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Today's Pet Food Options - AAFCO Definitions |
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Page 3 of 3 Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) Definitions
AAFCO sets the standards and guidelines for pet food manufacturers.
| Meat | is the clean flesh derived from slaughtered animals 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 the accompanying and overlying fat and the portions of the skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the flesh. | | 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. | | Rendered | Dead animals brought to a slaughter house – most of the hide that is salvageable is removed – the animal is then crushed in its entirety – ground up – heated to remove the fats and oils – cooked to remove bacteria – dried and powdered – packaged and sold to be fed back to live animals including your pets. | | Meat by-products | are 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 freed from their contents. | | 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 might occur unavoidably in good processing practices. |
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Pet Nutrition 
