Meat Meals in Dog Food - Dog Nutrition DB

In this blog post, we’ll go over the benefits, possible drawbacks, and controversies surrounding meat meals in dog food.

Meat meals are one of the most common ingredients in dog food. But what exactly are they, and are they good for our dogs? We’ll help you make an informed decision about what to feed your pets!

Contents

What is Meat Meal?

Meat meals are a common ingredient in dog food, but many pet owners may not fully understand what they are.

Essentially, meat meals are a concentrated form of animal tissue that is produced through a process called “rendering“.

Rendering:
A process of using high temperature and pressure to convert whole animal and poultry carcasses or their by-products with no or very low value to safe, nutritional, and economically valuable products.
Carcass Disposal: A Comprehensive Review (pdf)

Meat meals are usually not actually made from only muscle meat.

Instead, they’re recycled nutrient concentrates made from what’s left after slaughter and not used for human consumption such as fatty tissue, offal, or whole animals that die on farms or in transit^[11].

The quality of raw materials used in rendering can vary widely. It’s the whole point of meat meals to recycle ingredients that most pet owners would consider unpalatable or even yucky^[1].

At least, to ensure adequate protein quality, meat meals for pet food in the US may not contain low-quality tissues like horns, blood, hooves, hide trimmings, manure, stomach contents, or hair^[2].

The AAFCO distinguishes between meat meals which are always made from mammal tissue and poultry meals or fish meals. But they are all made by rendering leftover animal products.

One issue is that poultry protein meals are subdivided into meals and by-product meals with the only difference being that the latter can include heads, feet and viscera.

At the same time, mammal meat meals don’t make this distinction although they can use varying degrees of by-products.

Different naming rules give the impression that one protein meal is better than another. In reality, however, there is much overlap between the various protein meals.

Examples of actual meat meals made from mammal tissues are beef meal and pork meal, the most commonly used, but also ingredients like lamb meal or venison meal and bison meal.

Meat Meal Rendering

This process involves heating raw animal tissues, such as muscles and internal organs, to remove moisture and release fat, leaving behind a dry, powdery substance that is high in protein.

[…] meat meal is an animal feed produced by recycling animal by-products. These by-products are cooked, or “rendered,” to produce a nutritional and economical feed ingredient.
Waste Advantage Magazine

The specific rendering method used for meat meals can vary, but they typically involve heat-processing and grinding.

The process begins with crushing and grinding raw animal tissues into small pieces.

Heating the raw materials helps to separate the fat and moisture from the protein and to eliminate any microorganisms^[7].

After the melted fat is separated from the solid protein by draining and pressing, it can be used as animal fat in dog food.

Next, the remaining solid cooked tissues are dried and ground into a fine meat meal powder which is used as a source of protein.

Rendering meat meals converts waste products that would otherwise be discarded into a stable nutrient-dense material.

The processing of otherwise low-value organic matter from the livestock production and meat processing industries through rendering drastically reduces the amount of waste.
Meeker & Meisinger 2015^[11]

Recycling waste from the animal industry is not only a way to be more sustainable. A cost-effective carcass disposal method can in turn reduce the cost of meat, dairy and egg production.

Different types of protein meals can be produced using a similar process, including meat meal but also meat and bone meal, feather meal, insect protein, bone meal, and blood meal.

Fresh Meat vs. Meat Meal

Fresh meat refers to raw muscle meat.

Meat meal, on the other hand, is a processed animal protein made from parts of animals that are rejected as unusable for humans.

Nevertheless, both are common ingredients in dog food and are used as major sources of animal protein.

But how do they differ in terms of nutrition?

While both fresh meat and meat meals can provide essential nutrients, there are some differences in their nutritional qualities and digestibility.

On average, fresh meats used in dog food contain a higher proportion of total lipids. They also have higher levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) which are about “more than four times higher than the corresponding meat meals“^[4].

[…] fresh meats have a better lipid profile, having a higher concentration of PUFAs compared to meat meals, thus making fresh meats the best choice as raw materials for dry pet food production […]
Montegiove et al. 2020^[4]

Meat meal has a higher concentration of protein than fresh meat, as the cooking process removes water and concentrates the nutrients.

The moisture level in fresh meats is about 60-75%, whereas meat meals have a water content lower than 10%. And crude protein in fresh meats is about 15-40% while 50-75% in meat meals.

But according to research, fresh meats contain way more soluble protein, have a higher digestibility, and provide more essential amino acids and more taurine than meat meals^[5,12].

Meat meals can be high in the non-essential amino acids glycine and proline which are abundant amino acids in collagen, keratin or elastin. This indicates the use of less bioavailable proteins from things like skin, claws or connective tissue in meat meals^[12].

To ensure that manufacturers don’t use an excess of proteins that are is resistant to digestion, the AAFCO officially excludes bones, blood, hair, horns, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents from meat meal production^[2].

The AAFCO guidelines also state that no more than 9% of the crude protein in meat meal should be indigestible and include provisions for adequate mineral content^[2].

A 2015 study examined the creatine content in processed and unprocessed dog food to predict meat quality.

Creatine is a nitrogenous compound naturally occurring in animal tissues. From an evolutionary standpoint, it is a natural compound of canine diets. But limited information is available regarding the possible beneficial effects of creatine-rich diets in dogs.

To no surprise, the study found that kibble and rendered meals had less creatine compared to raw or canned dog food^[10].

Heat processing of animal tissue has a negative impact on creatine concentrations. Also, if there is less muscle protein in the raw materials the resulting meal will be lower in creatine.

But meat meals are not only nutritionally inferior to fresh meat.

They also contain more biogenic amines, substances formed by bacteria during the breakdown of proteins. These compounds are potentially toxic and indicators of food spoilage^[6].

And that doesn’t reflect well on the state and quality of the ingredients that go into meat meal….

The authors of a 2020 study concluded that meat meals undergo intense microbial degradation, likely due to both aggressive processing methods and improper handling and storage^[6].

All in all, there is not much to discuss. Meat meals are a nutritious, cost-effective, and sustainable source of protein for dog food. But they are nowhere near the quality of fresh meat.

Pros and Cons of Meat Meal

Rendering is a sustainable utilization of animal by-products. They produce value-added products from waste material.

However, the quality of meat meals can vary greatly, and some lower-quality options can contain very undesirable ingredients and may well have a certain yuck factor.

That makes them controversial in the eyes of some dog owners.

In addition, the processing methods used to produce meat meals can affect the nutritional content and quality of the final product^[9].

For example, meat meals that are actually made using muscle meats are typically higher in protein and amino acids than those made from internal organs or collagen-rich tissue^[3].

The aim of this study was to analyze the protein component of the raw materials used for dry pet food production, […] The results showed that the meat meals are lower in quality compared to fresh meats, both in terms of protein bioavailability and digestibility.
Montegiove et al. 2021^[12]

But a high-quality meat meal is actually oftentimes a richer source of protein than the whole meat from which it was made!

Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to know whether the meat meals used in particular dog food have been processed using methods that maintain their nutritional value or not.

For example, high-temperature rendering can cause the breakdown of proteins and fatty acids, leading to changes in the overall peptide and lipid profile of the meat meal^[4,12].

In addition, there are some safety concerns related to meat meals.

Rendering operations follow certain protocols to ensure product safety and pathogen inactivation. Nevertheless, contamination with pathogens in rendered meals seems to occur frequently^[7,8].

And some meat meals are high in fatty acids that can oxidize rapidly if not protected with preservatives. This is necessary to guarantee shelf life and protect dogs from consuming oxidized lipids^[14].

But if a supplier used synthetic antioxidants to prevent the meat meal from going rancid too quickly, you’ll have no way to know.

Meat Meal in Dog Foods

We recommend that a large part of the protein in your dog’s diet should come from animal ingredients.

From a purely nutritional and quality standpoint, fresh meat is the better choice for dry pet food, period^[5,12].

In direct comparison, meat meals are highly processed sub-standard ingredients with a rather questionable composition.

They are not real meat and certainly not the steak or chicken breast pictured on the front of the bag. That’s just marketing.

Manufacturers mainly choose meat meals as a cost-effective source of protein with a long shelf life made from reclaimed and recycled materials. For suppliers, rendering is simply about “making the best profit out of animal by-products“^[13].

But still… meat meals are nutritious ingredients and a proven way to incorporate lots of animal proteins into dry dog foods.

Let’s be real, it’s expensive and not sustainable to only feed human-grade muscle meat to pets. And rendered meals indeed provide lots of very concentrated protein.

Very few dog food manufacturers will, therefore, actually use heaps of fresh meat in their recipes.

The use of meat meals in dog food also affects how a product can be named. Since meat meals or by-products are not real meat, they can not be highlighted in the product name.

That’s one of the reasons for manufacturers to include at least some fresh meat. A “chicken dog food” has to contain real chicken meat.

But many dog foods that feature only fresh meat often use very little of it. During processing, fresh meat shrinks considerably, and these products opt for plant ingredients to fill the protein gap.

To maximize the intake of meat nutrients, opt for meat meal. Ingredients are listed by weight, which includes any water present in fresh ingredients.

If a dog food lists fresh meat such as beef or pork as an ingredient, it refers to unprocessed meat that still contains water.

On the other hand, meat meals denote a protein powder with its water and fat content removed. Despite weighing less than meat, these rendered meals contain a way higher proportion of protein.

When choosing kibble, it’s the most realistic approach to look for a product that uses fresh meat followed by one or several meat meals to provide the best of both worlds.

We also recommend only buying food with named meals such as pork meal, chicken meal, beef meal, etc.

To be fair, unspecified ingredients like meat and bone meal, poultry meal, or by-product meals can be just as nutritious as named meals.

However, they lack even more transparency and traceability compared to named meals and are more likely to use inferior raw materials.

When you take a look at the dog food label, remember that all ingredients are sorted by fresh weight of ingredients as they enter the mixing bowl.

So don’t just look for the first ingredient.

Remember, on a dry matter basis, a meat meal contains way more protein than the same amount of meat.

Thus, products that list fresh meat as a first ingredient likely contain less animal-sourced protein than products that list both or only a meat meal in first or second, and maybe even third position.

Meat as a first ingredient is a neat trick to propel a well-recognized ingredient to the top of the ingredient list without actually adding that much animal protein.

We hope you now have a better understanding of what meat meals are and why they are used in so many dog foods. Overall, a meat meal is not as good as fresh meat, but can still be a valuable source of animal protein.

What is Meat Meal?

Meat Meal Rendering

Fresh Meat vs. Meat Meal

Pros and Cons of Meat Meal

Meat Meal in Dog Foods

Further Reading