Animal Digest versus Tripe?

Since there's that other thread on "by products" versus "meal", etc., I thought I would start this one.  I was at a natural pet store the other day and we started talking about this and that, when the topic came up about animal digest,  we starting talking about "isn't it really just "tripe"?  Well....maybe it is!  I've always been leery of it, but on second thought, perhaps I shouldn't be.  I mean, tripe is supposed to be an excellent protein source, even though it stinks to high heaven.  And isn't that why animal digest is used is FortiFlora, so that the animals are attracted to it and will eat it?

So, is it getting a bad rep?

Animal digest is a rendered product. It's from any tissue. And because it's a rendered product, it can be made from 4D animals.

Tripe (green tripe, not bleached) is actually very nutritious: http://www.greentripe.com/description.htm

I had never heard of this thing called "green tripe" until a few weeks ago. The only place I ever read that word is this TCS. What people said about it: a cat should eat green tripe if you are feeding raw. Huh? What in the world are they talking about? I also have only seen the word tripe after "green" until now. So what is all the fuss about?

Animal digest: The only kind of food I ever saw this term on was cat treats. I assumed it refers to the stomach contents of prey animals, which is all the carbohydrates a cat needs. But if it is rendered, you definitely don't want your cat to eat it. LDG seems to be a nutrition expert and I'll trust her judgment.

Animal digest certainly is rendered. It's sprayed on kibble to make food make palatable to cats and dogs. Certainly not nutritious. I found animal digest in Friskies, Purina, and Fancy Feast dry foods. Also in cat treats, as Emily mentioned. As defined by the AAFCO, animal digest is "material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and un-decomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed."

Also, from http://suite101.com/article/the-mystery-of-cat-food-ingredients-is-solved-a106260,

Animal Digest is an ingredient that appears in some foods, and which is about as gross as it gets when it comes to a filler. Most pet owners aren’t aware of what animal digest might be, and gloss over it, not thinking how terrible it could be for their pets. Animal digest is best defined as a cooked-down broth of unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The list is extensive as to which animals can be included, but some of them are goats, pigs, rats, horses, euthanized animals from shelters, supermarket waste, and road kill. A cat food with animal digest could be exactly that; a food made from cats.

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4D animals are included in animal digest...so I wouldn't call it nutritious at all. This site: http://www.acreaturecomfort.com/ratingpetfood.htm describes animal digest as:

This is the dry by-product of rendered meat. During rendering, all usable animal parts (including fetal tissues and glandular wastes) are heated in vats and the liquid is separated from the dry meal. This meal is covered with charcoal and labeled "unfit for human consumption" before processing it into pet food. Digest can also include intestines, as well as the contents of those intestines, such as stool, bile, parasites and chemicals.

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Doesn't sound very appealing to me. Stool, bile, parasites and chemicals?! How are these things even allowed to become part of a pet food??!!

And from http://www.bestcatanddognutrition.com/?cat=13:

A cooked-down, disgusting broth used for flavour rendered by chemical and/or enzymatic process.

Found in the very lowest quality pet food. Indicates a very poor quality product. Run away from pet foods containing this ingredient!

Made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The origin of the animals are definitely suspect, as it isn’t named. If the manufacturers wanted you to know what the source was, they’d name it.
Ground up carcasses often come from “4-D animals” (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), all internal parts void of healthy meat.

Any kind of animal can be used including zoo animals, cats, dogs, goats, pigs, skunks, horses, rats, snakes, raccoons, possums, deer, foxes, misc. road kill, animals euthanized at shelters and veterinarian clinics, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on.

Animal digest can contain cancerous or diseased tissue containing parasites, pus, worms, tumors and decomposed (spoiled) tissue.

Because animals are frequently shoved into the pit with flea collars still attached, organophosphate-containing insecticides get into the mix as well. The insecticide Dursban arrives in the form of cattle insecticide patches. Pharmaceuticals leak from antibiotics in livestock, and euthanasia drugs (pentobarbital) given to pets are also included. Heavy metals accumulate from a variety of sources: pet ID tags, surgical pins and needles.

As if that’s not bad enough, according to the FDA it is probable that animal digest contains the lethal drug pentobarbital which is used to euthanize cats and dogs.

This is very problematic because pentobarbital can withstand the heat from rendering!

This also means that there may be euthanized cats and dogs in animal digest along with the disease (cancer, tumors, etc.) the animal died from!

There is no control over quality or contamination.

Pet foods containing quality ingredients never, ever use animal digest in their foods!

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^^ This is why I avoid any kind of animal digest.

kittylover23 said:

Animal digest certainly is rendered. It's sprayed on kibble to make food make palatable to cats and dogs. Certainly not nutritious. I found animal digest in Friskies, Purina, and Fancy Feast dry foods. Also in cat treats, as Emily mentioned. As defined by the AAFCO, animal digest is "material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and un-decomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed."

Also, from http://suite101.com/article/the-mystery-of-cat-food-ingredients-is-solved-a106260,

4D animals are included in animal digest...so I wouldn't call it nutritious at all. This site: http://www.acreaturecomfort.com/ratingpetfood.htm describes animal digest as:

Doesn't sound very appealing to me. Stool, bile, parasites and chemicals?! How are these things even allowed to become part of a pet food??!!

And from http://www.bestcatanddognutrition.com/?cat=13:

^^ This is why I avoid any kind of animal digest.

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don't forget the rotten meat from grocery stores and restaurants, with styrofoam and plastic still on it, cats and dogs euthanized by shelters and vets who don't have their own crematoriums (and a lot don't), complete with plastic bags, and collars.  no one is going to take the time to remove the plastic from this stuff, rancid restaurant grease, thrown in the garbage because it's unfit for human consumption, "denatured meat" which is just decaying or diseased meat splashed with carbolic acid or citronella (probably to cut down on some of the bacteria), roadkill and zoo animals.  this is all dumped into a pit and cooked at 200 degrees fahrenheit for about 20 min. to 1 hour.  then it is spun in a centrifuge and all the fat rises to the top, which they then spray on dry food to make it more appealing to the animal.  what was left beneath the fat is then dried and mixed with grain and baked, and it becomes most of the dry food.

and just so it doesn't sound so wild and crazy that they use cats and dogs, think about this:  most animal shelters don't have a crematorium for the animals they euthanize, and neither do most vets.  my vet is at a pretty big clinic, and they don't have one.  i had to call "family friend" to have my cat cremated and returned to me.  it was $90.  i know it isn't that much for lots and lots of animals, but do you really think that someone is going to take the time to pick up the corpses and do something decent with them?  no.  rendering plants pick them up.  and sadly, a lot of vets and shelters don't know what is going to be done with them.  if you think zoo animals, and cows and horses or other roadkill too big to bury by the side of the road just go to landfills--they do in a way.  it's called a rendering pit.

the pet food companies don't actually go get the bodies of former pets and strays, they buy this moosh from the rendering plants and a lot of them don't even know what's in it, and they don't ask either.  they simply don't care, and it's perfectly legal according to the AAFCO.  so that can be the subject of at least one letter-writing campaign.

green tripe is TOTALLY different from animal digest.  this is a perfect example of deceptive advertising.  how many people do you know who actually know what "animal digest" is?  you just assume and go on, i know i did.  the tripe and organ meats for cats and dogs is probably fine, as long as it came from an animal that passed inspection for human consumption.  i have no problem with parts of a cow i wouldn't eat being in cat food, like lungs, brain, ovaries, testicles, instestines, whatever they want to use.  scraps are scraps.  i wouldn't eat a mouse either but cats love them.  i do have a problem if it's cancerous or from a dead/decayed animal.

and at the very best: all the disgusting rotting mess is cooked at a high enough temperature (and treated with powerful chemicals--if you eat ground beef that you pay less for, it's treated with ammonia and if less than 30% of it contains the treated "mixture", they don't have to tell you.  bible.) to kill most of the bacteria and pathogens.  not all, but most.  in any event, it's not nutritious in the least.  it's just garbage.  you can go dumpster diving and feed your cat the same thing for free if price is the issue.