Dr. Spector Answers Readers’ Letters: Dr. Spector Reveals Inside Scoop on Pet Food

Q: I think the author has confused meat meal with meat by-product meal.

A: Sorry for any confusion.

By-products are the clean non-rendered parts other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but it not limited to lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, blood, bone, fatty tissue and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents.

I had stated that meat meal is “by-products that are cooked, pressed, dried and added to food.” I can see why the terminology I used may seem a little confusing. I was just trying to give the average consumer some easy definitions of by-products and meals. Meat meal is the rendered “parts,” other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals, whereas if meat meal is cooked and the meat fat is removed, the remaining material is extruded to form meat by-product meal.