Protein Meal in Pet Food: Is it Bad?

In this article, we will take a closer look at two more aspects to consider when selecting a food for your dog or cat: protein meal in pet food and ingredient splitting.

A common tip when selecting a dry pet food (kibble) is to make sure that the first few ingredients listed are fresh meat, such as chicken, beef, lamb, goat, etc. This would seem to make sense, since if we want a pet food that is packed with high-quality protein, then we should be sure that the first few ingredients listed are some sort of meat, right? After all, we don’t want an “inferior” food that lists a “meal”, such as chicken meal, beef meal or lamb meal among the first few ingredients. Or do we?

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In my recent article, Comparing Protein in Commercial Pet Foods, I discussed how ingredients on pet food labels are listed in descending order of weight. I pointed out that the weight is based on how much the ingredient weighed before it was processed and before the water content was removed. Because of this, the only way to accurately determine the true protein content of a food is to convert the As Fed listing on the Guaranteed Analysis to a Dry Matter basis by mathematically removing the water content. This is because once the water is removed, things change considerably.

Unlike fresh meat, which is mostly water, “meal” listed on pet food labels has already had most of the water and fat removed during the rendering process, prior to weighing. So, in essence, meal is concentrated protein.

I will illustrate my point with a comparison of two pet foods in the following chart. Food A, on the left, lists turkey meal as the first ingredient, whereas Food B, on the right, lists fresh turkey first. When we compare the two foods on a Dry Matter basis (trust me; I did it!), we see that Food A contains more protein.

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This makes perfect sense because, again, the fresh meat contains mostly water, whereas the meal contains mostly protein.

The lesson here is that meal in pet food is not in and of itself a “bad guy.” It’s the type of meal that’s used and in what context it is used that makes the difference between a high-quality and a lower-quality food. I like to see meal used in conjunction with fresh meat so that we get the best of both worlds — real meat combined with the protein power of meal.

Orijen, one of my favorite manufacturers, does a great job of combining fresh meats with meals in this manner. For example, Orijen’s Tundra dry dog food lists the first 10 ingredients as whole meat or fish sources: “Goat, venison, mutton, bison, whole arctic char, rabbit, duck, whole steelhead trout, whole pilchard, whole alaskan cod….” But, Orijen knows that they also must use meal wisely to attain the desired level of protein, so seven of the next 10 ingredients are a meal: “…goat meal, venison meal, alaskan cod meal, mutton meal, blue whiting meal, red lentils, green peas, duck fat, herring meal, pollock meal….”

Again, this is because without meal, you simply cannot have a high-protein kibble.

How to Choose Protein Meal in Pet Food

Remember, meal can effectively boost the protein — and thus the amino acid profile — of dry pet foods. Let’s take a look at how to choose the right type of meal:

• Choose only meals from named animal sources: This would be lamb meal, chicken meal, beef meal, turkey meal, etc. Never select something labeled generically as “meat meal”. According to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), meat meal, “….may be from mammals other than cattle, pigs, sheep or goats without further description.”^[1] In other words, you don’t know what species your dog or cat is eating, and that certainly sounds unsavory to me. Products labeled with “fish meal” or “poultry meal” also do not cut it in my book. I want the type of fish or poultry identified or I don’t trust it.
• Avoid “by-product meal”: Most people do not realize that there is a difference between “meal” and “by-product meal”. For example, AAFCO provides the following definitions for poultry meal and poultry by-product meal:
  
  Poultry Meal is the dry rendered product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of poultry or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails.^[1]

  Poultry By-Product Meal consists of the ground, rendered clean parts of the carcasses of slaughtered poultry such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.^[1]

  As you can see, poultry by-product meal can contain intestines, feet and heads, but poultry meal cannot. In addition, poultry meal cannot contain feathers, whereas poultry by-product meal can contain “amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices” — whatever that means!

  In my book, by-product meals are way too mysterious and should be avoided.

Ingredient Splitting/Fractioning

Let’s revisit the food comparison of Food A and Food B above. We determined that Food A has more protein than Food B on a Dry Matter basis. But, we do not know the amount of each individual ingredient contained in the food, or how much each of their respective proteins contributes to the entire food, so we don’t know where that protein is coming from.

In this instance, you may be tempted to choose Food B, since deboned turkey and turkey meal are the first two ingredients, whereas Food A contains peas as the second ingredient. Food B lists peas, pea starch and pea fiber as the fifth, sixth and seventh ingredients, respectively. Much further down the list than Food A, so this must be a good thing, right? Not necessarily.

The manufacturer of Food B used a strategy called “ingredient splitting” or “fractioning” to make it appear as if their food contains less peas by weight. In this case, they “split” the ingredient — peas — into its various components, including whole peas, pea starch and pea fiber. By “splitting” one ingredient — peas — in this way and listing each component separately, no individual pea component weighs enough to make peas appear high on the list of ingredients. Combine them all together, however, and I’m sure we’d find that there are a lot of peas in this product!

The point is that when ingredient splitting is used for ingredients such as soy, peas, corn or wheat, we don’t know if the bulk of the protein in the food is coming from high-quality animal sources or from lower-quality, less bioavailable plant-based sources. So, two foods that have the same or similar protein levels can have very different qualities of protein. I discuss protein quality in detail in my previous article, Protein Quality in Pet Foods.

Could there even be more peas by weight than the deboned turkey and turkey meal? We don’t know and we will probably never know. What I do know is that the obscurity that Food B presents is suspicious in my book, and so I would select Food A.

In summary, tips for choosing protein meal in pet food are:

• If you choose kibble for your companion pet, the addition of a high-quality meal will boost the protein level beyond that of fresh meat alone — just be sure that the meal is used in combination with fresh meat (not instead of) and that you select the right type of meal.
• Choose only meals from a named animal source, such as beef meal, turkey meal, chicken meal and lamb meal.
• Steer clear of generic meal proteins, such as meat meal, poultry meal or fish meal.
• Avoid by-product meals.

Also, be conscious of the deceptive practice of ingredient splitting when reading pet food labels, which can make it appear as if the food contains less of a less desirable ingredient than it really does.

As always, I hope that you enjoyed this article and that it helps you and your four-legged companion to enjoy many healthy, happy years together!

1. ^[1] Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). (2016) What is in Pet Food? Retrieved from http://www.aafco.org/Consumers/What-is-in-Pet-Food. ↩

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