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Two groups of ingredients that get a lot of attention are meals and by-products. Meals are ingredients which have been ground, but in some cases may have been further processed. For example corn meal is simply ground corn. In the case of animal meals (i.e. lamb meal, chicken meal or fish meal), the material typically undergoes two processing steps prior grinding. First, the fresh material is dehydrated to remove the excess water and then, in most cases, the excess oil or fat is expressed from the material in order to prolong its shelf life and to allow it to be ground.
By-products are defined by AAFCO as "secondary products produced in addition to the primary products". For poultry and meats, this includes a wide range of material some of which is more nutritious than others. Meat by-products may contain lungs, spleen, livers, kidneys, blood, bone, stomachs and intestines. Meat by-products may not contain hair, horns or hooves. Similarly, poultry by-products may contain heads, feet and viscera, but not feathers.
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