Numerous Internet posts attempt to scare dog owners with questions like “Is It a Dog Food Aide or Automotive Antifreeze?” The reference is to propylene glycol, a chemical added to some dog foods to help retain moisture. Of course being an antifreeze component and serving as a food additive are not mutually exclusive. After all nobody worries about eating salt because it is also used in enemas. The potential risk of a substance is determined by studying it, not by making specious associations.
So what do the studies say? Unfortunately when it comes to dogs, not a whole lot. In humans, propylene glycol when ingested is pretty innocuous. Toxicity occurs when blood concentration reach 4 grams per liter, which is unachievable by consuming foods or beverages that contain the chemical. And yes, it is used in human food, mostly to retain moisture, although it also serves as a solvent for flavours. The pharmaceutical industry uses propylene glycol as a solvent in formulations of drugs that are insoluble in water. In beer it can stabilize head foam, in soft drinks and flavoured coffees it carries flavour, it stabilizes whipped cream and prevents the formation of crystals in ice cream.
Canada attaches no numerical value to the maximum amount of propylene glycol that can be used as long as it conforms to “good manufacturing practices.” In the U.S., it can be used up to 50 grams per kilogram of food or beverage. Europe allows maximum of 3 grams per kilogram. The reason for the discrepancy is not clear since there is no evidence that amounts greater than the European limit cause any problem. But this difference between amounts allowed in Europe and the U.S. did cause quite a kerfuffle when Fireball Whisky was recalled in Norway, Sweden and Finland. It seems the American version of the product found its way across the ocean with levels of propylene glycol above those acceptable in Europe.
This precipitated a public outcry in Europe where people recalled with horror the 1985 episode when some Austrian wines were adulterated with diethylene glycol, another chemical that can be used in antifreeze, to make the wines sweeter and more full-bodied in the style of late harvest wines. Nobody was hurt except the Austrian wine industry which suffered an almost complete collapse.
The publicity about the Fireball recall in Europe bounced back to the U.S. where this whisky is a popular choice among the college set due to its low cost and relatively high alcohol content. Rumors that a Fireball recall was underway sent ripples of upset across social sites.There was no recall, but as expected the chemophobes rallied around the “they’re putting antifreeze into our food” battle cry. The fact is that someone would perish from alcohol poisoning long before enough alcohol were consumed to cause a problem with propylene glycol.
Exactly why propylene glycol is found in Fireball whisky isn’t clear. The company goes no further than to say that “the secret to Fireball is buried in the depths of our souls and it’s so damn special that we just can’t share it. Although we’d love to talk Fireball, we have a strict policy that we let our whisky speak for itself.” In all likelihood propylene glycol is used as a solvent for some flavour that is added to the whisky.
While there is no issue with propylene glycol in human food, dogs may be a different case. They often eat the same food for all their meals and the continued ingestion of propylene glycol even in small doses may conceivably be a problem. That is just what a class action lawsuit launched by a California pet owner contends. He claims that two of his dogs got sick and one died after he began to feed his pets with “Beneful” produced by Nestle Purina Dog Care. The lawsuit describes over 3000 complaints on line about dogs developing liver problems, kidney failure, seizures and diarrhea due either to propylene glycol or ochratoxin, a fungal metabolite found in the food.
The manufacturer dismisses the notion that Beneful is the cause of the ailments. Dogs get sick, and owners then look for a cause, with food being a prime suspect, they say. And Beneful is not associated with symptoms any more than any other dog food, whether it contains propylene glycol or not. However, whether that is indeed the case is hard to know. Nobody it seems has actually done a study. Given that propylene glycol is known to be toxic to cats, causing “Heinz body anemia,” and since questions have been raised about its effects on dogs, it may be prudent to choose varieties of dog food that do not contain the chemical.
