan and cannot be produced in the digestive tract from carrageenan-containing foods.
Q. What are the differences between poligeenan and carrageenan?
A. The production process for poligeenan requires treating carrageenan with strong acid at high temp (about that of boiling water) for 6 hours or more. These severe processing conditions convert the long chains of carrageenan to much shorter ones: ten to one hundred times shorter. In scientific terms the molecular weight of poligeenan is 10,000 to 20,000; whereas that of carrageenan is 200,000 to 800,000. Concern has been raised about the amount of material in carrageenan with molecular weight less than 50,000. The actual amount (well under 1%) cannot even be detected accurately with current technology. Certainly it presents no threat to human health.
Q. What is the importance of these molecular weight differences?
A. Poligeenan contains a fraction of material low enough in molecular weight that it can penetrate the walls of the digestive tract and enter the blood stream. The molecular weight of carrageenan is high enough that this penetration is impossible. Animal feeding studies starting in the 1960s have demonstrated that once the low molecular weight fraction of poligeenan enters the blood stream in large enough amounts, pre-cancerous lesions begin to form. These lesions are not observed in animals fed with a food containing carrageenan.
Q. Does carrageenan get absorbed in the digestive track?
A. Carrageenan passes through the digestive system intact, much like food fiber. In fact, carrageenan is a combination of soluble and insoluble nutritional fiber, though its use level in foods is so low as not to be a significant source of fiber in the diet.
Summary
Carrageenan has been proven completely safe for consumption. Poligeenan is not a component of carrageenan.
Closing Remarks
The consumer watchdogs with their blogs and websites would do far more service to consumers by researching their sources and present only what can be substantiated by good science. Unfortunately we are in an era of media frenzy that rewards controversy.
Additional information available:
On June 11th, 2008, Dr. Joanne Tobacman petitioned the FDA to revoke the current regulations permitting use of carrageenan as a food additive.
On June 11th, 2012 the FDA denied her petition, categorically addressing and ultimately dismissing all of her claims; their rebuttal supported by the results of several in-depth, scientific studies.
If you would like to read the full petition and FDA response, they can be accessed at http://www.regulations.gov/#!searchResults;rpp=25;po=0;s=FDA-2008-P-0347
You did not provide the source of all your information – these Q & A on carrageenan. Please provide a link to where you got this information.
Some might argue with the years of Dr. Tobacman’s research, I don’t.