I don’t think that a single cat or dog caregiver in the US is not aware of the thousands of cats and dogs that suffered tremendously and died – or have been left with failing kidneys and a shortened lifespan/diminished quality of life – due to the contamination of commercial foods processed by Menu Foods in the summer of 2007. While the Menu Foods recall was the largest pet food recall in the history of commercial pet food, make no mistake in thinking that this was the first time that cats and dogs have died after consuming commercial pet foods that have been contaminated with chemicals, bacteria, and bacterial or mold toxins.However, keep in mind that the vast majority of these contamination disasters (outside of the Menu Foods tragedy) have involved dry food or treats – not canned food. Therefore, if you decide that you don’t want to make your cat’s food, please feed canned food and keep the dry food out of your cat’s food bowl.
Wikipedia has an excellent and detailed summary of the 2007 disaster that contributed to the suffering of thousands of animals. It was a sobering reminder of remembering how much can go wrong when we entrust the preparation of cat food to companies with dubious quality control standards and questionable supply chains.