In this article, you’ll learn about bone meal in dog food.
Contents
What is Bone Meal?
Bone meal is a processed animal by-product.
It is made from dried bones that have been separated during meat processing. The bones are then defatted at high temperatures by wet or steam cooking and crushed and ground into a fine powder.
Bone meal is a mixture of finely and coarsely ground slaughterhouse waste products. The most common sources of these waste by-products are beef, pork, sheep and poultry.
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Processing improves nutrient bioavailability by increasing the surface area and removing the dense matrix of intact bone tissue.
Bone meal is an organic mineral powder that is also called bone ash, bone flour, ground bone, etc.
Bone meal was first used as a mineral fertilizer in the 19th century before being used as a feed supplement.
It is a powder that mainly consists of calcium and phosphorus.
But bone meal as a dog food ingredient can also provide trace minerals and small amounts of animal fat and protein.
Purpose of Bone Meal in Dog Food
Bone meal in dog food is used as a nutritional additive.
It can replace other dietary calcium and phosphorus sources.
Calcium and phosphorus are macrominerals and essential nutrients in your dog’s diet.
They are vital for many bodily functions like muscle contraction, digestive health, signal transmission, membranes, and many more.
Depending on the processing method bone meal can contain small and varying amounts of fat or protein.
Is Bone Meal A Quality Ingredient?
People use bone meal as a natural calcium and phosphorous supplement when formulating homemade diets.
Bone meal is rarely used in pet foods as a stand-alone ingredient. Instead, it is very often used as part of meat and bone meal.
As long as manufacturers ensure that the added amounts of calcium and phosphorus are within the allowable daily allowance, bone meal is an excellent source of minerals.
What we don’t like is that bone meal is an anonymous by-product of the rendering industry. Bone meal for dog food can come from a variety of sources and its definition is very vague.
Unless it is part of named animal ingredients like beef and bone meal, chicken bone meal, lamb bone, or chicken with ground bone you don’t know what your dog is eating.
Another problem is the potential presence of heavy metals such as lead or mercury in bone meals[1].
Bone meal is a potential risk of pathogen contamination if not properly heated. In the EU and US, bone meal processing and import are subject to regulations that ensure safe use[2].
Bone meal is a potential source of pathogen transmission if not properly heated. Bone meal processing and import are subject to regulations that ensure safe use[2].
There are still many safer and superior forms of calcium and phosphorus supplements available on the market, e.g. calcium carbonate or calcium phosphate[1].
But when used in small amounts to supplement the nutrient profile of a dog food recipe, it can absolutely be an entirely valid ingredient.
We generally advise you to stay away from unnamed animal ingredients. And you should probably avoid products where bone meal is suspiciously high on the ingredients list.
Overall, bone meal is considered a somewhat controversial ingredient in dog food, mainly because of its unknown origin.
Further Reading
[1] Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Bone Meal.
[2] Code of Federal Regulations:
9 CFR 95.1 Bone Meal
9 CFR 95.24 Requirements for Entry into the United States