What is 'chicken meal'?

Question

This is in my dog's dog food.

Answer 1

when an ingredient is listed as 'chicken meal' rather than 'chicken' it means it is chicken meat that has be dried out and ground up. producers use this to keep the moisture content of the food lower but still keeping a high amount of protein. meal has aroun 10% moisture while meat has a much higher moisture content. what you want to stay away from is 'by-product' and corn/wheat products in the foods. hope this helps!

Answer 2

Chicken meal is animal bone and tissue that have been ground down and rendered (heated to the point of melting into liquid). Once the human-grade chicken is removed, everything else (excluding blood, hair, hide trim, manure, hoofs, and contents of the intestines) is ground and rendered to create chicken meal.

As gross as that sounds, it's still better than the more generic "meat meal" that many dog foods use.

Answer 3

Chicken meal is the dry rendered (cooked down) product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts of whole carcasses of chicken -- exclusive of feathers, heads, feet, or entrails.

Chicken meal is considered to be the single best source of protein in commercial pet foods.

Answer 4

Chicken

Answer 5

This is from Natura's web site: Chicken meal is the dry rendered (cooked down) product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts of whole carcasses of chicken -- exclusive of feathers, heads, feet, or entrails.

Answer 6

It's ground up chicken parts, including the bones. People get grossed out about what is in pet food but if you look at dogs and cats left on their own to forage, they eat really gross stuff all on their own!