Chicken v Chicken Meal?
Thanks, Diane PS Can people list the brands they are now feeding? I'm looking fr a new food. |
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I am not really sure but from my understanding the meal can also have some of the undersirable parts of the animal in it too. Beeks, feet ect. We have switched Breena to Wellness ( no meal or biproducts) and wow has it made a difference in her health, level of energy and desire to eat. With another brand she didn't want to eat and elimated crazily. I love Wellness and they don't outsource from China only from New Zealand ( the lamb) and Canada. No corn or fillers either  |
| I think the "undesirable parts" are referred to as chicken by-products. According to Whole Dog Journal, when evaluating a food, chicken meal is ok but chicken by-products are a no-no. I am not exactly sure what chicken meal is though. |
| Take chicken, put it in the oven to dry it, put it in a blender or more likely a grinder, and you have chicken meal-a coarse ground granular flour like powder. "Meal" means ground up.
It includes lots of stuff you might think of as by-products, but technically aren't. I don't understand why the whole dog journal and others think this is a top-notch ingredient. Same with fish meal. This is my story and I'm sticking with it. |
Ron wrote: I don't understand why the whole dog journal and others think this is a top-notch ingredient.
Same with fish meal. I would not characterize them as saying it is a top-notch ingredient. Rather, they think it is acceptable whereas by-product is unacceptable. In fact, they seem to recommend the fresh/frozen meats found in canned foods over any of the formulations of dry food. |
| I would rather have chicken meal as a main ingredient over just chicken. Chicken meal is dehydrated and ground up as Ron said, therefore concentrated nutrition without adding water as weight. |
| Now Willwsprite, that is why I am asking the question...In looking at alot f foods lately, many of the so called "top commercial foods" - and there aren't that many left these days - do list Chicken Meal as the first ingredient, rather than just "chicken"..for instance, Canidae All Life Stages lists "chicken meal, turkey meal" etc...no mention of "chicken" or "turkey".
Ultra Holistic Nutrition same thing,"chicken meal"...PHD Viand same thing,"lamb meal, chicken meal"... and there are others. I'm starting to look into it but thought it had smething to do with the water content, ext like Willowsprite says...so my question now is..in choosing a food, its recommended that the first two ingredients be an animal protein. So, "meal" would be okay then? Better than "chicken"? Worse than "chicken"??? This food stuff has me crazy  |
Chicken meal gets my vote too
 Until I hear something different
**Chicken meal vs Chicken** Found this bit of information in my stash of pooch food research 
...Flint River Ranch On a label, there is a big difference between Meat and Meal. "Meat" refers to meat prior to cooking and therefore still packed full of water. For example, chicken meat is 70-75% water! It may be listed on the ingredients list as the number one ingredient...but that's before cooking (and all dog food is cooked). Once the water has been cooked out of it, the meat drops in weight and ceases to be the main ingredient. Meal is fresh meat with the water and fat removed. When meal is cooked it remains about the same weight and doesn't lose its place in the ingredients list. http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com/wellness/faq.html#28 Chicken meal is a high quality protein source that contains muscle meat as well as a small percentage of bone. The bone fraction contains rich sources of calcium and phosphorus. Diane...food stuff has me crazy too 
Cassie, Beebles, Brodman |
| Chicken meal is just chicken that has been cooked down, no feet no heads, no feathers. It does have the bones though and they are ground up fine so as not to cause a problem. In that form bones are not an issue to the Dog. And if they did put in legs they would not be an issue either. Chicken legs are quite edible, but the toe nails are not and toe nails/beaks/feathers, are never suppose to be in the mix. Chicken meal is a good source of protein in dog foods, and not something to fear or think it is causing problems. |
| I thought meal was ground and included bone; so thanks for that info confirming it!
I'm feeding Wellness Large Breed Puppy; and am about to transition to Wellness Large Breed. I've also liked the Merrick dry food; but had only tried the puppy one. |
Quote: When selecting the best dry food for your dog, why is it better to go with the chicken meal than the pure chicken? from http://searchwarp.com/swa5545.htmChicken meal is simply chicken that has been baked to remove bacteria and other toxins. Chicken is simply pure chicken. What people dont know about chicken, is that it is made mostly of water. If a label on a bag of dog food says %60 whole chicken, that is quite misleading as that does not take into account how much of that %60 of chicken is left after baking it to remove unwanted substances! When the label on the bag says %60 of chicken meal, your getting more of the chicken because the product has already been baked to remove unwanted affects such as bacteria. Explanation: Converting dry matter basis This can be the hard part. All pet foods have different levels of moisture. Canned foods can have up to 80% moisture whereas, some dry foods can have as little as 6%. This is important for 2 reasons. The first is that the food is priced by the pound, and when you buy dog food that is 80% water you get 20% food and the rest is water. So the amount of food your pet consumes is small and expensive. The other reason for understanding percent moisture is to help you compare crude protein and fat between brands and between canned and dry. The listings on the label are for the food as it is, not as it would be on a dry matter basis. So without converting both brands of food to a dry matter basis you will not be able to compare them accurately. Fortunately, the conversion is not that complicated. If a dry dog food has 10% moisture we know that it has 90% dry matter. So we look at the label and check the protein level that reads 20%. Next, we divide the 20 percent protein by the 90% dry matter and we get 22%, which is the amount of protein on a dry matter basis. Does this make sense so far? Good. Now let us compare this to canned food that has 80% moisture. We know that with 80% moisture we have 20% dry matter. The label shows 5% protein. So we take the 5% and divide it by 20% and we get 25% protein on a dry matter basis. So the canned food has more protein per pound on a dry matter basis after all the water is taken out. We can do the same for fat, fiber, etc. Good luck calculating! also from Wikipedia (which of course is always corretc ) Quote: Chicken meal is an ingredient often used in dry dog food and cat food. It is chicken which has been ground or otherwise reduced in particle size and baked. The quality of the protein depends on the type of meat and amount of chicken meat in the mixture. It is also blended with bone and connective tissue processed with the meat. Although better than chicken by-product meal, chicken meal is generally a lesser quality of protein source than chicken meat |
| So what is an animal by product?
Surely if it is part of the animal it is part of the animal, is an egg a chicken by product? Having cats live in the house and we back onto a river I am familiar with what animals consider edible over what we do! Take Rats for instance, they always start with the head, and amazingly after eating the rest we are left with the bowels intact - yes pretty yicky stuff, birds we are generally left with the flight feathers. Is a by product something we deem as undesirable by human standards? or just the parts that they won't eat? |
| Whatever is not used for human food is a by product. Of course in some cultures the only by-product is the squeak as there's nothing left.
I have no ideal, nor do I want to know, about what's in the intestines. The rest is legitimate food, even ground bone meal or blood meal (if they aren't sold for fertilizer). Yeah, I guess the shell would be a by-product. Though we had chickens eat the shell and contents........but it was a short time venture. The hens became dinner very quickly. Feathers can be ground and be a by-product. Talk about fill........ |
| Definition of chicken meal:
AAFCO as "the dry rendered product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with accompanying bone, derived from whole carcasses of chicken thereof, exclusive of feathers and skin" |
Anonymous wrote: Definition of chicken meal:
AAFCO as "the dry rendered product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with accompanying bone, derived from whole carcasses of chicken thereof, exclusive of feathers and skin" So it's both made of skin and not made of skin at the same time? |
| The right definition says "exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails"... |
| animal parts, (chicken, lamb etc.) as the first ingredient listed is just that. And unless the label says specifically "Humane consumable" It can have almost any dead or dying animal by-products. Animal by-products are about 70% water. Dry dog foods have to be less that 10% moisture by law. If they are more than that they must be labeled as other than food, like "dinner" or "treats" Now for animal meal, meal has been cooked to less than 10% moisture and so if it is the first ingredient on the label that food must contain by law at-least 95% of that ingredient. BUT! It too unless it specifically states "humane grade" can be made from virtually any dead/dying animal or parts of animals they want to throw in there. The best dog/cat foods will have for the first ingredient listed on the label lamb meal, or chicken meal or whatever kind of meat meal you what, but it needs to be graded as "100% humane consumable" to really have a good idea what you are feeding. Read carefully. There are very few foods out there that are of this type. 3 that I can think of. Here's a link to an article written by someone who know more than I. http://s87153149.onlinehome.us/NLRC%20O ... letter.pdf |
| i was told that chicken meal has some not so great parts of the chicken in it like the ballbag and the penus |
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