It’s a hard topic to discuss in a short post, but I’ll do the best I can to hit the main points. There are two things everyone wants to know when it comes to ingredients: are they good ingredients, and where do they originate? About all I, or anyone else, can do to explain ingredients is to give to you the definitions of the products you see on the AAFCO label. They might surprise you. As to why a company chooses an ingredient they do, it depends on the company.
Yes, cost is a factor, but it’s not the only one. Companies are aware that consumers are very interested in quality and there is a significant portion of the pet owning population that will pick- and pay more for their foods based on those ingredient lists. The larger companies with on staff nutritionists spend a great deal of time and money creating and reviewing current research to pick ingredients with purpose, evaluating the relative merits of each and using them accordingly.
I say this because most people don’t see that. There is so much perception out there that companies review a list of ingredients from some nebulous supplier in China, put a check mark by what is cheapest, and throw it in a vat. Perhaps there are companies that do it that way. I haven’t seen it yet, at least in the companies I have worked with.
The other question, and it’s a fair one, is sourcing. Determining where a company gets it ingredients can be challenging as it may not even always be the same place. If it is a big concern for you, I think it’s a fair question to ask, and the staff on the consumer care lines given on the bag should be able to address it. While they often won’t divulge the exact location of the farm, which is standard, they should be able to tell you the state and country of origin. If they don’t answer it to your satisfaction, it’s OK to pick a different company that will.
So let’s get to the good stuff. We’ve been spending a lot of time talking about protein, so let’s begin there. The fundamentals, the stuff everyone freaks out about, are meats, by-products, meals, and digests. So here are some AAFCO definitions, simplified:
BEEF: Refers to striated muscle tissue from cows. May contain some other bits and parts that got stuck on.
BEEF BY-PRODUCTS: Parts that aren’t horns, hair, teeth, and hooves. Examples: lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, cleaned-out guts.
CHICKEN: Can refer to just about any part of the chicken that is not feathers, feet, heads, and guts. Can include bone. To reiterate: “chicken” probably does NOT mean a nice full plump chicken like you see in the store. It’s just as likely to be what’s left after the breasts and other meat are removed for sale elsewhere.
CHICKEN BY-PRODUCTS: Anything that doesn’t count as regular “chicken”, except feathers. Read: heads, feet, guts, etc.
MEAL: All this means is something that has been dehydrated and ground down. So it is the same as the non-meal form, minus water.
DIGEST: Something that has been chemically or enzymatically hydrolyzed to break down the chemical bonds, meaning it has been digested. Scrumptious. Usually used as a flavoring component.
A couple of things to keep in mind:
By-products aren’t necessarily a bad thing. By-products sound bad, but really, if you go to any Michelin rated French restaurant you’ll see them served up for $400 a plate. Organ meats are a good dense nutrient source. If you watch nature shows on Animal Planet, when the lion takes the gazelle down, they don’t peel off the muscle parts and leave the organs behind, do they? They gut them.
So some foods that tout “no by-products” may just be trying to appeal to our own human squeamishness, since by-products are themselves really not inherently evil. Looking back on my definition of “chicken”, when you consider it might just be a de-meated chicken carcass with all the good stuff pulled off, you really think a pile of gizzards is going to be less nutrient dense? It’s tricky stuff here, guys.
Final note: Does pet food actually contain pets? It’s a persistent rumor that dogs, cats, and roadkill end up in kibble by the ton. All over the internet you’ll find “Joe’s friend Frank who worked at a plant said this happens”,” but not one person, not one persistent PETA undercover agent, has been able to show proof this happens. Pet food manufacturers aren’t stupid enough to take that kind of PR risk. From the AAFCO manual: “The ingredient “Meat” and “Meat by-products” shall be qualified to designate the animal from which the meat or meat by-products are derived unless the meat or meat by-products are derived from cattle, swine, sheep, goats or any combination thereof. For example, ingredients derived from horses shall be listed as ‘horsemeat’ or ‘horsemeat by-products.’”
In a nutshell ‘meat’ does not mean ‘roadkill’- it usually means ‘livestock’, and unless your food specifically has “dog by-products” on the label it can’t contain Fido.
