Mars Petcare has announced a recall of several lines of its pet food, including Special Kitty cat food and Ol' Roy dog food. The recall affects all pet food produced at one of its plants, which had become tainted with salmonella. Although there are no reports of pets getting sick, there have been several cases of people getting sick after handling the pet food - particularly toddlers, who presumably played with the food and/or ate some of it out of the bowl.

Is it just me, or was 2008 a bad year for pet food? The melamine disaster affected hundreds of trusted pet food brands. Although in this case, I'm not sure if Ol' Roy can be referred to as a "trusted" pet food brand.

Honestly, if you're feeding your pet Ol' Roy or Special Kitty, you have bigger things to worry about. These low-quality foods are the pet equivalent of a diet of Twinkies. Even Purina One or Pedigree will be a better choice for your pet. Ideally you would want to feed a high-quality food like Natural Balance (my personal choice), Wysong, or Canidae/Felidae. But hey, those foods get pricey, and we're all trying to economize.

With all the bad news regarding pet food, it is no surprise that many people have started cooking for their pets. Many online resources exist for pet food cooking and suggestions - including valuable nutrients which you will need to feed as a supplement. For example, cats need taurine, which is only available in cat food and in feline nutritional supplements . You can't cook up a big batch of taurine for your cats, and it's a critical nutrient.

I have been cooking for my cats, as a replacement for the canned food portion of their diet. I steam a frozen chicken thigh for about an hour (until it gets seriously mushy), then crack in a few eggs, and add a splash of fish sauce. I freeze half of the results and save them for later. The other half keeps for up to a week in the fridge. Healthy, nutritious, and super easy!