Mommy tries to be particular about what she lets me eat. A few weeks ago she took over my blog and posted about the new canned food I am eating by Variety Pet Foods and the evils of Cesar’s. I especially like Variety’s Sunday Brunch, Grandma’s Stew and Grandad’s Roast. Today she found a site called Dog Food Advisor whose slogan is “Saving Good Dogs from Bad Food.” Variety Pet Food got all 4’s and 5’s on a 5 point scale. She wanted to share this particular article about “meal” with you today. I guess you could call this Sunday school!
The Mysterious Meat Concentrate Most People Know Little (or Nothing) About
For a dog food, what could contain more protein than whole meat?
Well, surprisingly, a quality grade meat meal can actually be a more abundant source of protein than the whole meat from which it was made.
Here’s why.
Meat meal is a dried end-product of the cooking process known as rendering. Rendering is a lot like making stew — except that this stew is intentionally over-cooked.
With rendering, you start with a meat stew, cook away the water and bake the residue. And you end up with a highly concentrated protein powder — or meat meal.
Now, check out the chart above. Notice how whole chicken contains about 70% water and 18% protein.
Yet after rendering, the resulting chicken meal contains just 10% water and a whopping 65% protein.
That’s nearly four times more protein than whole chicken!
Nutritious Ingredient or Anonymous Waste?
Of course, not all meat meals are created equal. Some are of very high quality while others are positively awful.
It all boils down to the stew’s contents — the raw materials. And one critically important principle…
No meal product can ever be better than the raw materials that were used to make it.
Better meals are typically made from the meat of clearly identified sources. Low-grade meals come from anonymous materials like slaughterhouse waste and spoiled supermarket meats — even diseased or dying cattle — or dead zoo animals.
For a more detailed look at the dark side of the industry, you may wish to read “The Shocking Truth About Commercial Dog Food“.
How to Recognize Lower Quality Meat Meals
Since many manufacturers do little to clarify the true nature of the ingredients they use, two important rules can help you avoid choosing an inferior products.
Avoid dog foods containing any meat meal that:
- Includes the words “by-products” in its name
- Fails to identify the specific source animal1
Here are some examples of inferior meat-based protein ingredients. Notice the generic nature of the phrases:
- Meat meal
- Animal meal
- Chicken by-product meal
- Meat and bone meal
- Glandular meal
- Poultry meal
- Blood meal
Species-specific animal sources include names like beef, venison, lamb, chicken, etc. When you see ingredients like those listed above in any recipe, it’s a sign you’re probably looking at a lower quality dog food.
I actually read the report and it’s a great report and very informative.
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It is definitely so important to read food labels..especially pet food labels as most often they are overlooked!
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Glad to be of help. 🙂
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Some terrific info here, Ms. Lexi. Thanks so much for sharing. We always presume companies do the right thing but realize more often than not, it’s all about profit rather than well-being of our pets.
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You have a good Mom too, Chris. Just found out my vet recommends the site I listed!
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This is a bow wow pawsome post! My mom is always careful to give me only the best foods.
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We pray Lexi is having good days and the chem is no longer giving her the runs.
Lee has feed her three scots the same dog food and all have had nice coats and lived their life span. It has changed over the years but Lee is always alert to labels.
Thanks for being a friend
Sweet William The Scot
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No, but Mom said he will keep her eyes open for it. 🙂 We are disappointed that Blue Buffalo was rated so highly when they keep having recalls because of problems in their manufacturing facilities. Lots of human errors.
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I’m with you meat is great! that “by-products” are just another name for garbage… and often we find things in dog food what belong to a chemistry lab, so YAY for really good food! btw: have you tried this Canine Caviar food once? I’ve read a lot of good things about this food, sadly Easy didn’t like it :o)
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We have found dog food advisor to be very helpful too!
hugs
Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel
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Awe, our Moms don’t have to be related to love us enough to care what we eat! Nice to hear from you.
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Your mom an’my mom must b related – I don’t git any dog food or treatz until she checkz first with that Dog Food Advisor peepz an’findz out what they say. That’z where she found out’bout that specifik animal meal an’how bad that animal, even poultry by-productz can b like the beekz an’chicken feet or who knowz what. Great blog post!
Lady Shasta of Beaglebratz Manor
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Yep, Mom cooked for Freda, her first schnauzer, because of a combination of severe allergies and extremely high triglycerides. Fish, apples, broccoli, and she doesn’t remember what else.
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I have cooked for the dogs. It was a combo of white fish, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and summer squash. it was for elevated liver enzymes. Drew loved it.
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The fog took a moment, at first I thought your Mom got a frog and wondered what that had to do with anything, BOL! I wondered, well, maybe frogs are good to eat. Ha, ha. I still cannot eat kibble, as in am unable to eat anything hard. So it is canned food or cook for me. Lucky me, I am getting both. 🙂
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Exactly!
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Mom has not learned to type. Just use your red pen on my first answer and correct the typos.
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Mom got her first fog when she was pregnant and unable yo keep anything down. The first time that she opened canned dog food was the last time that she opened canned dog food. The smell sent her running. She has never bought canned again.
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MOL, MOL…you’re using our trick Lexi. Look at the food like you’ve never seen it before but now that you have seen it, it’s yucky and mom sure has her nerve expecting us to eat this swill. Something better turns up eventually. MOL
Shoko
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Yep, us four leggeds can be pretty demanding about what we will and won’t eat. I am refusing to eat the rest of the canned food I had this morning and am waiting on the chicken to finish cooking. 🙂
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Excellent info Lexi and Amy. Shoko and Kali still like their Fancy Feast Beef flavoured but I am giving them a good canned cat food every other day and they enjoy the good food that way. Perhaps I can make the good food 2 days in a row next. They usually refuse to eat the good food 2 days in a row.
Jean
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Yay for your LadyMum knowing how to feed you healthy and yay for you! Luvs to you S.H.
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Dad has so many allergies that she has to check all his food labels, too!
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Oh my, I don’t think Mommy would ever let me eat that!
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Sneaky and legal and only after the almighty dollar.
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We hate that our foodables makers are SOOOOOO Sneaky sometimes.
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Make certain the species specific label doesn’t say “parrot”.
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Very good lesson Lexi! We will be double checking all our food labels!
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LadyMum was sayin “Yuck” a lot as shee read this bloggie Lexi!
Shee says thee one good fing about mee havin IBS iss that mee iss on TOP qualitee kibbull an wet foodabullss 😉
An mee iss happy all so!
***paw patsss*** Siddhartha Henry xxxxx
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