Tongue in raw

[andrya]

ls it okay to use a portion of beef tongue in ground raw?

l bought one on a whim and just read that it's 75% fat!! lf l put half a tongue in each of two batches would l need to remove/displace the fat and skin from the chicken in the same batch?

 

[mschauer]

Yes, it counts as muscle meat.

Where did you read that it is 75% fat?? According to the USDA database it is 16% fat:

http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/s...unt=&max=25&offset=&sort=&qlookup=beef+tongue

FYI, skin on chicken thigh has about the same amount of fat:

http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/864

 

[andrya]

On Wiki - probably not the best source of information 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_tongue

l'll just use it as a beef cut then, thanks

 

[mschauer]

The Wikipedia entry says that 75% of the calories from beef tongue are from fat.  Very different from saying it is 75% fat. Generally fat has double the calories of protein and carbohydrates.

 

[andrya]

That's good to know, l had no idea (you'd think l'd know something so basic since l've been eating food for 50 years).

Thanks again 

  l've bookmarked the USDA list for future reference.

 

[mschauer]

What? You've never heard of using Atwater factors to determine the calories in food? 

Really, most people haven't. The terminology used in nutrition can be *very* confusing!

 

[ritz]

Principles of nutrition:

fat = 9 calories per gram

protein = 4

carbohydrate = 4

Some nutrition manuals separate out alcohol as having 7 calories.

Manufacturers decrease fat in order to label the food "low fat" but will double the amount of added sugar (a carbohydrate), so the food isn't "low calorie", a fact not always easily visible on nutritional labels. 

Kind of like pet food companies saying "no grain" which isn't the same as "no carbohydrates".

 

[mschauer]

Just an FYI, the Atwater factors of 9-4-4 (fat-protein-carbs) are used to roughly estimate the calorie content of foods for humans.  

Normally modified Atwater factors of 8.5-3.5-3.5 (fat-protein-carbs) are used to estimate the calorie content of foods for cats and dogs including raw foods. 

 

[ldg]

I know I have this information somewhere, but do you know why they use the adjusted number for cats and dogs?

 

[ritz]

Thanks.  And feeding cats just gets more complicated to my anal-retentive mind....

 

[mschauer]

I know I have this information somewhere, but do you know why they use the adjusted number for cats and dogs?

To account for the generally lower bioavailibilty of foods to cats and dogs vs for humans.

 

[ldg]

So... these would still apply to raw food?

Odd.

 

[mschauer]

So... these would still apply to raw food?

Odd.

I'm  not so sure about that. Are you at home? If so, can you look in the NRC and see what it says? If I remember correctly they provide factors for raw foods.

 

[ldg]

Yes, I'll stop being lazy. :lol3:

 

[ldg]

OK - according to the NRC:

Chapter 3, "Energy," page 28:

For crude fat, a range of 8.7 - 9.5 kcal-g organic matter has been reported; a value of 9.4 kcal-g fat is appropriate for pet foods.

For crude protein, a range of 5.3-5.8 kcal-g is described in the literature (Kienzle et al., 1999); in petfoods, 5.7kcal-g organic matter appears to be appropriate.

Heat of combustion of carbohydrates, including non-starch polysaccharides (NSPs), ranges between 3.3 and 4.3 kcal-g organic matter, and GE of lignin between 4.1 and 7.0 kcal-g organic matter. Lignin is not a major compound of fiber in petfoods; therefore, the contribution of NFE (nitrogen-free extract; represents starch, sugar, and NSPs that become soluble when cooked in diluted alkalies and acids) and crude fiber can be assessed together sharing a GE of 4.1 kcal-g organic matter (Kienzle et al., 2002).

The transformation of GE into net energy (NE) for maintenance, growth, reproduction, or activity can be described by three steps. The first step is digestibility of energy, and the second metabolizability of digestible energy (DE). Energy losses by urine and by fermentation gases are subtracted from DE to determine metabolizable energy (ME). Finally, in a third step, the heat loss during transformation of ME into NE is taken into account. The percentage of ME obtained from NE is defined as the efficient of utilization.

....

Digestible energy or ME can be determined only by animal experiments. To determine DE, it is sufficient to collect feces; for ME, in theory, colorimetric methods are required. However, in dogs and cats, fermentation losses by gases can be neglected (Kleiber, 1961; Zentek, 1993), therefore the collection of feces and urine gives results that come very close to ME. A short-cut that combines animal experiments, with predictive equations is the correction of experimentally determined DE by predicted energy losses in urine, to estimate ME.

Urine energy losses are predicted by the content of digestible protein. A subtraction is made of 1.25 kcal-g disgestible crude protein for dogs and 0.9 kcal-g digestible crude protein for cats.

blah blah blah blah blah....


P. 29

Factors for nutrients in predictive equations for ME usually reflect the heat of combustion, the digestibility, and a correction for predicted energy losses for protein in urine. Such an equation can predict ME with reasonable precision only if the digestibility of the diets to which it is applied is close to the digestibility of the diets that were used to obtain the equations. The first predictive equation was obtained by Rubner in 1901 for dogs using meat and offal as a food. The factors were later modified by Atwater (1902). The resulting Atwater factors of 4 for protein, 9 for fat, and 4kcal-g for carbohydrate (nitrogen-free extract; NFE) still work amazingly well for ingredients in homemade diets for dogs; meat, offal (except bones and bone meal); poultry, fish, highly purified starch products, milk products, and even chocolate....Atwater factors are also useful for products that must have a high digestibility, such as milk substitutes and liquids for enteral nutrition.

Given the GE values of 4.1 kcal-g carbohdyrate, 9.4 kcal-g fat, and 5.7 kcal-g protein and renal energy losses of 1.25 kcal-g digestible protein, Atwater factors include a digestibility of 98% for carbohydrate, 96% for fat, and 90% for protein. Consequently, discrepancies occur when the equation is applied to foods with a higher NSP content such as legumes, salad, fruit, or high-fiber cereal products. For dogs, Atwater factors are still recommended for use for table food if no other data are available... Atwater factors do not work well for cats because the digestibility of fat is usually somewhat lower in cats than in dogs (Kendall et al., 1982a; Figge, 1989). Provided starchy food is cooked, the factors for carbohydrate (4 kcal-g) and protein (4 kcal-g) are appropriate for the cat, whereas 8.5 kcal-g is recommended to estimate ME for fats in table food.

When Atwater factors were applied to processed standard diets for dogs, they overestimated the ME content (Kendall et al,, 1982b). Therefore, these factors were modified according to the digestibilities of the diets to which they were applied. The modified Atwater factors for dogs and cats (3.5 kcal-g protein, 8.5 kcal-g fat, 3.5 kcal-g carbohydrate) were mostly derived from standard petfoods typically on the market in the 1970s and early 1980s, but they may under- or overestimate the energy content of many products on the market today (Laflamme, 2001). The same is true for the equations suggested in 1985 for dry and semimoist food (Laflamme, 2001).

At present, the enormous variability of prepared petfoods on the market with digestibilities of energy ranging from less than 70 percent to more than 90 percent does not allow the use of just one equation with factors for the macronutrients. The variability of digestibilities is not less within product types (dry, moist, semimoist); therefore, the use of different equations for each product type does not solve the problem.

blah blah blah...

P.30

In cat food, the variation of fiber content is smaller and the fermentation of fiber also has a smaller role in nutrition of the cat than of the dog. In addition the percentage of the above-mentioned proteins that may be analyzed as fiber may be smaller in cat foods explaining why the accuracy of prediction of ME based on crude fiber content is higher for cat foods than for dog foods, even though the equation is based on fewer observations. Another point is that fiber has a lower impact on fat digestibility than on NFE digestibility. Kienzle et al. (2001) suggested different equations for the estimation of energy digestibility as a function of fiber for high- and low-NFE diets for dogs. The smaller decrease of digestibility per percentage of fiber in dry matter in the equation for cat food than in the equation for dog food is unlikely to be a species difference. It probably reflects a smaller range of NFE content in cat food than in dog food.

blah blah blah

There is no universal predictive equation that fits any food a dog or cat may eat; therefore, an important consideration before using any equation is its validity for the food in question. In general, the use of unmodified Atwater factors for commercial products will overestimate ME. However, for casein-based milk substitutes with an appropriate digestibility, unmodified Atwater factors may be the predictive equation of choice, whereas modified Atwater factors will grossly underestimate energy and prediction of energy digestibility by fiber content will also lead to many errors.

 

[ldg]

So use the umodified Atwater numbers for homemade food.

 

[andrya]

Thank you so much ladies. My newest batches are now freezing.

l had never touched beef tongue before and l have to say l enjoyed cutting it up, lol. 

l used kidneys for the first time too. l feel like l'm back in Biology class when l'm doing the cutting - l think l make raw cat food for my own personal experience 

 

[ldg]

Must have been a bit weird - though really, I'm getting used to handling weird things because of the cats. :lol3: If my kitties liked and tolerated beef better, I'd probably try tongue. :tongue2:

 

[maraozza]

 Yummy!  "Jellied veal tongue" or "tongue in a creamy sauce" are among my favorite holiday delicacy!