For many people, pets are a beloved member of the family. If you are cancer prevention health-conscious in the foods you eat, you want the best in nutrition for your pet as much as you do for the rest of the family. I prepare meals for Murphy, our Rat Terrier, the same as I would for a family meal. He does not eat exactly what we eat, as salt and spices for Murphy are not a good thing, but he does get a balanced diet of fresh organic foods. I am not an eccentric purist in my care for Murphy -- no -- I came to my common sense pet food preparation choice as a result of discovering that the pretty bags of dry dog food that line the shelves of the local grocery were not nearly as healthy as all the vegetable and real meat claims printed on the side of the bag. Warning: the following descriptive preparation of commercial pet food is gross.

I was appalled by the information provided by the Animal Protection Institute's What's Really in Pet Food Fact Sheet. According to API, commercially manufactured or rendered meat meals and by-product meals are frequently highly contaminated with bacteria because their source is not always slaughtered animals. Animals that have died because of disease, injury, or natural causes are a source of meat for meat meal. The dead animal might not be rendered until days after its death. Cereal grains are the primary ingredients in most commercial pet foods. Many people select one pet food and feed it to their dogs and cats for a prolonged period of time. Therefore, companion dogs and cats eat a primarily carbohydrate diet with little variety. Today, the diets of cats and dogs are a far cry from the primarily protein diets with a lot of variety that their ancestors ate.

According to Dr. Basko, of Holistic Veterinarian Services, "The so-called balanced modern day pet foods are saturated with harmful chemical preservatives, food coloring, pesticides, heavy metals, excess amounts of salt, sugar, rancid fat, over-cooked oils, mold, and meat that has been condemned for human use." Doesn't sound like much of a cancer prevention pet diet to me. What can you do?

Again, the API offers excellent suggestions and resources for a healthy diet for your pet that takes less time than you might think, and can be, far less expensive in the long run. First, if you can, stop buying commercial pet food. If you do buy commercial pet food, API offers information on selecting a good commercial food but -- if you choose to feed your pet homemade meals -- sample diets complete with recipes and important nutritional information.