So, you’re standing in the aisle of the pet food store trying to make sense of the terms on the ingredient panel. If the first ingredient was a protein source (lamb, chicken, venison etc), and if somewhere on the bag appeared the words premium, ultra premium, natural, complete, balanced or 100% nutritious; that might have been enough for you to feel confident about the quality of the food you were holding and lead you to purchase it. But have you ever wondered what some of those terms actually mean? Terms like meat meal, fish meal, chicken by-product meal, poultry by-product meal, chicken fat, poultry fat.
Many pet foods are labeled as “premium,” and some now are “super premium” and even “ultra premium.” Other products are touted as “gourmet” items. Products labeled as premium or gourmet are not required to contain any different or higher quality ingredients, nor are they held up to any higher nutritional standards than are any other complete and balanced products. Source Food and Drug Adminsitration
In other words, foods boasting the the terms premium, super premium, natural, holistic, and whatever other healthy sounding words you find on a dog food bag, really don’t mean anything in terms of more healthy or nutritious for your dog, as compared to any other dog food.
So What Does Complete and Balanced Mean?
There are two ways (either/or) that a pet food company can can call their product “complete and balanced”.
- The product must meet nutrient guidelines as established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profile .
- The second method involves testing/feeding a specific product to dogs in a brief 6 month feeding trial.
I’ll talk more about AAFCO Feeding Trial Protocols in a future post, but for now suffice it to say that the requirements for a product to pass the AAFCO test are pretty loose to say the least.
What are By-Products?
By-products are animal parts left over from the processing of human foods that are deemed unfit for human consumption. These “parts” which can include bones, blood, intestines, lungs, ligaments, heads, feet and feathers, are used for feed for poultry and livestock and also end up in pet foods. It’s interesting that by-products unfit for human consumption are in turn fed to chickens and cattle which we end up eating anyway. :/
What is “Meal”?
Meat meals, poultry meals, by-product meals, and meat-and-bone meal are common ingredients in dry pet foods. The term “meal” means that these materials are not used fresh, but have been rendered. Since rendered tissue is devoid of water, the finished “product” has a higher protein content by weight, than the tissue it was rendered from.
What is Rendering?
Rendering is the process of cooking (usually at high temperatures) raw animal material to remove the moisture and fat. The high rendering temperatures 270F/130C can destroy beneficial naturally occurring enzymes contained in the raw ingredient.
AAFCO’s Definition of Poultry Fat
“Poultry Fat Poultry Fat (feed grade) – primarily obtained from the tissue of poultry in the commercial process of rendering or extracting.”
Primarily?! What does that mean? Animal Fat is another one that’s kind of ambiguous. I’d be more comfortable with a named fat source like Chicken Fat.
Go here for more reading about what is in pet food.
“Pet owners and veterinary professionals have a right to know what they are feeding their animals. The pet food label contains a wealth of information, if one knows how to read it. Do not be swayed by the many marketing gimmicks or eye-catching claims.” – The Food and Drug Administration
Bottom line, read the labels, do your research and don’t we swayed by marketing and pretty packaging. Or, go raw.
I'm a dog guardian to Sweety, my 15 year old Border Collie & Zeus a stray American Pit Bull Terrier that I rescued in October of 2009. I write about canine health and nutrition focusing mainly on topics relating to feeding a raw meaty bones diet.
