A Glossary of Dog Food Ingredients

Below are the AAFCO (American Feed Control Officials) definitions of the most commonly used phrases that describe the ingredients in dog food:

MEAT (e.g., lamb, beef, chicken) - "Meat is the clean flesh derived from slaughtered mammals and is limited to that part of the striate muscle which is skeletal or that which is found in the tongue, in the diaphragm, in the heart, or in the esophagus; with or without that accompanying and overlying fat and the portions of the skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels...

POULTRY - "Poultry is the dry rendered products derived from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone...

MEAT MEAL (e.g., lamb meal, beef meal) - "Meat Meal is the rendered product from mammal tissues, exclusive of any added blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices...

POULTRY MEAL - "Poultry Meal is the dry rendered products derived from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone..."

MEAT AND BONE MEAL - "Meat and Bone Meal is the rendered product from mammal tissues, including bone, exclusive of any added blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices..."

MEAT BY-PRODUCTS - "Meat By-Products is the non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals.  It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines..."

POULTRY BY-PRODUCTS - "Poultry By-Products must consist of non-rendered clean parts of carcasses of slaughtered poultry such as heads, feet, viscera..."

POULTRY BY-PRODUCTS MEAL - "Poultry By-Product Meal consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices..."

ANIMAL BY-PRODUCT MEAL  - "Animal By-product meal is the rendered product from mammal tissues, exclusive of any added hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents..This ingredient definition is intended to cover those individual rendered animal tissue products that cannot meet the criteria as set forth elsewhere in this section..."

If a product label says it is "BEEF DOG FOOD", it must be at least 95 percent beef, minus the water required for processing.  If a label identifies the product as a beef DINNER, PLATTER, ENTREE, or FORMULA,  beef must comprise anywhere from 25 to 94 percent of the ingredients.  If the dinner is a COMBINATION OF MEATS (i.e. "lamb and rice dinner"), the lamb and rice combined must comprise at least 25 percent of the content.

A food called "BRAND X WITH CHICKEN"  must contain at least three percent chicken.  If the label says the food has a "LAMB FLAVOR,"  it has to have a "detectable flavor," although who gets to detect it, we're not sure.


Information copied from Whole Dog Journal