The B-Word...

~By: Lisa Horne, RAHT

A little while ago, I wrote a blog entry on the joys and benefits of corn, and today, I’d like to tackle another icky ingredient…the “B” word.   Like corn, it’s also become a bad word in the world of pet nutrition, despite the fact that it’s actually a great source of nutrients that cuts down on waste: By-Products.

            When people see that there are *gasp* by-products in their pet’s food, the assumption is that they are the parts of the animal that are low-quality and inedible, like feathers, hair, hooves, and the pre-poo that lives in the intestinal tract.  It’s commonly believed that these ingredients are not just gross, but that they are not nutritious and are used as cheap fillers.  After all, you would never eat by-products, so your pet shouldn’t either, right?

            Actually, by-products are simply the parts of the animal that we find “icky”.  They are ingredients that are produced, or left-over, after some other product or ingredient is made; by-products are made of the non-rendered, clean parts of a slaughtered animal, NOT including feathers, hair, hide, hooves, or intestinal contents.  By-products are actually more nutritious than muscle meat, and are more common than you think in your own diet.

            It’s commonly believed that animals in the wild eat the more appealing muscle meat first, and only if they’re starving will they eat the organs.  Actually, this is false.  The wild canine and feline relatives of our domestic buddies eat the organ meats and intestines first, saving the skeletal muscle and bones for last.   Muscle meat, which is the source of all of our delicious and visually appealing chicken breasts and beef tenderloins, is a great source of protein and amino acids, but is actually deficient in many other nutrients, including calcium, vitamin A, iron, fatty acids, and antioxidants.  By-products not only provide protein and amino acids, but are quite nutritiously rich in other nutrients that cannot be provided by muscle meat alone; liver, for example, provides vitamin A and iron, and bone marrow and bones provide calcium, fatty acids, and antioxidants.  Other organs like the kidneys, heart, spleen, lungs, brain, intestines, thyroid glands, tongues, testicles, etc, (collectively called “offal”) can all be put under the by-product category.  They are not only nutritious by themselves, but the nutrients they provide complement the nutrients in the rest of the animal; thus, eating by-products AND muscle meat provides a more complete nutritional profile (to be entirely complete, your pet needs non-meat sources of nutrition too, but I’ll write about those later.)  I’ll just reiterate again that by-products do NOT include hooves, hair, feathers, hide, or intestinal contents; these parts are indeed not digestible, and are considered “low-quality”. (There are some exceptions to this rule, the Anallergenic diet being one of them, but, again, this will be discussed in a different blog entry) 

            “That’s all well and good” you say, “but all those parts of the animal are disgusting! I wouldn’t be caught dead eating something like that, so I will certainly not feed it to my fancy Fifi!”  I’d be willing to bet money that not only have you eaten by-products, but you’ve enjoyed them as well!  Ever had hot dogs?  Gravy?  Haggis?  Sweetbreads?  Eggs?  Jello?  Broth?  Steak and kidney pie?  Liver and onions?  All of these food items are by-products or made with by-products, and they are just the tip of the iceberg.  One of the best meals I’ve ever eaten was traditionally prepared haggis while I was travelling in Scotland.  Yes, when I found out what it was I was kind of grossed out, but my level of “grossed out” was out-done by its deliciousness, so I kept eating it.

            In fact, there’s a huge dietary movement going on in the human culinary world called “Nose to Tail Eating” aimed at encouraging people to consume the whole animal, not just the muscle meat.  This is not only nutritionally better for you, but cuts down on waste; if you eat meat, then it only makes sense to eat the whole creature, not just the pretty bits.  Why let it go to waste if the only reason is that we find those parts “icky”?  When you get a tray of boneless skinless chicken breasts at the market, you should wonder where the rest of the animal went.  This applies to your pet food as well; if you don’t fancy the idea of eating a tongue, heart, or a pair of testicles simply because the idea seems noxious to you, why let those parts go to waste when you have a four legged friend who is only too happy to benefit from it?  There are several delicacies served up in fancy expensive restaurants all over the world that are made from by-products: foie gras (force fed fatty goose liver), caviar (fish roe), pate (mashed up organs, usually liver) and sweetbreads (thyroid glands) are very pricey items at upscale restaurants, but they are made of what many consider to be the junk parts of the animal. 

            An aversion to eating organ meat and bone is totally up to the individual; the thought of eating liver or kidneys makes me feel sick to my stomach, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t nutritious.  I think most vegetables are unappealing too, but that doesn’t stop them from being good for me.  What we have to remember, is that the collective problem with by-products is simply a PERSONAL aversion, not a scientifically or nutritionally based one.  I say again: there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with these parts of the animal!  The by-products of slaughtered animals are considered visually undesirable and/or have strong flavours or textures that many find unappealing, therefore they get labeled as “low-quality” or “not human-grade”, and when those labels are applied, they give the impression that by-products are a really bad thing.

            Fergus Henderson, author of the cook book “The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating”, offers up this little pearl of wisdom, which I can’t help but agree with: "If you're going to kill the animal it seems only polite to use the whole thing."  If you don’t want to go out and eat offal, that’s fine, that’s your personal choice, but those are perfectly good parts that shouldn’t go to waste.  By-products in pet food provide an nutritionally dense and biologically appropriate alternative to wasting half of our meat sources.