I decided to take Joni off her Meow Mix kitten formula because she wasn't really eating and if I mixed it with the Simply Nourish dry food, she just picked out the higher quality kibbles.
Today I picked up the bag and really read through the ingredients. Besides all the awful nasties like brewer's rice, corn gluten meal, and soybean meal - plus some things you should just never, ever see including Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 2!! - there was an ingredient called Animal Digest.
I have looked at dozens of bags and cans of cat food over the last four or so months since Strange Cat was still pregnant with Simon & Garfunkel and their sisters - and I haven't seen that in any of them. I looked it up on Wikipedia...
Today I picked up the bag and really read through the ingredients. Besides all the awful nasties like brewer's rice, corn gluten meal, and soybean meal - plus some things you should just never, ever see including Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 2!! - there was an ingredient called Animal Digest.
I have looked at dozens of bags and cans of cat food over the last four or so months since Strange Cat was still pregnant with Simon & Garfunkel and their sisters - and I haven't seen that in any of them. I looked it up on Wikipedia...
I still can't really tell what it is based on that description, but it sounds gross. Would this ever appear in anything but the lowest of the low quality cat foods?As defined by the AAFCO, it is material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed.
A cooked-down broth made from specified or unspecified parts of animals (depending on the type of digest used). If the source is unspecified (e.g. "Animal" or "Poultry", the animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on[citation needed].
FDA: Digests, which are materials treated with heat, enzymes and/or acids to form concentrated natural flavors. Only a small amount of a "chicken digest" is needed to produce a "Chicken Flavored Cat Food," even though no actual chicken is added to the food.