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But what portion of the meat products? Traditionally pet food was made from that part of the animals that were not favored for consumption by humans. The abst
by eric4smith 6y ago
But what portion of the meat products?
Traditionally pet food was made from that part of the animals that were not favored for consumption by humans.
The abstract did not really mention that.
- eknkc 6y agoYeah, at later stages they mention the increasing demand for "premium" pet food, which likely contains better meat cuts. I don't think it still would be a huge deal but my gut is known to be an unreliable source and the article is too long.
- mc32 6y agoThis I don’t get. Why does a pet need ‘premium’ meat cuts? They live <20 years. It’s not like fat, sinew and gristle is going to cut their lives short. And if they get the innards and less tasty bits, I mean, isn’t that what wild dogs eat? Like the dogs give two licks about the cut of meat. I’m sure they’d like some marrow. What they probably don’t enjoy is the filler stuff. Dogs aren’t connoisseurs of meats. They will eat any meat. Sure they avoid skunk and maybe other meats foul to their tongues, but cow, horse, sheep, etc? They like them all.
- swirepe 6y ago> They live <20 years Crazy thing about nutrition, eating better means living longer :)
- thebean11 6y ago> They live <20 years. It’s not like fat, sinew and gristle is going to cut their lives short. I don't think I follow, why couldn't their lives be cut short by potentially bad food?
- mc32 6y agoIt takes time for a bad diet to catch up to animals of relatively short lifespans.
- grawprog 6y agoBut the effects of bad food are also accelerated. I noticed a huge difference just in a few months after switching my cat from dry to wet food after years. He'd started to get fat and wasn't really active or anything at 5 years old. He was having trouble breathing, drinking water constantly. Within a few monthw of switching his food, he was down to a normal weight, running and jumping around again. I didn't change the amount of food or anything i was giving him, just the quality of it.
- swirepe 6y agoMy rescue dog was having trouble learning until I cooked her an egg for the first time. It's pretty hard to grow a brain out of whatever garbage she was finding to eat.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoI'd hazard a guess any prime cuts that might end up in animal feed is likely product that spolied in some way, or had son kind of packaging defect, as to make it not suitable for human consumption. And / or, there's plenty of offcuts generated in preparating prime cuts that could still he called prime.
- londons_explore 6y agoFun fact: in Europe all pet food is safe for human consumption. It's too legally expensive dealing with the fallout when a child tries to eat dog food and claims they got sick otherwise. It's cheaper for the manufacturer to just show up in court and say "it's certified for human consumption". It also means that equipment can be swapped between making pies and making dog food.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cgriswald 6y agoPremium pet foods generally have more meat protein in relation to fillers like grains and legumes than other pet foods . They don’t include what we would call “premium cuts”.
- VectorLock 6y ago"Premium" in pet food doesn't mean better cuts of meat, it means less fillers and grain.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago> This I don’t get. Why does a pet need ‘premium’ meat cuts? They don't. This is a market exploiting the fact that a lot of pet owners care strongly about their pets' well-being. Pet owner communities are full of people who insist all mainstream pet food is garbage and packaged cancer, and that you're a bad person if you buy them. There's a lot of social pressure - which I believe is in large part manufactured on purpose by marketers - to buy premium foods. Like all other animals, including humans, many pets can get suddenly sick, and suffer a lot before they die. Pet owners tend to know it (even if they avoid thinking about it), so it's trivial to exploit this latent fear - "you wouldn't like to make your pet sick because you're buying processed food". Literally the same strategy that's used to push overpriced "healthy", "natural" human food.
- swirepe 6y ago>Literally the same strategy that's used to push overpriced "healthy", "natural" human food. Would you describe yourself as a particularly healthy person?
- TeMPOraL 6y agoHealthy enough. My non-optimal body shape has more to do with genetics and bad habits around anxiety management, than with not being obsessed about the most expensive granola I could find in a "healthy food" specialty store.
- AussieWog93 6y agoI don't get why a human needs "premium" meat cuts. There are so many parts of the animal that are delicious and overlooked - brains, livers, bone marrow etc. simply because people in the West from about 1950 onwards have had this weird aversion to eating any meat except skeletal muscle unless it's presented as processed food.
- mc32 6y agoTrue. But at least people develop a taste and preference. At one time I ate liver because I was poor. I never liked it. My sibling liked it. One of my relations loved tripe. I did not. But dogs? Until quite recently they are scraps.
- thiago_fm 6y agoPremium dog food isn't about meat cuts. My dog reacts very differently from different kinds of meat and quality, so does her skin. Also I can't believe to your argument about lifespan and diet. Can only be a troll.
- orra 6y ago> better meat cuts. Better is quite subjective. Yes, we humans nowadays generally prefer to eat muscley meat. But other animal parts like offal can be quite nutritious. Traditionally the Inuit, for example, had a diet incredibly high in meat. But not meat as in solely 'premium' cuts, but rather making use of most (all?) of the animal.
- AdmiralAsshat 6y agoYeah, I'm not exactly concerned that I'm going to lose my valuable supply of pig snouts to the dogfood industry. But I suppose the point to consider here is that some pets are carnivores, and you won't be able to turn them vegetarian without seriously affecting their health. So if we as the human species decide to stop domesticating pigs for food, our pets might run into trouble.
- cgriswald 6y agoI’m aware of a woman who claimed her dog was vegan. Not that he eats a vegan diet. That the dog itself was vegan. That is, of course, impossible, since a dog cannot comprehend veganism even in the unlikely case an informed dog would make such a choice.
- jhardy54 6y agoThats very silly. Source: Am vegan.
- cgriswald 6y agoI agree. Even when feeding our dogs a raw diet, we fed them meat not bound for human consumption or the occasional leftover trimmings from our own meals. The things that were human consumable were not meats and are generally not eaten by the average American although they are more common in other diets.
- thebrain 6y agoSuch a misleading article, the meat producers and processors are maximizing their use of the product to ensure there's minimal waste, that's basic economics. If I'm looking to make chicken stock, I have to call up my local butcher before going there to make sure they haven't processed all of their chicken spines into dog food...
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoThey seem to factor this in, table 6 shows how they weighed it: > the environmental impact of animal production (compared to a plant-protein substitute) used to feed dogs and cats is 25–30% of that used to feed humans Based on this paper: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/664S/4690011?login=true https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/664S/4690011?logi... So unless I misunderstand they're saying it's 25% as bad as meat production for humans. I'm too tired to look at their methodology though.
- hinkley 6y agoHow many pounds of tripe in a cow?