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Dog Food Ingredients: What Kind Of Meat Is That?
September 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment
So many of the dog foods available to us today try to lure you in by telling us about the great quality of the meat, grains, and vegetables they use. Can you believe them? To find out, you have to read the dog food ingredients list. But beware, they are tricky to navigate.
How do you know what is a healthy dog food though? In reality, what is healthy for one pet isn’t necessarily healthy for another. Certain dogs may have different levels of activity or be in different stages of their life. Others may have a food intolerance or be diabetic. Take all of these into consideration when determining the type of dog food best for your pet.
Now you must figure out the quality of the ingredients used. The proteins are a very important part of a good, quality dog food. They are also a good source of confusion when looking at the ingredients list. Animal proteins can be stated in different ways. Meat, meal, and by-product are the three main categories.
Three Categories – What’s the Difference? The meat is rather simple – it is the meat from the animal. Meal is also straight-forward – it is the meat after most of the moisture has been removed and then ground up. By-products, confusing at first, are also rather straight-forward – it is most everything else from the animal after all the meat has been removed (necks, intestines, brain, etc.)
Do You Want an Animal Meat or an Animal Meat Meal? So let’s further confuse things now. You have two bags in front of you. The first one has lamb as the first ingredient. The second has lamb meal. Which is a better dog food, protein-wise? The one with lamb meal.
By law, ingredients in food must be listed in order of weight. Since meat meal has had all moisture removed, it will be lighter than meat. If you start with two identical pieces of meat, and make meal of one, it will be lighter and therefor lower on the ingredients list. So this is a rather sneaky way of getting a meat in the top of the list, because once the meat is processed, it is made into a meal and put in the dog food it is made.
What Does a Generic ‘Meat’ Mean? All animal meats must be identified on the label. If the food is from a specific animal, such as salmon, it will be stated as ’salmon’. If the food is from an animal class, like fish, then more than one type of that animal could be in the meat – like salmon, tuna, cod – and will labeled as ‘fish’. A generic ‘meat’ or ‘meat meal’ is the absolute worse – it means the actual animal meat cannot be even identified. You could have some cow, goat, fish, geese, etc.
The bottom line is that if a specific animal source cannot be identified, the dog food manufacturer is probably more concerned about their bottom line than the health and well-being of your pet.
There are lots of things that come into play when determining what is the healthiest dog food for your dog. Learn more about how to read your dog food ingredients list at the Healthy Dog Food Blog: assisting you in determining what makes a healthy dog food.
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