Ingredient to Avoid! Animal Digest
Since the pet food recalls I’d like to believe we’ve all grown a little more aware of what we’re feeding our beloved pets. In this blog I’d like to call your attention to an ingredient that is so common in many lower quality foods and dog treats. Animal Digest is often included in many commercial treats and bottom of the barrel dog foods. Be prepared to be grossed out when I explain to you what this product really is! According to AAFCO (The term AAFCO stands for the Association of American Feed Control Officials; they provide regulatory guidelines for the manufacturing of pet foods) standards, Animal Digest is
“Animal Digest - 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.”
Yuck!
Another expert has described Animal Digest as “a cooked-down broth which can be made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals.” The animals can be collected from almost any source. There is no control set in place over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: “4-D animals” (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying before slaughter), goats, pigs,sheep, horses, rats, euthanized at animal shelters, restaurant and supermarket waste, road kill, etc.
That is about as gross as it gets.
Please read your bags carefully and choose treats with ingredients that you can pronounce and understand.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
[...] 16 weeks of age). Remember, the higher quality the diet (the less fillers such as corn, wheat , animal digest and other byproducts) the less waste your puppy will produce! Housebreaking will be an easier [...]
September 25th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
We shelter (very privately and non commercial) more than 90 cats and 4 dogs that have been thrown away, coming to us for shelter, we found, have been thrown in to us, and their babies when they arrived already pregnant or brought their babies with them before we could let the vet them sterilize. Here in the Philippines, small and pet animals have no value, if sick, kill them or throw them away.
We have now problems with feeding, we feed rice, fish, dry and can food. With the extrem increasing prices and my not increasing pension, we have to budget very well. Our cats that stay around and in the house for some reasons, instead at the separated cat area, refuse now cans (Friskies and Whiskas, the only available) since all looks, smells and has a consistence very different to before. Tuna has been for the cats like heavenly manna and they ate like crazy. Now, it is like sandy and they just lick as long as there is still liquid. Looks like it is mainly skin, fins, tails, incl. bones which cannot hold and soak liquids. But the price increased substantially while the content decreased from one pound to 400 grams, with “liquid” of 80%, means just water. But still, one kilo (2,5 cans) cost more than ham or tenderloin for humans.
Why then there is no rule to make sure that the ingredients of pet food match the needs of the pets, without vegetable fillers that a cat cannot digest and without chemicals that damage our pet animals? Rule that just ban ingredients which would kill immediately are totally useless. Where are the animal loving politicians and lawmakers? Do they not care about because they can afford to feed their pets with real food?
October 1st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
[...] standards expected from these two organizations are in no way a testament to the quality of the ingredients used within the food. Pet owners must research diets carefully before choosing what is best to feed [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
[...] a high quality dog food or feed raw, your dog will consume less of it than a food that is full of fillers. Diet is not something to skimp on as your dogs health is directly effected by what is put into his [...]
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
In my opinion, “high quality” pet food is highly over rated. It is not only a waste of money but is also immoral.
-My aunt has 50 years-old experience as a pet lover and keeper. She had dozens of dogs and cats who were fed with economic pet food and they all lived a full, healthy life and died at old age.
-My own dog has very fragile intestine and will squeeze yellow goo out of about a dozen brands of quality dog food i tried, including veterinary sold stuff. The only good food I found for him so far is Purina lamb and meal, which is economic pet food.
-We already spend more than $40 billion per year in the U.S. to feed pets, while half the human population is starving elsewhere. Using “higher quality” pet food which is made from human grade ingredients will raise the price of international food market, creating more human starvation trough the world.
Your pet’s digestive system doesnt care if you can pronounce and understand the ingredient list of its contents.
Proof is there is millions of pets who live long and healthy with economic pet food.
Dogs have a different digestive system than humans. They are evolutionary designed to eat animal carcasses, wich is the main ingredient of pet food.
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Francois,
I think you’re probably just trolling with the human starvation comment, or maybe you work for Purina and are trying to guilt people into buying that product, but I’ll respond anyway, just in case you actually believe any of that nonsense.
First, corn, not animal carcasses, is the main ingredient in most cheap pet food. Dogs are not evolutionarily designed to eat corn, particularly not the livestock feed grade corn that even humans can’t digest.
Second, cheap dog food has declined in quality over time. Your grandmother probably fed food that DID include mostly animal parts when she was young. Over time, humans have discovered ways to squeeze even more profit from every slaughtered animal and every acre of land where corn is planted, and now instead of a few lousy cuts of meat, some vitamins, and some grain, each bag of cheap dog food now contains a lot of ground livestock grade corn and cob, a little bit of meat byproducts, and a bunch of artificial flavorings, vitamins, and preservatives. Cheaper ingredients mean more profit for the companies. Also, genetics mean a great deal to longevity– more than food, but food affects the QUALITY more than the length of life.
Third, farm subsidies for the growing of corn, worldwide foreign policy, civil war, and corrupt governments matter a whole lot more to human hunger than whether or not you feed good quality food to your dog. Do you think a starving person who will gladly eat mud cakes to fill her belly would object to having cornmeal made of corn that would otherwise go into Purina dog food? I doubt it. The high quality ingredients like whole chicken that go into good quality pet foods, on the other hand, can’t really be shipped to Africa and distributed there in a cost-effective way.
If you’re interested in how American farming has worsened world hunger, read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Excessive production of corn– much of it for pet food and livestock feed– is a huge factor. I avoid buying any product containing corn other than whole ears of corn for that reason.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Saydrah,
Your comment was informative and intelligent. I learned a lot from you, though I feed my dog Wellness, and am so glad that you took the time to respond to “Francois”, who I really hope never owns a pet.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
It is sad that so many of you put the value of human life on a lower tier than that of an animal with less intelligence. Agreed that humans are greedy and want more profits, all animals want more food. Whether what they choose or not; place a bowl of two different foods in front of a dog or cat, one all natural and one that is economic… what do you say when the dog or cat chooses the economic one. You strike me as the type of people who would actually argue that humans were not meant to eat meat.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:52 am
What are you talking about ‘amazed’? Do you even own an animal?
March 12th, 2009 at 8:23 am
I am amazed to see animal digest and ground maize (corn)
listed in my cat’s Hills Science Plan (chicken) dry cat food!!
I thought this was meant to be in bottom of the barrel
pet food, and definitely not in a top of the range, expensive
product. Guess I will be saving my money and switching to
a budget brand from now on. I urge all pet owners to read
what goes into the packet before buying…as the cost of this
stuff just keep going up and up.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I just discovered that Purina sells a probiotic called Fortiflora to vets who then sell it to their clients. the first ingredient is ANIMAL DIGEST! GROSS!!!!!Not to mention that they sell this probiotic at room temperature. Everyone knows that REAL probiotics need to be kept in a refrigerated state for them to be viable…They are living organisms! Man, Purina is just ripping people off!
Checkout the link!
http://www.purinaveterinarydiets.com/CanineProductDetail.aspx?prod=244&DCMP=KNC-PVD-Goog-FortifloraC&HBX_PK=“FortiFlora”&HBX_OU=50
September 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I am a stay at home mom and doggy mom adn i would like to respond to Saydrah. I married into a farming family and they produce the majority of their feed corn for Braums Dairies. The only difference between “feed corn” and corn that you buy n the shelves of your grocers is the sugar content and when it is harvested. Feed corn is of a species lower in sugar (therefore better for animals) and is left on the stalk until it has dried. I have eaten “feed corn” when it is not ready for harvesting for that purpose and it was great. I liked it better than sweet corn for the fact that it was not as sweet. Do not think for one minute that “feed corn” is less nutritious for your pet. It is just as good for them as it is for the dairy cows whose diets it is a major part of. And also coming from a farming background I know what Pigs “slop” consists of. You really don’t want to know. And we humans eat pigs. I don’t care what the pig eats I still love pork and cook with all sorts of pork products. I even use bacon drippings to flavor green beans and bacon drippings by your definitions would be a “pork by-product” You may want to think about what you label as bad nutrition before you say something stupid. That said, all things in moderation, you can still make yourself sick by swallowing a whole bottle of multivitamins. I cook with real butter and bacon fat and still maintain the 115 lb, size 2-4 figure I had in High school. I have 2 kids, 2 dogs, and those provide me with all the exercise i require. I just turned 30 this month and only eat fast food when it can’t be avoided, once a week is usually the most frequent. Think about all the crap in that Big Mac with fries and soda you eat daily and then tell me what i should feed my dog. I wouldn’t give THAT to my dog if you paid me!
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I came across this while I was looking for info on animal digest for my vet. I had found somewhere a few years ago a list of the dog foods that contained Sodium Pentobarbital, but have been unable to find it again. This is coming from the euthanized animals that rendering plants pick up from shelters and zoos. The FDA confirmed that there was indeed Sodium Pentobarbital in the food, but there was no evidence of DNA. I then came to find out that once the food is processed, the DNA would no longer be intact, which explains the FDA’s finding. THIS should be the reason not to feed your pets anything containing animal digest. On that list, Ol’ Roy PUPPY food had the highest level of Sodium Pentobarbital.