If you google ‘meat and animal derivates’ you will get some very contradictory information depending which website you visit. If you find a Pet Food Company that uses Meat & Animal Derivatives in their recipes they will tell you ”they are the bits not used in the human food chain but they are wholesome and nutritious, taken from animals deemed fit for human consumption”. Some even boast that in some countries these by-products are delicacies!! Organs such as Liver and Kidneys might be higher in vitamin B2 (riboflavin) than lean meat but the fact remains that when an ingredient is not clearly named, you do not know if it is actually in there or how much of it is in there. If a Manufacturer truly adds Liver or Kidneys for the nutritional benefits they bring, they would have them very clearly named in the ingredients.
Lets face it…… ‘meat and animal derivatives’ is the cheap stuff!!! Some Manufacturers might claim feeding the by-products to your dog helps to reduce food waste as it would otherwise be chucked in the bin, that kind of says it all!!!
Meat & Animal Derivatives is a very broad, vague term and legally can include all or any ‘warm-blooded land animals’. Although some by-products are very nutritious some are seriously not and the problem with Manufacturers using this term on their packaging is that you can never know for sure exactly what was used. They can also regularly swap and change their meat source, meaning you do not know what your dog is eating, one minute beef, the next chicken, duck, lamb, goat, pig etc the list goes on and the mixture could include varying quantities of any warm-blooded land animal. Often the Manufacturer will use a cunning trick: for example, they will tell you a food contains Meat & Animals Derivatives 20% including 4% Beef…… this is because for a food to be labelled a specific flavour it must contain at least 4% of that flavour, they do however fail to tell you what the other 16% is (because it could be anything).
If your dog is prone to food allergies, intolerances or has a sensitive tummy it is best to stay as far away as possible from Meat & Animal Derivatives and that also includes Dog Treats.
CLICK HERE FOR FRESHLY PREPARED RECIPES
Here at Austonley you will constantly see and hear us bleating on about ‘Freshly Prepared’ and you will see we clearly name our Protein Source and we give you a Content Percentage. This is because it is what it says it is, if it says Salmon it is Salmon. If it says it is Beef it is Beef not offal, or lungs, or bones or hooves. It is human grade beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey etc. Freshly prepared is a meat concentrate and is far superior to Meat & Animal Derivatives, it is also it is also closer to feeding fresh meat than Meat Meal is. The benefits are
- It has a higher protein digestibility and availability
- It has a lower oxidised fat content
- It is considerably more palatable to dogs
So not only are our food ingredients better quality than food made with Meat and Animal Derivates or Meat Meal, our products are also cheaper because we like our customers dogs to be happy and healthy but we also like our customers wallets to be happy and healthy!!!!! xx
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