Cat food ingredients?

yiplong

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What is the difference between chicken and chicken meal? What about chicken byproduct meal, is that the same as chicken byproduct?
What about the difference between corn gluten, corn gluten meal and corn meal?
 

strange_wings

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Chicken meal is cooked down chicken, not fresh whole or frozen that contains a certain % of water. Chicken by product meal is pretty much the same, since the cooked down parts are made from left over trimmings anyways but can include beaks and feet (I see no problem with this, some people eat chicken feet). Chicken meal doesn't contain water and can make up greater meat/protein amount then the same amount of fresh (by weight).

Corn meal is the ground corn that you cook with, made from whole corn. Corn gluten is made from the inside of the corn and is used as a protein additive - is in a fine powder form.

Basically when you're looking at a bag of food you want to see a meat or a meat meal as the first ingredient. Corn or grain products should be lower - around 3rd or 5th ingredient or none if you want a grain free food.

And if that didn't make much sense or seems a little disjointed, I'm blaming the brain fog again.
 

sharky

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chicken meal has five lbs of fresh chicken for every one lb of meal ....

corn gluten meal is 66% protein and 66-76% digestable

grd corn , corn grits and corn meal are similiar to human polenta they are only 30-50% digestable

I agree corn or corn gluten should be 3rd or later on the ingrediant list and ONLY ONE type should be present
 

smokiethecat

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By products don't always mean beaks,feet and feathers. They can mean white meat,dark meat, and some organs. Which I feel is okay. I called both Purina and Science diet and they said they don't have any beaks,feet or feathers in their by products...which is good,.....unless they are lying......

yeah,I guess corn isn't "very" digestible...I think...when I eat corn, I "see" it the next day.hee hee.
 

strange_wings

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Originally Posted by smokiethecat

By products don't always mean beaks,feet and feathers. They can mean white meat,dark meat, and some organs. Which I feel is okay. I called both Purina and Science diet and they said they don't have any beaks,feet or feathers in their by products...which is good,.....unless they are lying......
It depends on where they get their meat and meal from. A local plant uses human grade meat (if you call hot dog and bologna quality human grade
) for their fresh non frozen recipe foods. The pet food plants that make these pet foods usually do not make the meal themselves either, they get that elsewhere - to really find out what is in some of it you'd probably have to track down their suppliers and ask (may or may not be made in the US). So there may even be a chance that purina doesn't know the exact specifics.


As for the meal, chicken meal = higher quality meat then chicken meal by product.
 
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yiplong

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Originally Posted by smokiethecat

By products don't always mean beaks,feet and feathers. They can mean white meat,dark meat, and some organs. Which I feel is okay. I called both Purina and Science diet and they said they don't have any beaks,feet or feathers in their by products...which is good,.....unless they are lying......

yeah,I guess corn isn't "very" digestible...I think...when I eat corn, I "see" it the next day.hee hee.
Organs are feet are eaten by people all over the world. They are certainly okay for cats. As for feathers, cats in the wild devour a bird with feature regularly. I don't see how that is bad for them either.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by yiplong

Organs are feet are eaten by people all over the world. They are certainly okay for cats. As for feathers, cats in the wild devour a bird with feature regularly. I don't see how that is bad for them either.
IT IS A quality ISSUE... Yes in many areas it is acceptable to eat such but the QUALITY is MUCH higher than what I call mystery parts( ie no knowledge of % of heads vs livers ... ) I do feed organ meats and some raw bones at my house but they are source certified or organic
 

kitytize

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Originally Posted by sharky

IT IS A quality ISSUE... Yes in many areas it is acceptable to eat such but the QUALITY is MUCH higher than what I call mystery parts( ie no knowledge of % of heads vs livers ... ) I do feed organ meats and some raw bones at my house but they are source certified or organic
Quality does not only pertain to by-products but all ingredients and that is where you need to have some trust in your company. Look what happened last year with wheat gluten.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by kitytize

Quality does not only pertain to by-products but all ingredients and that is where you need to have some trust in your company. Look what happened last year with wheat gluten.
In this case it does ... with chicken meal you have with fair accuracy ( companies do change the bone % ) what is in it with by products it is a lot murkier as the company has little to no REAL knowledge of what is in the vat as delivered ... YES as we found out with glutens things can be something other than kosher
 

rang_27

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Originally Posted by sharky

In this case it does ... with chicken meal you have with fair accuracy ( companies do change the bone % ) what is in it with by products it is a lot murkier as the company has little to no REAL knowledge of what is in the vat as delivered ... YES as we found out with glutens things can be something other than kosher
Frankly the whole gluten problem still scares me. I think that a lot of companies still have a better handle on the issue, but I just don't feel like I can say it will never happen again. I think the good thing to come of all this is that people are more aware of what they are feeding their pets.
 

strange_wings

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^Just so you know. Not all gluten came from China. The local plant here has suppliers in the US and in... Belgium.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by strange_wings

^Just so you know. Not all gluten came from China. The local plant here has suppliers in the US and in... Belgium.
yes plus mexico and canada
 
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