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My run with the VIN News Service lasted about a month, no fault of theirs. After less than two weeks it became pretty apparent that with my father gravely ill and so many other things in the air for me at all times I just couldn’t add something that deserved so much more time than I had to give it.

Still, my parting gift to VIN News was a good one: My former Sacramento Bee colleage Edie Lau, who’s one of the best science reporters out there. Edie left The Bee when her husband got a good job in the Seattle area, and now she’s freelancing, with about all the work she can handle. (Funny how that works when you’re that good.) I’ve hired her to write for my “day job” Web site, OurGreenCommunity.org. (Check out her stories on greener TVs, parades without cars, hybrid vehicles and raising greener kids.)

Edie’s latest for VIN News looks at what “human grade” means with regards to pet food:

“Human grade” has no formal legal definition. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine has taken the position that if every ingredient in a product is edible, meaning that it was processed according to rules of sanitation required of food sold to people, then the product may be labeled “human grade,” said Dr. William Burkholder, a veterinary medical officer and the agency’s resident pet nutrition expert.

[...]

Because of its misuse, many players in the industry decry the label. “It is essentially a made-up term used by marketing interests to describe and promote products in light of anthropomorphic responses people have to their pets,” David Syverson, chair of the Association of American Feed Control Officials’ Pet Food Committee wrote in an e-mail response to questions.

[...]

Regardless whether a pet-food product meets the standard for human-edible food, people tend to misunderstand the term, Syverson said. He suspects consumers believe it applies to various body parts — intestines versus muscle, for instance — but it does not.

Here’s the rest, and do read it all.

Beyond the story: Now grant you, I’m willing to concede that I’m not the “average consumer.”  But nor are many, many other pet-owners who have educated themselves about feeding their pets, either because they wanted to, or because they felt they had to in the light of the continuing food safety crisis for pets and people both. (By the way, the FDA now has a complete page on the ongoing  recall of peanut butter products.)

And we’re not such idiots as to think feeding pets at home is about buying a steak and tossing it in the bowl.

Look, there’s a reason why things like unbleached tripe and beef hearts are no longer available for a song at the butcher counter. And why, when you order a case of organs or other things that people generally don’t like, the meat guys no longer ask you why. They know that enough people are preparing food at home for pets now that this is part of their regular business.

The issue isn’t about wanting to give my pet a “human grade” piece of chicken breast, or not understanding that the difference between a “human grade” steak and one that’s not is that one fell on the floor in the factory.

As I wrote Edie in telling her what a good job she did on this piece, I told her, ” ‘Human grade’ doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me, considering recent history.”

In other words, if I were the new president, I’d move food safety a little higher in the agenda. The FDA would change, and the USDA would go.

There are good pet-food manufacturers out there, companies that have always and will always do their best to produce a product you can confidently feed your pet (as long as they’re not being cheated by unscrupulous suppliers, that is, and you can bet your pet all companies are pulling out all the stops to prevent another round of killer pet foods).

But we need to continue to push for the acceptance of preparing meals at home for our pets (just as we do for ourselves), and for our veterinarians not to automatically dismiss it when we bring subject comes up, but rather to help us get it right. The fact that a veterinarian’s question about “human grade” triggered the VIN News story actually encourages me in this regard. One question always leads to more, and the answers will lead many a veterinarian to supporting and advising about the feeding of pets in a way that can allow both sides to respect the intelligence and knowledge of the other.

There is no one answer, and there is no one right way.  There’s a place to start, and continuing to ask the questions is the way to go.

That’s why I continue to be thrilled about the work and promise of the VIN News Service.

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Still, it must be said that all is not perfect, and the learning curve is steep for new reporters on the veterinary beat. The background information in this VIN News piece on forced spay-neuter completely missed the mark, taking as “pet-lovers gospel” the idiocy of a former game-show host.

Forced spay-neuter does not reduce shelter populations and is a bad idea for many other reasons, including an increase risk to public health. It also imperils the work of reputable, ethical home breeders to preserve our heritage breeds with their work function … functional.  We can — and are — reducing shelter populations in a way that supports the efforts of all animal-lovers, and we don’t have to sacrifice our own pets’ health, our health or our heritage breeds to do so.

Still, the piece did get the point that spay-neuter is a medical decision, and that all medical decisions should be made on an individual basis in consultation with a veterinarian. They should not be dictated by the state.

But hey, I don’t even agree with everything in this blog, so there’s always room for improvement. And I have no doubt at VIN News that improvement will continue.