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whenever one of our cats grew old or needed to take some medicine mixed in food, we used baby food. it was more expensive than cat food, but not much more.

I was surprised and disappointed by the poor quality of Whole Foods' 365 pet foods. I went this weekend, hoping to find a high-quality, organically-sourced food, and their private label is full of animal by-products and corn.

Recall or no, I wouldn't feed that my pets, and I would urge anyone who does to switch to a proper premium brand.

As for home-cooking, I looked into that this weekend and realized it's far more demanding that I thought, especially for cats. Getting proper nutritional balance is critical and not intuitively reached. For example, cats require sufficient levels of taurine to maintain heart and eye functions. Apparently the best source for this is chicken hearts. Lacking a ready supply of chicken hearts, I prefer to stick to a top quality commercial food rather than take other risks with my cat. Especially considering that, according to one website, feeding a cat an organic raw diet can be 50% more expensive than the best commercial foods available.

Dogs, apparently, are a different story. But this site seems to have a high proportion of cat owners, and I would urge anyone considering making their own cat food to spend a fair amount of time learning what it really requires (ie., more than grilled cheese). You may reconsider.

And in general, I'm skeptical of cookbooks offering varieties of meals for dogs (or cats). Dogs can have rather sensitive stomachs, and anthropomorphizing their interest in variety and aesthetics is part of what brought us all this trouble in the first place (cuts and gravy?).

renata,
If you're inclined to try to make food for your cats, you might just want to ask your local butcher about the availability of chicken hearts. Mine puts out packages of it only a couple of days a week, but can pull out a bunch on request.

Sadly (for me), Michelle, your tip relies on having a local butcher. But that's a whole different issue...

I love to cook, but I'm not about to put together meals for my dogs...
I *have* been making gravy for meds, since the wet food scare -- but mostly my dogs eat Eagle Natural.
Better to let them take care of the nutritional balance . . .

In terms of home-cooking for your pets, Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats is a good resource for pet nutrition and includes some recipes. I must admit that although I own this book and use it as a reference for other dog health issues, I do not prepare my dog's meals from scratch.
Thankfully, I feed my dog Eagle Pack Holistic Select kibble which is tested at the ingredient stage as well as pre-distribution of final product stage. My choice in feeding Eagle Pack was simply because that was what the breeder was feeding the dog when he came home. The dog likes his food, is in good health, and gets "people food" snacks of yogurt, assorted veggies, cheese, etc.
My sister is an advocate of the BARF diet for her new puppy. While I can understand the reasoning behind this diet, it is not one that I am completely comfortable with and also, I just don't have the freezer space for it.
For those of you nervous about available store bought food for your beloved cats and dogs, there are a number of manufacturers that supply premium quality foods; Eagle Pack is just one. It's quite scary that "respected brands" like Innova were on the recall list, but there are still good foods for your pets out there. You just have to do a little research. The websites Itchmo and PetConnection both have a lot of information on the recall and also provide info on other less known food brands that carefully screen and test their product.
To those of you that make the switch to cooking/prepping meals from scratch for your pets, kudos!
The real scary part of all of this is the "canary in a coal mine" element....{shudder}.

My brother & I were talking about this - at the rate things are going, there isn't going to be anything left on the shelves to feed our critters.

If we have to start seriously looking at cooking for the animals, we'll certainly do it, regardless of cost or time for research. Can't exactly tell them, "Sorry guys, all your food was recalled, you don't get to eat!"

Edit: I mistakingly mentioned Innova as a brand involved with the recall. Innova is NOT one of the recalled brands. I was confusing it with Nutro.

Hmm. I hate outing myself as a big weirdo, but I've been feeding my two cats a raw diet since I got them three years ago. I agree it's not for everyone, you have to make sure they get their nutritional needs met.

I have access to all the organs I could want, but to be on the safe side, I add a feline supplement to the food used by zoos and big cat keepers. This gives me insurance since I like to deep freeze everything to lower my chances of there being any nasty bugs from the butchering process, even though I buy directly from farmers. The supplement adds back a little taurine and B-vitamins that can be destroyed by freezing meat.

I think as true carnivores they don't need anything else like grains or veggies (some of the animals they eat are grass fed, so they get good lipids from there), but I have one cat who adores certain things like oat cereal, asparagus and litchis (yeah, I've never seen a wild cat eating litchis). It costs me about the same as buying a primo cat food, but that's because the primo stuff is expensive to start with. They eat about 1/2 c total / day of meat/bone/organ.

The Wellness brand is nice because they use human-grade meats and when they do add grain it's rice or barley (no corn or wheat). You can even buy dry food that is grain free. Our brats get dry "crunchies" as treat/ behavior rewards, and we use the wet food when we go away on vacations and have friends watch them.

http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com/wellness/index.html

I would urge anyone who does to switch to a proper premium brand

Renata, I agree with you on the importance of using high-quality pet food, but don't forget that at least one of the recalled brands is Hills M/D, which is a high-end prescription food that you can only get through vets. So feeding your pets a premium brand isn't necessarily enough.

Totally true, and I should have specified what I meant by proper (wheat-, corn- and by-product-free, to start).

The Martha Stewart article linked in the original post above is an excellent starter.

i don't have a pet but do remember when i was an exchange student in spain that the family always fed their german sheperd rice and meat (chicken, i think). pet food, whatever its merits, is a relatively new phenomenon, no?

I think the biggest problem here is we have been duped. In 1950 the dog food industry was a 200 million dollar business. The biggest competitor for dog food was table scrapes. Today, it has surpassed 1 billion dollars annually and table scrapes are considered an inferior food. The companies that are getting in "bed" with these dog food companies would surprise you like the U.S. Tobacco company, and Ligget & Meyers. As consumers we need to push for tough regulations and the removal of inferior products in dog and cat foods. (ex. CORN) yeah it is cheap but it doesn't meet any dietary needs. Cats are carnivore: they like meat and vegetables. Dogs are omnivores: they like meat, vegetables and grains minus corn which they have trouble digesting. So, why are these useless products put into food? Because we have been convienced that the commerical pet food industry cares about our beloved animals. The TRUTH is they only care about the BOTTOM LINE $$$. How else can you explain companies having 20 different pet food "NAMES" and prices that range from cheap to pricey?? Same ingredients different lables. You don't get what you pay for here. You get scammed. So the choice is up to you. Feed your pet commerical pet food, animals have been eating it for years and live. Feed your pet homemade pet food, pets were feed it for decades and they survived. Feed your pet a mix of commerical and homemade pet food, if that gives you peace of mind but realize this industry has grown out of control and it is a self regulated industry. If we don't speak up, be prepared for more animals to die because this will happen again. It is only a matter of time.

About a year ago I switched my dogs over from a canned dogfood to a raw dehydrated mix from The Honest Kitchen - www.thehonestkitchen.com (no affiliation) because I was disappointed with the ingredients in even the "premium" quality canned foods. It's much more convenient than the traditional BARF raw-feeding method that requires frozen storage space and a lot of prep time. I just mix it with hot water to rehydrate it and add in additional meat (usually chicken). I make a couple of days' worth of feedings at one time and just store it in the fridge. Even my picky eaters like it, and with the mix of this and dry kibble, they're quite healthy and it's one less thing I have to worry about.

I'm so concerned about this issue, and even premium brands don't seem immune. For example, I think some Eagle Pack products are actually included in the recall, if I'm not mistaken. I'll definitely check out thehonestkitchen.com; thanks for the recommendation!