One of the foods I feed my cat contains wheat germ, and another has wheat bran on the label. I'm scared because of the pet food recall of foods with toxic wheat gluten. Are these foods safe for my cat?
A. The short answer is that wheat gluten is the only form of wheat that has yet been identified as having the potential for added melamine, the toxic ingredient blamed for most of the pet food recalls.
Here are definitions of these ingredients, along with some other wheat derivatives:
- Wheat gluten: The tough, viscid nitrogenous substance remaining when wheat is washed to remove the starch. Wheat gluten is a cheap by-product of human food processing, the starcy liquid left after washing wheat. It is used mostly to bind food together. Wheat gluten is included in a number of human food products, as well as pet foods. Contaminated wheat gluten from China has been found responsible for a large number of the reported sickness and death of pets from melamine toxicity.
- Wheat germ: The embryo of the wheat kernel separated in milling. It is considered a good source of proteins and vitamins.
- Wheat bran: The coarse outer coating of the wheat kernel as separated from cleaned and scoured wheat in the usual process of commercial milling. It is considered to be a cheap source of fiber as a filler.
- Wheat germ meal: Consists chiefly of wheat germ together with some bran and "middlings" or shorts. It must contain not less than 25 percent crude protein and 7 percent crude fat. It is used in some pet foods as a source of protein.
The snowballing effect of the pet food recall has left both consumers, pet food manufactureres, and the FDA reeling. Therefore I can only offer the caveat that, foods containing these other wheat products should be safe for your cats, unless they are allergic to wheat, until we are notified otherwise.
Source of Definitions: Natura
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