Whats wrong with by-products??

Question

People say it's all the low quality parts of an animal. My dog's food has chicken by products and Chicken as the two main ingridients. But I dont get it. In thw wild don't wolves eat every part of their prey? they are pretty healthy.

Answer 1

your dog is not a wolf is it? your dog is not a wild animal either.
by-products can also mean DISEASED and CANCEROUS tissue.

yummy huh?

Answer 2

Chicken by-products are what's left after the meat is removed, such as the beaks, legs and other parts. Plus, this goes through all sorts of processing that wouldn't happen if a dog or a wolf caught and ate a bird. They might eat the legs or head, and some feathers, perhaps, but they would also eat the internal organs and the muscle as well. So yes, a dog in the wild would eat those parts, but they wouldn't be processed, dried and ground into a powder. So in my view, it's not so much the parts, but how they're handled and the proportion, relative to what comes from muscle.

Answer 3

You are correct. By-products are all the undesirable parts of an animals. Chicken beaks, feet etc. Whilst dogs may eat this, it is not healthy for them in that is does not provide what they need to stay at optimum health.

In saying this, you could go out and buy an expensive top brand kibble or pet meat and will still include grains etc which also are not historically meant for a dogs belly.

The best diet is meat and meaty bones and veggies. If you really want to feed your pup a healthy diet have a look at www.barfworld.com and do a bit of reading up on it.

Answer 4

Well hmm I wouldn't say there is any thing that bad aboout chicken,lamb,turkey or beef by products. But at the same time are not very nutritious whatsoever. If it says meat by products however, RUN AWAAYY . It's probobly from the meat of sickended diseased animals that were killed in rescues!!

The food i feed has no by products. I think it's just safer to feed foods with the better parts.

Answer 5

Actually wolves don't eat every part. They eat the main flesh and portions of the carcass but leave the rest for scavengers. Wolves actually don't eat a large amount of food compared to domestic dogs. They will only eat that which is necessary and may only eat every three days or so.

Answer 6

Much attention has been placed upon the presence or absence of meat by-products in dog foods. However, raw-feeders don't really mind the by-products (feathers, heads, feet, and so on). As a matter of fact, we're excited if we find a package of fresh chicken feet in the supermarket and often travel great distances for rabbit heads and other "waste" products. Dogs are designed to handle "poor" cuts of meat and in fact thrive on them. What is problematic is the way in which the meat has been prepared. Even the most expensive "human-grade" meat, like that found in super-premium foods, is cooked at very high temperatures and dried. This changes the nature of the protein chains within the meat, and destroys the enzymes that should be present in the tissue. The vast majority kibbles use what is called "meal," which is meat that has been rendered. Rendered meat, which is gathered from all food animals not fit for human consumption, is heated to an extraordinary temperature and then flaked or powdered. What remains is hardly related to the lovely cuts of steak pictured on the outside of the bag. No matter what 'meat' is listed it is not in the food in a nutritional manner that people think.


Then add in grains
Grains
All kibble contains grains and grain products. Partially this is because a purely meat kibble would decay so quickly, but mainly it is because grains are a much cheaper source of protein and nutrients than meat, even the very poor meat that kibble manufacturers use. When looking at the ingredients on a bag of kibble, it is important to recognize the strategies that companies use when listing the ingredients. Grain ingredients are routinely split, or listed in their components rather than in their whole. For example, a kibble could list (as one very popular one does) Lamb Meal, Brewers Rice, Brown Rice, and Rice Flour. This splitting makes it appear that the lamb is a greater quantity by weight than the rice. In fact, in all likelihood the rice is present in far greater amounts than the lamb, once all three rice components are added up. All three of these ingredients are the exact same thing-brewers rice is just the name for kernels of rice that are broken into small pieces. Brown rice is the whole kernels. Rice flour is brown rice once it has been crushed into a powder.

Fillers
Fillers are used to "bulk up" kibble, to allow the portion sizes to be what we would consider generous, and to make the dog's stool the firm cigar shape we expect. These substances, which include beet pulp, soy, yucca fiber, and other ingredients (often just lumped under "dietary fiber" in the ingredient list) are indigestible and only serve to decrease the value of the food and possibly trigger allergies in the dog.

Vitamins
At the end of every kibble ingredient list is an impressively long litany of vitamins, usually expressed in their scientific terms (d-alpha tocopherol, ferrous sulfate, and so on). This is often advertised as a wonderful feature of the kibble, and is in fact a good thing--it's the only factor that makes the kibble "100% balanced and complete" as is trumpeted on every bag. However, let's think about what they are and why they're there. The vitamins found in kibble are usually sprayed on the extruded kibble at the end of the manufacturing process. They're nothing more than vitamin pills, basically, as though you could say a piece of cardboard was 100% balanced if you took it with a Flintstones.


Alidawn.. Your dog food seminars were liekly put on by dog food companies not nutriton specialist.
It doesn't matter WHAT you are putting in the kibble.. by the time it goes through all the processes.. the original nutrition is GONE and then it gets sprayed with fat and vitamins before its dropped in to the bag. So put all the intestines you want in there with Fillet mignon too and with out the vitamins sprayed on at the end of the process.. you got nothin! Might as well feed cardboard with a multi vitamin! :)

Answer 7

By-products don't always mean beaks and feet, and they are NOT euthanized pets from shelters! When some products list meat by-products in their food, they are talking about intestines and such, which are actually a very healthy part of a carnivore's diet.

Answer 8

actually, wolves dont eat every part of their prey. do some research and you will find out why by products should not be fed to pets.


http://www.acreaturecomfort.com/truthaboutpetfood.htm

Answer 9

http://www.doggoneholistic.com/pages/truth_food.htm
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04/Perhach/PetFood/Contents.htm
http://www.peta.org/feat/iams/video.html
PLEASE read these links if you really care. By-products can actually be diseased dogs and cats euthanized at the vets. This is TRUE. I never feed my dogs commercial crap. I would feel like a fool. They are so deceptive!

Answer 10

It's the human translation of by-products that's offensive. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a dog eating those parts for the very reason you cited.