Is Wheat Gluten in Horse Feed?
Fortunately, much of our horse feed comes from American and Canadian farmers.
At press time, wheat gluten is the pet-food ingredient believed to be contaminated with a chemical causing the small animal illnesses and deaths. It's the high protein by-product left over after starch is extracted from wheat flour.
You're not likely to find wheat gluten listed on your horse's feed tag, although you could. Corn gluten meal is more commonly used simply because it is more readily available here, but manufacturers who base their feed ingredients on whatever is the least expensive might use it if the price was right. Wheat gluten meal could also be listed in generic terms under "plant protein by-products" or "processed grain by-products."
And Melamine?
Melamine is the chemical suspected of poisoning dogs and cats. It's used in the manufacturing of plastics and flame retardants but also as a fertilizer in some parts of the world. In addition to wheat gluten, melamine has also been detected in imported rice protein. If it's getting there from fertilizer, it's conceivable that other plant/vegetable products being imported may have it too. If it's being deliberately added to give rise to falsely high protein levels, which is beginning to look likely, any imported high protein by-product may contain it.
Interestingly enough, your horse's feed may contain melamine even if all the ingredients in your feed originated in the USA. The pesticide cyromazine, legal in the USA and also the active ingredient in an equine feed-through fly control product, is metabolized to melamine by animals and plants. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established tolerance levels for cyromazine in feeds, foods and animal tissues, but it stated that melamine is "no longer considered a residue of concern," a decision based on a low level of toxicity in rats. In fact, no amount of testing could have prevented the pet-food problem, since melamine isn't tested for, and cyromazine is not on the list of pesticides detectable by FDA pesticide-residue testing methods.
We're at the mercy of farmers and manufacturers when it comes to keeping our foods free of contaminating pesticides and chemicals. Actual testing is only done on a tiny fraction of feeds and foods. Even then, "safe residues" only applies to the species used to establish them, usually rats and mice, and may not hold true for other animals.
Comprehensive testing isn't possible. Instead, regulatory bodies have to focus on identifying what pesticides and chemicals are likely to pose the greatest threat and, most of all, on having systems in place that allow them to rapidly trace and seize any potentially dangerous foods or feeds.
We can't be sure that our horse feeds have an acceptable standard of general quality. The USDA does have whole-grain grading systems in place, with specifics regarding contaminants and damaged or undersized kernels, but feeds don't list the grading of the grains they use on the bag. Somewhere along the line, everyone has found corn cobs, rocks or other things that weren't supposed to be there in their feed. There's little more than consumer pressure to motivate feed mills and manufacturers to produce a quality product. Learn what to look for in your grain, and if something doesn't measure up, don't buy it.
