Your pet food is probably not addressing the phosphorous shortage and excessive  runoff of phosphorus into our environment.

Up to 5 tons of phosphorus are flushed down toilets each day at the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Facility in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. (Imagine the numbers for larger urban centers, such as Los Angeles, New York or Washington, D.C.)  In addition to human and livestock waste, our pets excrete huge amounts into the ecosystem, and no one is doing anything to reverse the trends except for a small company in Wisconsin and one lone animal nutritionist.

Today’s pet foods use phosphorous sources that are very low in bioavailability ( the pets ability to use phosphorous for all its needs in comparison to how much gets excreted in waste). Phosphorus (P) is becoming more rare and more expensive, P is an “endangered species ,”

Arizona State University Regents’ Professor James Elser ; co-founder of ASU’s Sustainable Phosphorus Initiative; is very concerned about P use and its short supply. Issues of limited global phosphorus reserves and limited locales for them – 85 percent of the world’s phosphate rock reserves are confined to Morocco – are just two of scientist’s concerns, he says. In addition, he notes that “there is no substitute for phosphorous in agriculture or biology,” which complicates solutions.

According to Dr. Gary Pusillo “the severely outdated formulations of the pet food industry are making things a lot worse.” According to Dr. Gary, “pet food producers use technology that was antiquated 25 years ago, and they refuse to adopt important measures that will help both the health of the environment and animals.”

Dr. Gary also goes on to say:

“High levels of heavy metal contamination renders most common pet food phosphorous sources inefficient for keeping this valuable mineral in the pet instead of being spread on the ground. Despite this fact, pet foods typically contain P sources that are barely utilized by dogs and cats.”

University of Minnesota’s Larry Baker suggests, dialing back the size of our dogs as “pet food is a major phosphorus user.” Dr. Baker is  hoping we all switch dog preferences to  Chihuahuas in order to prevent the rapid disappearance of phosphorous (P). The approach is like going to a motor scooter instead of a semi truck in order to preserve fossil fuels. There are easier ways, then downsizing our dog size, but until the pet food industry decides  to make a change that will benefit pets and the environment, our pets and our environment will continue to suffer.

B & B Specialties of Spencer Wisconsin, is on a lone crusade to change how pets are being fed along with the assistance of Dr. Gary Pusillo. For over 12 years, Dr. Pusillo has been using B & B premium Monocalcium phosphate to drastically improve animal health and performance while significantly cutting down P excretion into the environment.

Dr. Pusillo states:

“There is no reason to feed pets the high levels of contaminants typically found in most phosphate sources commonly used in the pet food industry, B & B has the best commercial P source available outside of pharmaceutical grade P.”

As far as Dr. Pusillo knows ,only a handful of pet food distributors and manufacturers currently use B & B  P sources: Buddy’s Kitchen being one. These facts are something to really take notice the next time you walk your dog and are concerned about P impacting algal blooms, fish kills and dead zones created by fertilizer and sewage runoff.