By-Products - G R O S S

Do you know what "by-products" are? Really Really are? Whether it is in people food or pet food - you do NOT want to buy these products. For this post I am specifically talking about pet foods, dog food, to be exact.
Now, to be fair, some people think nothing of what goes into by-products. But then some people will feed their dogs anything. They think that since dogs originally came from the wild and ate like the wild then they can eat anything. Today's dogs are domesticated - it has been a few hundred years now since they were eating their kill on a daily basis. I don't understand how a person can treat their dog as  their "baby", buy them nice beds and cute toys but then feed them junk food on a daily basis unless they just don't know any better. Sure they can eat anything you put in front of them and do - but so can kids eat candy or chips every day and if that is all they eat, we know that isn't good for them. We want our dogs to live a long and healthy life, true?

So this is to educate those who do not know any better but do care.

So what are by-products? They are the leftovers of a slaughtered animal AFTER the edible parts have been removed. Whether it be beef, chicken, lamb, hog, or whatever. So think about it ---

the back, the feet, (including hooves) head, brains, stomach, intestines, kidneys, liver, lungs, spleen, eggs which have not developed, spine. Get the picture? Gross, right? Of course some people like to eat those body parts and they are even considered delicacies but, yea, whatever.

So - how do they get by with putting this stuff in our dog food? It is LEGAL! No matter how it is handled, refrigerated OR NOT - no matter how it is stored. It is LEGAL! It is PROFIT for the companies!
Then there are 2 kinds - NAMED by-product and GENERIC by-product.
Here are some of the common names you will find on the list of ingredients: which are obviously named by-products.
Chicken by-product
Beef by-product
Poultry by-product
Turkey by product
You find the above in lower to middle grade dog food.

Then with generic by-products - guess what?  they do not have to specifically disclose what source they come from. It gets worse - it can be any of the following:
dead animals - from the zoo, ranch, roadkill, euthanized pets unclaimed - see what I am saying? When chickens arrive -many do not make it and they are tossed in for this purpose.
These are dogfoods that no one should be feeding their dogs. Yet, they are out there on the shelves and sold daily. The very cheap nasty stuff.

So the smart way to buy dogfood? RESEARCH - the first 5 ingredients are important. You can go to   The DogFoodAdvisor - very smart site.
You will find 5 Star Dog Food all the way down to 1 Star and they give the entire list of dogfoods, recalls, lots of good facts. In fact, a lot of my information on this post came from there. I did a lot of research in dogfoods before deciding what dogfood was best for Opie. Actually we went through 4 top brands that The Dog Food Advisor listed but the one that worked best for Opie was Victor Grain Free for Puppies

Now - that is my rant for doggy foods - don't get me started on people food. BOLOGNA, HOT DOGS...oh my!