Hi,
I’ve been looking at Edgard & Coopers website who are proud to say that their foods don’t contain meat meal. They say that Meat Meal is produced by heating offal on a high temperature which removes all the oils and fats and evaporates the water from the meat, until only a powder remains. During this process, a lot of the nutritional value of the ingredients is lost.
https://www.edgardcooper.co.uk/pages/how-we-do-it
Is this correct or marketing spiel?
If they are correct in saying that meat meal doesn’t contain much nutritional value before it’s added to a food, can it be classed as a green ingredient?
It would be great to learn more about meat meal.
Thank you!
Warm wishes,
Rachael
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There are various processing methods used to produce dry dog foods, including Extrusion, Baking, Cold Pressing, Air drying and Freeze Drying which affect the original ingredients to varying degrees in order to produce the final product.
David has written an excellent “Dog Feeding Guide” here: https://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/dog-feeding-guide
…a quote from the article:
“Dry foods are made from dried and ground ingredients and can be cooked in a number of ways:
Extrusion is by-far the most common cooking method for dry dog foods. In the extrusion process, raw materials are first ground and then passed down what is essentially a giant steam cooker. After extrusion, the food is dried, cooled and is given a coating of fats and oils to enhance its flavour. Critics claim that the high pressures and temperatures involved in extrusion destroy some of the nutrients contained in the food including vitamins, some amino-acids and enzymes. Supporters, however, advocate that the cooking process increases digestibility and kills parasites.
Baking is another cooking method which allows foods to be cooked at lower pressures than extrusion and therefore may leave more of the nutrients intact. Baking does, however, rely on a certain amount of wheat gluten to bind the biscuit.”
The website explanation about meat meal is here. It gets a green tick and according to that, it is treated at high pressure. If it is of a named meat source then you know exactly what you are getting but if it is not named then you really don’t know what’s in there. The problem with using fresh meat instead of meat meal is that the total protein content of the dog food is possibly going to be lower than if the latter is used. This is because meat meal is concentrated, therefore the protein content is higher. The food you mention is a case in point because the protein is low at 21%. They are right about nutrients being lost due to processing method. Extrusion involves high temperatures so nutrients have to be added back in.
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