I keep seeing people occasionally saying "meal" is a bad ingredient. I wonder if they know what they are talking about, or if they are getting it confused with "by-product".
"Meal" is meat with the moisture removed.
"Meal" is NOT random parts.
"Byproducts" are random parts.
Meal, as long as it is specified what animal it is from, is a GOOD ingredient.
Now if it said "chicken byproduct meal", then that would mean it is random chicken parts (not good) with the moisture removed. Or if it said "poultry meal", that would be unspecified bird, so should also be avoided.
Answers:
-Desirable Animal-Based Protein-
鈥pecific Meats: Specific meats are listed as chicken, beef, lamb, etc. and are desirable. They are the clean, fresh meat from the specified animal, which may include: skeletal muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart, esophagus, and portions of skin, nerves, sinew, and blood vessels normally found within that flesh.
鈥pecific Meat Meals: Specific meat meals are listed as chicken meal, beef meal, lamb meal, etc. They differ from specific meats in that meals have been rendered at temperatures between 220掳 and 270掳 Fahrenheit. Although meals contain less water and because ingredients are listed by weight, more meat, it also means that they have been cooked at very high temperatures and therefore have less nutritional value. Meals are acceptable, but not necessarily optimal.
-Undesirable Animal-Based Protein-
鈥eat, Meat Meal, Bone Meal, Meat By-Products, Animal Liver, Animal Digest, and Animal Fat: These are vague terms and should be completely avoided. Legally these can mean: meat, bone, liver, digest, or fat from any kind of animal: beef, chicken, road kill, or euthanized dogs and cats from humane societies or veterinary clinics. Although this is still all animal derived protein, it is not a healthy choice for your dog or cat. Euthanized dogs and cats come with the extra concerns of being unhealthy at the time of euthanasia, the drug used to euthanize them, surgical pins they may have had, and possibly their regular collars, flea collars, ID tags, and the bags they were shipped to the rendering plant in. This is unthinkable to many pet owners but it鈥檚 important to remember that is a legal practice when making pet food. Although DNA testing has found no evidence of dogs or cats in pet food, it is uncertain if DNA can survive the rendering process and other procedures that pet food is subjected to.
鈥y-Products: By-products, whether they are vague (such as meat by-products) or specific (such as chicken by-products) should be avoided. By-products can be any part of the animal except for meat, hair, horn, teeth, and hooves, which means that it can be blood, feet, fatty tissues and heads, among other parts. Although a dog or cat would naturally consume the entire prey, it is unnatural and unhealthy to eat a diet with too much of a specific by-product. When you purchase a dog or cat food that contains by-products you have no control over what by-products are in the food and in what proportion.
MEAT MEAL is bad - its a non-specific meat source (unlike Chicken Meal)...meat meal can be ANY dead animal...
also note about "By-Products" they are generally preserved with a nasty Chemical Pesticide known as ETHOXYQUIN which is so bad its banned from use in some countries like Japan..it often does not appear on the lable because it is considered "part" of the by-product...
Cool and thanks for the info. What is your point though??
Would you eat the crap from the bag?
A lot of people just don't ever get the education on this sort of thing. I mean, I know this stuff because I was an ag major and I am a prevet major. I get a lot of exposure to dog food ingredients. Unfortunately, most people don't even know (or want to know) what goes in their own food, much less that of their pet's. And many pet food retailers aren't going to volunteer that information, because they make as much money off of people buying a lot of cheap foods as they do people buying a little of the more expensive, better quality foods. I think the pet food recall has opened a lot of people's eyes however.
I am kind of tired of people on here who think they are experts in the dog food arena and who like to think others on here are complete idiots when it comes to their pet.
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