Chicken meal FAQs
Q: Is Halo saying that chicken meal is terrible for animals?
A: No, we believe that chicken meal can provide good nutrition. However, it is not nearly as high a quality ingredient as real chicken, from both a health and safety perspective.
Q: Isn’t chicken meal higher protein than chicken, pound for pound?
A: It can be, and often is. So it’s important to check the protein level of the food (especially the dry-weight protein level), and the quality of ALL the ingredients. Companies like Halo that avoid chicken meal have to put in much more real chicken to get the same protein level as a company using chicken meal – a much more expensive proposition. All else being equal, chicken is a far superior ingredient.
Q: If a brand uses chicken meal, but has a terrific reputation for quality, can’t we assume they avoid 4D and waste products?
A: They may choose to avoid 4D and waste products. But if they use chicken meal, they can’t legally make the claim that they don’t, because no government authority will verify it. Plain and simple, if it says chicken meal, they’re allowed to use 4D and waste products and can’t legally claim they don’t -- so they have little incentive to do otherwise, and no one is watching to make sure.
Q: Some companies use chicken AND chicken meal – is that better?
A: Yes, it’s certainly better to have real flesh meat than not having any. Instead of using any meals or other rendered meats, Halo uses real flesh meat plus ingredients like eggs and pea protein as additional high-quality sources of protein.
Q: Are other meat meals, such as beef meal, lamb meal or salmon meal as bad?
A: Yes, all such “meals” have the same issues as chicken meal. Unspecified meals (such as meat meal, fish meal or poultry meal) are of even lesser quality and have additional health risks associated with them.
Q: What about by-product-meals?
A: By-product-meals are inferior to named meat meals such as chicken meal – but all of the meals are inferior to real flesh meat such as chicken
“Kunta loves Spot’s Stew! Since eating the product he has not thrown up or had diarrhea and the vet said his energy level is unbelievable!”
– M. Pearson, Naples, FL
© Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Network with Halo Pets on: