Pet Food

[dmdsmoxie]

As you will see this is from 2007 so how much still applies I don't know.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070810195500/http://www.api4animals.org/facts.php?p=359&more=1

One interesting thing is way down the bottom.

Meat is the first ingredient claim. A claim that a named meat (chicken, lamb, etc.) is the #1 ingredient is generally seen for dry food. Ingredients are listed on the label by weight, and raw chicken weighs a lot, since contains a lot of water. If you look further down the list, youre likely to see ingredients such as chicken or poultry by-product meal, meat-and-bone meal, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, or other high-protein meal. Meals have had the fat and water removed, and basically consist of a dry, lightweight protein powder. It doesnt take much raw chicken to weigh more than a great big pile of this powder, so in reality the food is based on the protein meal, with very little chicken to be found. This has become a very popular marketing gimmick, even in premium and health food type brands. Since just about everybody is now using it, any meaning it may have had is so watered-down that you may just as well ignore it.

[krissy]

This is what I try to tell everyone who comes in and talks about food and ingredient lists, especially people who think "meals" are somehow bad or evil and want "meat as the first ingredient". Seems pretty straightforward to me, but I'm not sure how many people actually understand when I explain it to them. My other big pet peeve with marketing gimmicks is the idea that by-products are bad. A lot of good stuff is considered by-product - most of the organs for example. And some less than ideal things are considered "chicken".

[EllenEveBaz]

Agreed. Maybe we need a "snout to tail" movement in pet food as well as in the human restaurant industry.

[JohnF]

I don't think much has changed. Virtually every industry has it's 'co-packing' or 'co-manufacturing. It's sad really when you get people earnestly standing up for a product which is effectively just a badge. I just tell people to do as I do and buy up mince and short-date human grade food from the supermarket as avaiilanle. All you have to do then is cut back on the kibble appropriately. Dogs thrive on variety. Recipes change and dogs notice... why wouldn't they?