October 21, 2008
1 min read

Raw Meat, Bone Substitution By Home Barfers Not Healthy

One of my biggest arguments against feeding a home-made raw meat diet is the “bone issue”. What I mean by this is that most home made diets are not able to offer any variety because the hard bones from Beef and Lamb are too hard to grind without the use of a $100,000 bone grinder. Therefore, the ability to provide a variety of protein choices are severely restricted. In order to get around this problem many do-it-yourselfer’s are turning to using meat and bone meal as a source of Calcium for the diet.

I have a big problem in using meat and bone meal as a calcium source. This product is an end product of rendering which kills the bacteria, but it also removes nutrients and proteins needed for energy. The bone meal is a very sterile product made from more than meat and bone. In order to properly name this product one should be aware of all the potential hazards in this product. It could contain any or all of the following ingredients:

• slaughterhouse waste
• 4D (DOWNED, DEAD, DISEASED, OR DYING ANIMALS)
• restaurant grease
• restaurant leftovers
• road kill
• euthanized companion pets-with residual drug residues
• expired meat and bakery goods
• stryrofoam and plastic wraps
• flea collars

The AAFCO definition of meat and bone meal is ” the rendered product from mammal tissues, including bone, exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. Is it possible that all rendering processes would be able to remove the hair and stomach contents from thousands of tons of dog and cat rendered material?

No recipe using meat and bone meal can be a reliable source of nutrition for pets. Meat by-products and meat and bone meals vary from batch to batch creating an unstable source of nutrition for pets.

You can be assured that no diet that we ever produce will contain meat and bone meal in the ingredient list. We have and will always utilize the natural green bone content from species specific sources. We have the equipment to grind the bones and do it right to provide the best nutritional source provided by mother nature herself.

Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller, BSc, Pharm. is a registered pharmacist, author of “Living Enzymes: The World’s Best Kept Pet Food Secret”, and co-developer of BARF World’s BARF diets patties, nuggets and supplements – the first company to make the Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods (BARF) diet conveniently available to animals everywhere. He and his wife love to travel around the world with their dog, Moxie – a Yorkshire Terrier/Maltese mix. For more articles like these and to learn more about the benefits of raw food for your pets, sign up for “The Intelligent Pet” monthly e-zine atwww.barfworld.com .

Raw Meat, Bone Substitution By Home Barfers Not Healthy

Robert Mueller

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