I hear a lot of people say things like, “I’d never feed my cat such-and-such a food. It has animal by-products!” or, “We don’t carry that brand of cat food. That’s a grocery store brand — our food doesn’t have animal by-products.”
What exactly are the animal by-products used in pet food? What makes them less healthy than non-by-product containing choices?
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By-products are leftover parts. They can be anything like organs, blood, bone, feet, etc. Some of those leftovers are good, some are bad.
Things like organs and feet and some others aren’t bad, but it’s the catch-all term that makes it so you don’t know what you’re really feeding your pet. I would be perfectly fine seeing a list such as “chicken liver, chicken kidneys, chicken feet” instead of “chicken byproducts”.
ADD:
Mmmm…. chicken feet!
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj237/abbyful/IMG_1564.jpg
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By-products can include feet, intestines, feathers, egg shells, etc. and can be less nutritious than meat. Always have a muscle meat ( Chicken, Turkey ) As the first and main ingredient.
It can be anything from the guts, to the manure of the animal meat they are using (say chicken, beef. pork). It is pretty much ALL of the animal waste.
The issue is that it’s a non-specific term and can really include just about any portion of the animal. You don’t know what your pet is eating. While organ meats are perfectly acceptable, some of the other junk that makes its way in there under the ‘byproducts’ label is not acceptable (at least not to me). I prefer to feed them only items labeled ‘human grade’ and that identify the ingredients specifically so I know what I am putting into their little bodies.
It’s filler that has very little nutrition to it.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1661&articleid=668
The downside of putting in the organs used for by-products is that these are the places where heavy metals and toxins accumulate, which may not be eliminated in the rendering (cooking) process. High lead levels have been found in some foods, with this as one of the suspected culprits.
If you’re going to pay for pet food, paying for one with by-products gets you less good nutrition than buying one that uses no by-products and no corn (cats can’t digest corn).
Three words: MAD COW DISEASE.
Animal bi-products are often the leftovers from the meat industry (the beaks and claws, so to speak). While it is a source of protein, it is not a good one. Moreso when the protein being “recycled” comes from animals and it’s being fed back to a herbivore.
Quality livestock feeds get their protein primarily from dairy or soy sources, but to keep costs down, many of the bulk feeds have used meat bi-products to give the animals the necessary amount of protein for a lower cost. Mad cow disease came to be because the animals that were dying from the disease were being processed and fed back to other cows. This began the disease cycle because this type of feeding is unnatural, so the pathonogenic risks increase greatly.
Bi-products can be of two different sources – either the non-edible portion, including connective tissue, feathers, feet, internal organs and such, or a slaughtered animal that was dying, diseased or otherwise deemed unhealthy and unuseable for human consumption. Obviously, the latter of the two can have some dangerous consequences.
Quality dog and cat food uses animal products, not bi-products. They are made from meat-quality portions of the animal, whether it be lamb, beef, chicken or such, and by using them as such, the protein is better quality, and the nutritional value is consistent. You can’t be consistent when some of the batches of bi-product are more feathers than beaks, I guess.