Cat Food Loaded With Carcinogens, Heavy Metals, Microplastics And Herbicides, Investigation Finds

“Lead was found in 99%, cadmium in 96% and arsenic in 94% of cat food samples across 62 brands,” the Clean Label Project said.

A new investigation found cat food is packed with pollutants and toxins that are lethal to our furry little friends.

Almost no brand was left untouched in the investigation by the Clean Label Project.

“The investigation tested 100 top-selling cat foods for more than 122 contaminants, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, pesticides, herbicides and phthalates, the plastic chemicals linked to an increased risk of death in humans,” CNN reports. “Lead was found in 99%, cadmium in 96% and arsenic in 94% of cat food samples across 62 brands. Contamination varied by product type — wet, dry, and air- or freeze-dried — and the type of protein, such as poultry, beef or fish.”

What’s especially worrying is that many of the most prominent contaminants are directly linked to the most common and lethal health problems in cats, including kidney disease and liver damage. Kidney disease affects more than four in 10 cats ages 10 and older, and four out of five cats age 15 and older, according to Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

The numbers are seriously concerning and, although caretakers have long known pet food manufacturers cut corners, often loading their products with fillers and the lowest grade meat available, the new investigation paints a picture far worse than most of us imagined.

A gray cat licking a tube of pet treat held by a person.
The Clean Label Project cat food investigation raises serious questions about the damage pet food is doing to our beloved little buddies. Credit: by Anjie Qiu/Pexels

Compounding the problem is the fact that government regulations on contaminants, like many laws dealing with animals, were designed for farm animals. At about eight to 12 pounds, cats are significantly smaller than the animals regulators had in mind, meaning their bodies are less able to filter out toxins and they absorb significantly more than farm animals or adult humans.

Seafood is especially dangerous. Per CNN:

“Mercury levels were about 18 times higher and cadmium levels about 2.5 times higher in fish- or seafood-based cat foods than in foods made with other proteins. Wet versions of seafood products contained the most mercury — nearly 28 times as much as wet foods made with other meats, especially poultry.”

This is horror movie stuff, directly contributing to the early deaths of countless pets, grief over their short lives, and an unquantifiable amount of money spent on veterinary care for food we’re told is healthy but instead contains toxins directly linked to chronic and frequently fatal health problems.

The Pet Food Institute describe itself as “the voice of US pet food.”

Despite the major concerns raised by the Clean Label Project’s investigation and the inevitable anger of people who love their cats, the pet food industry isn’t just denying the findings, it’s sticking to its claims that manufacturers care about their customers and the animals they love.

After touting “testing protocols,” manufacturing “verification” and “science-based preventative controls,” Pet Food Institute CEO Elise Fennig told CNN the industry’s products are “safe, nutritious, and consistent.”

“Cat owners should feel confident that the food they feed their pets is safe and produced according to rigorous regulatory and quality standards,” said Fennig, whose previous roles include executive positions at the American Frozen Food Institute, the National Confectioners Association, and the Frozen Potato Products Institute, industry groups that push the narrative that ultraprocessed foods made at industrial scale are healthy staples of American diets.

So we have someone with a degree in public relations telling us that despite laboratory tests revealing horrific contaminants and toxins in cat food, we should all just relax and “feel confident” that the products are “safe” and nutritious” — not because she’s able to offer any evidence in support of those claims, but because she says so.

Well, Elise, I don’t feel confident, especially because experts CNN contacted, who are unaffiliated with the research, said it looks rigorous and well-executed.

You know what would make me feel better? If you and the top executives at pet food companies were willing to eat human-grade food with the same level of contaminants for six months or a year.

If your products are as “safe, nutritious and consistent” as you claim they are, let’s see you eat food laced with arsenic, cadmium and lead for six months, then release the results of your bloodwork and physicals. Then we’ll see, won’t we?

Otherwise it seems as if you’re shitting on us from great heights and telling us it’s raining gold.

A pet supply aisle featuring various brands of dog and cat food bags on shelves, with colorful packaging and pet toys on display.
The investigation involved laboratory testing of 100 of the top cat food brands

The apparent ubiquity of contaminants and toxins also raises the question: is any brand of commercial cat food safe? Should caretakers give up entirely on pet food and learn to prepare meals for their felines?

It will be interesting to see where this goes and if the industry can be forced to correct its course through things like consumer pressure and class action lawsuits. The vet bills are one thing, but robbing us of years with our little pals, and seriously harming their quality of life, is especially disturbing.

Expect no help from the government on this. Our “leaders” are too busy enriching themselves with insider trading, stacking the decks in favor of incumbents and riling the electorate with culture war nonsense. They can’t even be bothered to ban food dyes (relying on voluntary measures and asking manufacturers to police themselves instead) identified as primary culprits driving unprecedented rates of cancer, so there’s no reason to believe they’ll care about animals.

We’re alone in this, except hopefully for animal welfare organizations and other nonprofits dedicated to pets. That means it’s on us to apply pressure and make sure we don’t relent until we can trust the food we’re feeding our beloved buddies isn’t killing them.

22 thoughts on “Cat Food Loaded With Carcinogens, Heavy Metals, Microplastics And Herbicides, Investigation Finds”

    1. I don’t know and I’m worried because he’s 12 and this is exactly when kidney problems typically emerge in cats.

      What about you? It would be one thing if only a few brands had contaminants and toxins, but the apparent ubiquity is deeply concerning.

      The Clean Label Project lists a full PDF of the report but there’s no link, so I’m going to write to them and ask for a copy. I hope at least some brands are okay.

      Of course I will also follow up with another post when I get the complete report.

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      1. I don’t currently have a cat so do not have to worry about this. I have emailed your blog to Ashley at Soykitty, who has info on diseases like CKD. I have a report from her on CKD Early Warning Signs Guide Prevention. More from her is coming about CKD.

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    2. Please. Once those “Natural” brands sell out to the highest bidder, say goodbye to quality. Iames is a perfect example of that. They were the premier brand of the late 80’s early 90’s until they sold out to Purina. My In-Laws paid top dollar to feed it to their dog because it was recommended by their vet and it was good. But as soon as the greed took over, the quality went way down. It’s sickening. Blue Buffalo and all the others that have sold out, I wouldn’t give them a dime of my money because the quality that they had when they started that made their brands is gone. Even my vet says it doesn’t really matter what you feed your cat because it’s pretty much all the same anyway. He wasn’t saying it flippantly. He meant it. That was disheartening to hear.

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      1. I’d heard that about Blue and it’s disturbing as well. The conglomerates are really buying the trust those brands built with customers and presenting the products as the same while switching the production to the same nasty stuff in their other pet food lines.

        Hopefully I can get that copy of the full report and see if there are any decent independent companies left.

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    1. Unfortunately i just bought a case of the stuff from Chewy. Figures. It’s not Bud’s primary food but I do mix in fish to keep him interested and that’s gotta stop unless I can find a brand with clean lab reports.

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      1. You could probably mix in a tiny bit of people tuna in his food and it’d be safer for him to eat. Or pour the juice from the tuna into his food for the taste. We do that with our cats and they really like it.

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  4. From Ashley at Soykitty:

    “Hi Candi,

    Honestly, this doesn’t surprise me one bit. It’s so sad the way profit is more important to these businesses than our pets’ health. I wrote a few articles that you may be interested in:

    1) what to look for and avoid in cat food: 

    https://holisticaf4cats.substack.com/p/what-to-look-for-and-avoid-in-cat

    2) Who really owns the cat food aisle: 

    https://holisticaf4cats.substack.com/p/who-really-owns-the-cat-food-aisle

    Also, here is the section on my substack all about feline nutrition & feeding: 

    https://holisticaf4cats.substack.com/s/feline-nutrition-and-feeding

    I’m also writing an article about creating a homemade diet, since that’s how I feed my cats. It’s honestly the only way I know how (and feel comfortable knowing) exactly what’s in my cats’ food. 

    Thank you for sending this article. I may do a write up on it & give my 2 cents, since it’s such an issue facing us pet guardians. 

    Ashley Hejlik

    Founder

    SoyKitty

    HolisticAF4Cats“

    Need to set up a meeting?

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    1. Thanks. Please keep us posted on the homemade diet story.

      The “illusion of choice” she writes about with food brands has been a problem for a long time and is really disturbing as well.

      Likewise with the way those handful of worldwide conglomerates buy up the small companies to effectively purchase the trust they’ve built with customers.

      I’m glad she’s writing about it. There are so many messed up things and you really need an enormous amount of mental bandwidth just to stay on top of it all.

      I’ve often been hyper focused on other cat welfare issues and have mostly dropped the ball on this stuff, unfortunately.

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  5. Metals are being sprayed in the air on a regular basis which affects ALL life here on this planet. And don’t even get me started on glyphosate (aka ROUNDUP) which has been banned in other parts of the world but not here in the goold old USA. I do wish the report itself was available.

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    1. There was a deeply disturbing article on Roundup over the summer having to do with government contractors who are tasked with spraying the stuff on public land without any protective gear. I’ll see if I can dig it up again.

      It’s just like the cancer-causing food dyes: banned everywhere else, but here the corporations wield more power than voters.

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  6. UGH. . . This is infuriating and scary, but unfortunately not surprising. Thank you for sharing the info (and to Candi for forwarding the links above — I will check them out).

    My girl Charlie is fussy to begin with, so now I’m totally perplexed re: what to feed her.

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  7. I saw that article. Now I’m wondering if it would just make more sense – and be healthier for them – for me to make my furmily’s food at home.

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    1. Definitely. A lot of us are wondering that now. Personally I’ve got a lot of reading to do, and I think it will be a challenge for most of us with cats who have eaten things like pate all their lives. To Bud, small slices of chicken or turkey are a rare snack, not dinner.

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  8. That’s very concerning. Two of my cats prefer to eat unprocessed meat, but another one only eats cat food; I need to check if that brand is safe.

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