| Meat By-product |
Article Index for Meat |
Website Links For Meat |
Information AboutMeat By-product |
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The official definition for meat by-products by the Association Of American Feed Control Officials, Inc. ( AAFCO ) is: "The non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth and hoofs. It shall be suitable for use in animal food. If it bears name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond thereto." In many cases, by-product meals are derived from "4-D" meat sources -- defined as food animals that have been rejected for human consumption because they were presented to the meat packing plant as "Dead, Dying, Diseased or Disabled." The quality of animal meat by-products also tends to be very inconsistent between batches. Meat by-products are commonly found in lower-grade pet foods and even many of the larger name brands, including Science Diet (even their prescription diet product line), Purina (both Purina One and Purina Pro Plan), and Iams / Eukanuba . Ingredients listed as "meat, beef, chicken, and/or poultry by-products" on pet food labels are not required to include actual meat, and "rendered meat" on labels can refer to any rendered mammal meat, including dogs and cats. A new category of pet food typically marketed as holistic, wellness, organic, ultra healthy, and/or simply premium pet food often emphasizes the use of human-grade meat sources only, with no animal meat by-products of any kind. Examples of such pet foods include Flint River Ranch , Wellness Pet Food , Innova, Life's Abundance, Nutro Ultra Holistic, and Pet Promise and Timberwolf Organics . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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