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How Is Pet Food Made?

27 11:40:12
Trying to figure out which pet food is best for your pets can be a daunting challenge. There are over 3,000 variations of pet food products. Some of these include dry food, moist food, semi-moist food, snacks and biscuits. Vitamins, minerals, meat, meat byproducts, cereals and grains are mainly what pet food consists of. Learning how pet food is made and knowing how to read the packaging labels can help you make an informative choice. Let's discuss how pet food is made.

The first step in the process is getting the ingredients. The main ingredients in pet food are byproducts of meat, poultry, and seafood. Feed grains and soy meal are also used. Rendering animals such as livestock, horses and household pets that have been put to sleep are also used to make pet food. Basically what this means is that the carcasses of these animals are sent to a "rendering" facility and they extract the oils and fat from them by a melting process. Some of the things that are used in the rendering process are rotten meat from the supermarket, road kill, dead, dying or diseased cows, restaurant grease that may have sat outside for up to two weeks and euthanized pets.

The main difference in dry pet foods and canned pet foods is the amount of moisture that is in them. Some of the liquids that pet food company's use are meat broth, water or blood. Salt preservatives are used to help the gelling process by controlling how much moisture is in a pet food.

The manufacturing process of pet foods is the same as it would be for human food except for the fact that the rendered animals have to be processed first. An outside company usually does this and then the product is shipped to the pet food manufacturing company. In short order the manufacturing process goes something like this:

1. Grind and cook flesh and flesh by products
2. Mix the meat with other ingredients
3. Shape ingredients into special forms if required (such as a dog bone)
4. Put finished product into appropriate containers and ship to distributors

It is very important to know what you are feeding your pets. You want to feed them healthy pet food that is made up of natural, human grade products instead of dead animal parts.

When reading labels look for words such as natural, oven baked, organic, and all natural preservatives. These are key words that will tell you that your pet food is made with good things instead of the "left overs" nobody uses.

Your pets can't read, but you can. For animal lovers out there, you know how much your pets mean to you and you know how hard it is when you lose a pet. Give them the best possible life they can have with safe, all natural food and treats to help ensure that they will have the best possible health and happy life that they can.