Here’s an inside view of what really goes into the making of pet food. Warning: Not for the faint of heart! (And NOT the way Halo makes its food for cats and dogs!!)

By Dr. Donna Spector
What is really in pet food? The pictures presented on cans and bags of pet food conjure up images of a chef cooking divine meals of wholesome cuts of meat and vegetables for our beloved pets. Although this is a lovely idea, it is rarely the case. When animals are slaughtered for food production, the lean muscle is cut off for human consumption.

The remaining carcass (bones, some organs, beaks, feathers, etc) is what goes into pet food, commonly known as “by-products”, “meat meal”, “bone meal”, or the like.

Read on if you are not faint of heart.

“Leftovers” from the human food industry (restaurant grease, out-of-date supermarket meat, etc) also makes its way into pet food through a process called rendering. Rendering involves placing these carcasses and “leftovers” into huge vats, grinding it up and cooking it at very high temperatures for about an hour to kill off harmful bacteria.

Once cool, the grease is skimmed off the top and this is called “animal fat” that goes into pet food (for example, chicken fat, beef fat, etc). The rest is pressed and dried to make either meat meal or bone meal. Read on for your pet’s sake.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Cat Food, Dr Donna Spector, Healthy Dog Food, Pet Food Recipes, Pet Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.