Chicken Feathers In Dog Food?

Horse feathers you say, no chicken feathers may be coming

to a dog food near you. Here is what Susan Thixton reported in her magazine.

Posted by Susan Thixton on May 31, 2013 at 12:16 pm

There is a new pet food ingredient heading our way…feather meal. The pitch to consumers and veterinarians has begun. Brace yourself, feather meal might be coming to a pet food near you very soon.

Ground feathers as a protein source for dog and cat food is being pitched to veterinarians and consumers all over the world. Scampers Pet Food in the UK alerted me of Big Pet Food veterinarians talking up the benefits of feather meal. A few days later I heard from Dr. Tanabe in Japan sharing the very same story – feather meal is being pitched as the new best thing in pet food. Add to the global push of feather meal, then I find an new article in Forbes magazine pitching the wonders of this new pet food ingredient.

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) holds the responsibility of defining all animal food ingredients. For pet foods in the U.S., ‘feather meal’ has no official definition (yet), a similar ingredient that is AAFCO defined is “Hydrolyzed Poultry Feathers”. To hydrolyze is to break down (the feathers in this case) by chemical reaction with water. Thus, hydrolyzed poultry feathers have been treated to make them more digestible to the animal consuming them.

In a Pet Food Industry trade publication, a feather meal manufacturer (GoldMehl) stated “Unprocessed feathers are high in crude protein (90 percent), but highly indigestible due to the keratin structure, which contains high amounts of cross linked – disulphite bondings – cystine. In order to open the S-S bonds and to make the crude feathers available for digestive systems, feathers have to be processed.” The GoldMehl feather meal manufacturer performed a seven day digestibility trial in dogs. The company found digestibility for feather meal was “comparable to regular poultry meal”. (Note: this feeding trial was for seven days only.)

Royal Canin told Forbes magazine they have been developing a “Anallergenic formula” dog food for ten years using chicken feathers as the main source of protein. Keith Levy of Royal Canin told Forbes “It’s not only nutritious but can also be made very palatable to dogs. Feathers are broken down to an amino acid level and don’t have much of a taste. Then we add palatizers for taste. In this case, we have to be very careful not to provoke an allergic reaction. That’s why it took so long to develop this particular food. We’re looking for lots of different sources of protein for our foods: hydrolyzed soy; for some of our foods in China we use worm meal. I tried some kibble made with worm meal once – it tasted very good. So our approach goes way beyond feathers.” (I hope worm meal isn’t next…yuck.)

The PetFoodIndustry.com trade publication said “The quantity of protein required by pets depends on their lifestyle and life stage.” But what about protein quality? The question is…would feather meal ingredients (or worm meal) benefit the pet that consumes them? Or are these ingredients benefiting the pockets of ingredient suppliers and pet food manufacturers?

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton

TruthaboutPetFood.com

Association for Truth in Pet Food

Pet Food Safety Advocate

Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible

Chicken Feathers In Dog Food?

Take The Test-from Truth About Pet Food

Posted by Susan Thixton on May 20, 2013 at 12:46 pm

Do you know what this is a picture of? Take a guess. Hint: it has something to do with pet food. One picture is worth a thousand words. No judgment, just reality.

Provided by a friend.

This is a dump truck/trailer load full of a meat meal ingredient being delivered to a pet food manufacturing plant.

Similar deliveries of bulk ingredients are probably being unloaded at one or more pet food plants as you read this. The purpose of sharing this image is not to judge the quality of the ingredient (though not likely, this could be an image of the finest meat meal ingredient on the planet), the purpose of sharing this picture is for the reality of most pet food manufacturing to be known to all.

Reality…

That ‘meat’ in the picture above could be the only meat ingredient in your pet food.

The ‘meat’ in the picture above has already been cooked once (and ground to a fine powder), next it will be cooked again during the extrusion process.

8,000 pound batches of pet food is a small batch of pet food.

I am not saying bulk pet food manufacturing is bad – I am saying these are the hard facts.

This is not what consumers think about, but it should be. It is the reality of mass produced food (human or pet).

Many thanks to the friend that sent TruthaboutPetFood.com this image.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton

TruthaboutPetFood.com

Association for Truth in Pet Food

Pet Food Safety Advocate

Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible

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Elastin is a protein in connective tissue that is elastic and allows many tissues in the body to resume their shape after stretching or contracting. Elastin helps skin to return to its original position when it is poked or pinched. Elastin is also an important load-bearing tissue in the bodies of vertebrates-from Wikipedia.  The Presence of elastin is reduced with age and this leads to the onset of joint pain and poor joint flexibility.  One way to remedy this problem is to increase the trace mineral level, particularly copper, zinc and manganese.  These lead to more effective production of elastin and allows the flexibility to return and the pain to ebb without medications.  This is a natural way to treat not only the symptom but also the heart of the problem.

Supplementing with chelated trace minerals is the most effective way to change the nutritional profile and increase mineral metabolism.  Minerals can easily be tied up in the body of dogs because of their total intake of nutrients.  For instance, having a water source that is high in iron can cause an antagonistic relationship between iron and copper and your pet can become deficient to a sub-clinical degree.  That is to say that there are no visible symptoms but the problem persists

Always check out ingredients and look for listings like “copper amino acid chelate” or “zinc amino acid chelate” and don’t accept ingredients like “copper oxide” or “copper sulfate” as acceptable forms of supplementation.

 

Elastin is a protein in connective tissue that is elastic and allows many tissues in the body to resume their shape after stretching or contracting. Elastin helps skin to return to its original position when it is poked or pinched. Elastin is also an important load-bearing tissue in the bodies of vertebrates-from Wikipedia.  The Presence of elastin is reduced with age and this leads to the onset of joint pain and poor joint flexibility.  One way to remedy this problem is to increase the trace mineral level, particularly copper, zinc and manganese.  These lead to more effective production of elastin and allows the flexibility to return and the pain to ebb without medications.  This is a natural way to treat not only the symptom but also the heart of the problem.

Supplementing with chelated trace minerals is the most effective way to change the nutritional profile and increase mineral metabolism.  Minerals can easily be tied up in the body of dogs because of their total intake of nutrients.  For instance, having a water source that is high in iron can cause an antagonistic relationship between iron and copper and your pet can become deficient to a sub-clinical degree.  That is to say that there are no visible symptoms but the problem persists

Always check out ingredients and look for listings like “copper amino acid chelate” or “zinc amino acid chelate” and don’t accept ingredients like “copper oxide” or “copper sulfate” as acceptable forms of supplementation.

 

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