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Pet Food Confidential: Other animal bits
I've been reading AAFCO's pet food definitions, and you guys wouldn't believe some of the things that pass for "ingredients."
Take, for example, hydrolyzed poultry feather. It's basically just processed feathers, and AAFCO considers it a source of protein even though it isn't digestible. Hydrolyzed hair is the same idea, only with hair from livestock, and hydrolyzed leather meal is processed scrap leather. Old boots, anyone?
I like eggs as much as the next canine, but I was still surprised to find out what makes up poultry hatchery by-product: According to AAFCO, this ingredient is made of "a mixture of eggshells, infertile and unhatched eggs, and culled chicks which have been cooked, dried, and ground."
Spray-dried animal blood is another ingredient used to add protein, as is animal plasma and all the different parts it breaks down into. Blood can also be dried into blood meal and used in pet food.
Unborn calf carcasses from slaughtered cows can be used in pet food, and so can the partially-digested contents of an animal's stomach.
I couldn't believe this part when I read it, but it's true: According to AAFCO, dried poultry waste, dried swine waste, and dried ruminant waste can be used in pet food. That means, all those years, there could have been pig poo in my kibble! Producers of animal waste products (the humans who process the stuff, not the animals themselves!) are asked to test the stuff on a regular basis for residues of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, bad bugs like E. Coli, parasites, heavy metals like arsenic, and mycotoxins. But AAFCO gives the producers an easy out by saying that if they show "continued uniformity and a consistent margin of compliance," they don't have to do regular testing. If the producers aren't testing the stuff, then no one is!
There you have it. That's not all of the animal bits that are used in pet food, just the highlights -- or lowlights, more like it! I'm madder than ever about the crap -- literally! -- that's in our pet food. It's time for a change.
Photo by _boris.
then what kind of food can i give my puppy? Does all dog food have this stuff in it?
XskatZ, there is hope! Just read labels to find the good foods--they are out there. I'm not ready to talk about specific brands yet before my pet food testing is finished, but I can tell you to avoid "meat meal," anything with the word "by-product" (unless it's organic), and the other bits described in this post. You want meat ingredients listed as the first three or four ingredients, and you want to avoid a food with lots of filler like corn or brewer's rice in it.
And don't be afraid to supplement with scraps from your human table. Us dogs love little bits of vegetables and yummy foods that are healthy for you, too. That means no cheesy salsa chips or fried chicken, though!
We've been feeding our diabetic cat Purina DM. Our vet prescribed it because of our cat's diabetes, but it contains "poultry by-product meal." Is there a better alternative diabetic cat food?
Steve, it sounds like you might want to talk to a veterinary nutritionist. Some researchers think that feline diabetes are tied to the many carbohydrates found in typical cat foods, and say that feeding a diet of almost all meat can help or even clear up diabetes. Regardless, you should be able to find a high-protein diet for your cat that doesn't include poultry by-products.
thanks!
Thanks, Eddie! Keep up the good work spreading the word!
I have been looking at the ingredients in cat food for years and have always opted for something that doesn't include anything like "chicken by-product meal" which as defined by AAFCO:
”consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practices.”
I wouldn't eat this and I certainly wouldn't consider this food for any living animal, or creature, two-feet or four-feet.
Keep spreading the truth, EWG & Eddie!
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