Why aren't we just doing this ourselves, folks? If I could find a reliable lab here in Canada that can do all of the testing we're looking for, I'd be all over that. Could set up a Canadian trust account and a US trust account and find a lab other than ExperTox to test (not because I think they're bad, but there are too many out there trying to discredit them). We could have a Canadian treasurer and a US treasurer. Why would we trust people we don't know to do this? We are, after all, a family -- of sorts.

Whoever wanted to donate, could, and we could come up with a master list of foods and things we want to test for. Why leave it to organizations that have multiple agendas?

I think one of the area of concerns is funding, its super expensive, depending on what is being tested for.    Also, the question of what lab to use is also a problem, Ive done a ton of research on labs and there are very few who can test down to as low as Expertox and the ones that can, dont test for consumers.  Places like U of Guelph in Canada and other universities (may not all of them) will test but only if a vet is involved.  But bug, if you are able to find a good lab in Canada, I'd join a group to do that. 

My vet has never had a problem with the idea of my sending food to Guelph to test, but I'm not so sure we need a vet. Sometimes, just talking to the right people can get you in. If not, I also have a holistic vet that thinks most pet food is garbage -- she might be in. A good friend of mine heads up research at the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (aka national virology lab). I'll ask her where the best accessible lab is for what we'd like to do.

I know all of this can get expensive, but really, if all of us chipped in $10/month, it would be a start and we could begin with the foods most problematic as compiled by the threads on this forum. Even if we did one brand per year, it would definitely be better than nothing.

The reason for having both a Canadian and American lab is to avoid the border issues that would come up with pet food going back and forth. It can be a pain. It also keeps American $$ in US funds and the same with Canadian $$.

  Yeah Sandi K, US $$ usually buys more Canadian product, but not so last year -- at least for a little while. That felt pretty good as a cross-border shopper!

I'll have to check with the border agency and Canada Post regarding the shipping of pet food. I know I can order all kinds of things from the U.S., but I haven't tried to get pet food from there. A lot of online pet stores don't ship north of the 49th. Maybe for different reasons. I did, however, have to ship a sample back to Hills in Kansas in a cold pack, but it was a private courier. That could get expensive.

I want to check my local university food lab to see what kind of testing they can do, because if we want to have a nutrient analysis done, they do that there. I also had contacted several local labs about testing for solanine and chaconine and they pointed me to the university lab.

I'd like to see some toxin tests done too but we can cross that road later.  It will be interesting to see what info you can find for us all, bug. 

Maybe another thing to do is create a thread and ask how many would sign up to contribute to testing of current pet food
being fed as a starting point, too, knowing it may not be their pet's food necessarily. That seems to be a stumbling block in
forming a testing group, in addition to lab choices. If there is not enough interest to finance it regularly, then finding a lab
becomes a bit of a moot point. There was a Canadian pet site who claimed they were going to set up pet food testing by
having accounts opened for different kinds of food and then wait for enough money to do the test on that food. Never got
off the ground as I recall, but is an alternative thought.

Got an email back from our university. Seems they'd like us to deal with them rather than Guelph. He asked me to take a look at what they can provide and decide if they can be of service and then get back to him. Here's what they offer (this is a centre for research into functional foods and nutraceuticals):

The analytical labs include the following:

    * Nutrigenomics Lab
    * Protein Characterization Lab
    * Pathology and Toxicology Lab
    * Microbiology Lab
    * Cell / Tissue Culture Lab
    * Quality Control (QC) Lab
    * Growth and Stability Chamber Unit.

    * Gene structure, function and regulation;
    * Gene expression profiling;
    * Gene / haplotype mapping and sequencing;
    * Biomarker development.

    * Extraction of bio-active molecules and compounds including supercritical fluid extraction;
    * Structure and function of bio-active molecules and compounds;
    * Bio-active composition analysis;
    * Target site activity and interaction with bio-active molecules and compounds;
    * Protein and peptide detection, isolation, fractionation and purification;
    * Protein and peptide identification and sequencing;
    * Gene / protein expression patterns.

    * Fermentors / bioreactors;
    * Biosafety cabinets;
    * Protoplast fusion;
    * Microscopy;
    * Cell sorting;

I'm not even going to pretend to know what half this stuff is. I bolded what I thought would be pertinent to our research (hmmm, maybe there's a master's degree in here for me somewhere). Let me know if you all agree and then if you all could post some of the toxins we would be looking for, I can identify those in a follow email to see what all of this would cost. I would also request a nutritional breakdown of the food much like what the PFCs are supposed to be doing periodically.

I'll start the ball rolling:

Foods with potato: solanine, chaconine
Foods with grains: aflatoxin, vomitoxin
All foods: heavy metals, cyanuric acid, melamine, arsenic

...

please add aminopterin to the list

Oh and Bug........you ROCK