There are many very low quality foods available for cats and dogs. How do you tell what's good and what's not? You need to read the label, but what do all of those terms mean?
Meat and Bone Meal - - a dry rendered product from mammal tissues made from slaughterhouse waste and other dead animals not suitable for human consumption. It often contains 50% protein, 35% ash, 8-12% fat, and 4-7% moisture. It includes bone, but is exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. The type of animal is not specified and therefore it can come from any of the sources taken in and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased animals classified as 4-D meat.
Meat Meal - - a rendered product from mammal tissues unfit for human consumption. It does not include blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. The type of animal is not specified and therefore it can come from any of the sources taken in and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased animals classified as 4-D meat.
Bone Meal - - a rendered product unfit for human consumption (steamed) dried & ground product sterilized by cooking un-decomposed bones with steam under pressure. Grease, gelatin and meat fiber may or may not be removed. The type of animal is not specified and therefore it can come from any of the sources taken in and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled and diseased.
Animal Fat - - is the greasy debris left over after rendering deemed inedible for humans. It is obtained from the tissues of mammals and/or poultry in the commercial processes of rendering or extracting. It consists predominantly of glyceride esters of fatty acids and contains no additions of free fatty acids. If an antioxidant is used, the common name or names must be indicated, followed by the words "used as a preservative". Where the fat comes from is not specified so it could be any of or a combination of the sources taken in and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased animals.
Tallow - - animal fats with a titer above 40 degrees Celsius. Tallow is classified by regulators as inedible to humans. Where the fat comes from is not specified so it could be any of or a combination of the sources taken in and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled and diseased.
Animal digest - - a rendered product material of cooked-down broth made from unspecified body parts from unspecified animals unfit for human consumption. It is the results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and un-decomposed animal tissue. Materials treated with heat, enzymes and/or acids to form concentrated natural flavors. It is usually sprayed onto the kibble to make it smell and taste more appealing to the pets eating it. It is an extremely poor source of protein. Since the type of animal is not specified it can be anythnig accepted and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased animals.
Digest - - a rendered product material of cooked-down broth made from unspecified body parts from unspecified animals unfit for human consumption. It is the results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and un-decomposed animal tissue. Materials treated with heat, enzymes and/or acids to form concentrated natural flavors. It is usually sprayed onto the kibble to make it smell and taste more appealing to the pets eating it. It is an extremely poor source of protein. Since the type of animal is not specified it can be anythnig accepted and processed by the rendering plant including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased animals.
Digest is a flavoring, not a meat. For example only a small amount of a "chicken digest" is needed to produce a "chicken flavored cat food," even though no actual chicken is added to the food. Digest is unfit for human consumption.
Poultry by-product meal - - a dry rendered product of slaughtered poultry consisting of things deemed not fit for human consumption (no muscle meat included), which can include heads, beaks, necks, intestines, undeveloped eggs, viscera, free from fecal content and foreign matter (except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices), exclusive of feathers (except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices). Including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased birds.
Poultry by-products - - a product of slaughtered poultry consisting of things deemed not fit for human consumption (no muscle meat included), which can include heads, beaks, necks, intestines, undeveloped eggs, viscera, free from fecal content and foreign matter (except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices), exclusive of feathers (except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices). Including the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased birds.
Meat-by-products- - the non rendered, clean parts, other than meat (no muscle meat included), derived from slaughtered mammals not fit for human consumption. 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. The type of animal is not specified and can include the dead, destroyed, dying, disabled, diseased meat classified as 4-D grade.
Ground yellow corn
Whole grain ground corn
Corn distillers dried grain
Corn gluten feed
Soybean meal
Wheat middlings
Brewers yeast
Menadione sodium bisulfite complex
Vitamin K
BHA
Written by Sharon Rose © Dog Breed Info Center® All Rights Reserved
