Is it included?
- Thread starter Dani
- Start date
Actually, meal is better than meat
What does the real difference mean to your pets and you?
Meat
[Chicken & Lamb are 70% water and only 15% protein]
Pet food labels found in grocery and mass marketers like to use Chicken or Lamb to represent real meat. –(Containing 70% moisture). This leads you the consumer to believe that their product is meat based. Chicken or lamb meats are heavier than grains prior to cooking. The moisture contained in the meats (70%) is reduced by 2/3rds after the cooking process, leaving the total formula as a grain base food after processing.
vs.
Meal
[Chicken Meal and Lamb Meal are dry and 50% to 65% protein] meat protein!
Chicken, Turkey and Lamb meals are dry and are less than 10% moisture and contain 50% - 65% meat proteins. In processing the meat meals do not shrink below the grain weight, producing a true meat based formula for your carnivores.
AAFCO label rules require that, the heaviest to the lightest ingredients be the order on the guaranteed analysis panel, (with or without water content).
What does the real difference mean to your pets and you?
Meat
[Chicken & Lamb are 70% water and only 15% protein]
Pet food labels found in grocery and mass marketers like to use Chicken or Lamb to represent real meat. –(Containing 70% moisture). This leads you the consumer to believe that their product is meat based. Chicken or lamb meats are heavier than grains prior to cooking. The moisture contained in the meats (70%) is reduced by 2/3rds after the cooking process, leaving the total formula as a grain base food after processing.
vs.
Meal
[Chicken Meal and Lamb Meal are dry and 50% to 65% protein] meat protein!
Chicken, Turkey and Lamb meals are dry and are less than 10% moisture and contain 50% - 65% meat proteins. In processing the meat meals do not shrink below the grain weight, producing a true meat based formula for your carnivores.
AAFCO label rules require that, the heaviest to the lightest ingredients be the order on the guaranteed analysis panel, (with or without water content).
That is certainly not the case.
Quality meat meals, which identify the source of animal they are from (e.g. chicken meal, lamb meal, salmon meal) are a desirable ingredient since they supply a concentrated form of protein that doesn't shrink once the water is extracted.
Unless otherwise noted, these meals are made from the entire carcass (without skin etc.), which is great because that way you have proper mineral ratios without adding a ton of extra supplements.
What you need to be wary of is "byproduct" meals, and generic meals (e.g. "meat meal" (what meat?), meat and bone meal, poultry byproduct meal, fish meal and so on).
Quality meat meals, which identify the source of animal they are from (e.g. chicken meal, lamb meal, salmon meal) are a desirable ingredient since they supply a concentrated form of protein that doesn't shrink once the water is extracted.
Unless otherwise noted, these meals are made from the entire carcass (without skin etc.), which is great because that way you have proper mineral ratios without adding a ton of extra supplements.
What you need to be wary of is "byproduct" meals, and generic meals (e.g. "meat meal" (what meat?), meat and bone meal, poultry byproduct meal, fish meal and so on).
A lot of people think that, which is too bad really - since it makes products that contain "real meat as the first ingredient" but no other quality sources of preotein look attractive to people when they are not.
Many of them contain only around 25% meat by fresh weight (with all the water still included), which then shrink to about a third to a quarter of the weight after most of the moisture has been removed.
This means that for example if you have a recipe that includes 25 pounds of fresh meat per 100 pounds of ingredients before processing, the finished product will only contain around 6-8 pounds of meat - since all the cereal grains used are already pretty dry and don't "shrink" much in the drying process.
Meals do differ in quality though, the "chicken meal" that different companies uses isn't necessarily of the same quality. Think for example that it could either be made of spent egg farm hens that are at the end of their life cycle and don't have much meat on their bones, or from the same type of chickens that are sold as broilers or fryers at the grocery store.
I hope that clarifies it a little.
Many of them contain only around 25% meat by fresh weight (with all the water still included), which then shrink to about a third to a quarter of the weight after most of the moisture has been removed.
This means that for example if you have a recipe that includes 25 pounds of fresh meat per 100 pounds of ingredients before processing, the finished product will only contain around 6-8 pounds of meat - since all the cereal grains used are already pretty dry and don't "shrink" much in the drying process.
Meals do differ in quality though, the "chicken meal" that different companies uses isn't necessarily of the same quality. Think for example that it could either be made of spent egg farm hens that are at the end of their life cycle and don't have much meat on their bones, or from the same type of chickens that are sold as broilers or fryers at the grocery store.
I hope that clarifies it a little.
