Author Topic: Meat Secrets: Meat In Pet Foods  (Read 670 times)

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Offline DeeDee

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Meat Secrets: Meat In Pet Foods
« on: December 18, 2015, 01:31:41 PM »
http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/meat-in-pet-foods/

Quote
When Is Meat Not Meat?

Pet foods can contain meat, meat meals, and meat by-product meals. Most consumers understand that meat is ideal, followed by meat meals, with by-product meal bringing up the rear (no pun intended) in terms of quality.

What you may not know is that the meat listed on an ingredient label as “chicken” can be any of a range of qualities, and there is no distinction required on the label.

So, some television commercials and print ads will show fresh, whole chicken breasts in the food they’re advertising. I can guarantee that is not the meat going into kibbled pet food. The same holds true for canned pet foods. Many raw food companies are also using a lesser quality meat than whole muscle meat.

Meat according to the AAFCO guidelines is: “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered mammals and is limited to that part of the striate muscle which is skeletal or that which is found in the tongue, in the diaphragm, in the heart, or in the esophagus; with or without the accompanying and overlying fat and the portions of the skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the flesh. It shall be suitable for use in animal food.”


Nothing in that definition indicates how the “meat” is obtained and whether it is whole muscle meat (think steak or whole chicken breast), comminuted or mechanically separated meat (think hot dogs), or denatured meat (think charcoal colored substance).

So what is mechanically separated meat? And how is it separated?

This is a process used both in human food production and pet food production. The leftover carcass is ground down to a paste-like product, then put through a high pressure sieve to extract the meat from the bones. Any bone particles should be caught by the sieve. With this process there are tendons, veins, and arteries that are ground up as well. The mechanically separated meat is a very nutrient dense product.
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
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