A couple of more Salmonella recalls have occurred recently. Feline’s Pride Natural Chicken Formula, a raw chicken diet, has been recalled, as has Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Chicken, a kibble diet.

Finding Salmonella in commercial raw diets is expected and I’m surprised about the recalls that have happened. If you buy raw meat, you need to assume that it’s contaminated with Salmonella and various other potential pathogens. Salmonella in kibble diets is more surprising, and is a concern because people do not tend to handle kibble as potentially contaminated.

These recalls highlight a few points to me:

• Always assume you have Salmonella and other nasties in raw meat. Careful attention to handling of raw meat and personal hygiene (e.g. handwashing) is critical.
• While lower risk, kibble is not innocuous, so wash your hands and prevent cross-contamination of kibble with human foods.
• "Natural," along with "organic," "super premium" and other marketing catch-words tell you nothing about the quality and safety of a product. There’s no evidence that any products marketed as organic, natural, or anything else along that line are at all superior to diets produced by reputable companies, particularly diets that have undergone proper development and testing, including AAFCO feeding trials.