Acerlux

Brewer's Yeast, a common by-product

By-product is such a gross and unhealthy sounding term. I mean yuck! I certainly don't want to eat a by-product; I want to eat something healthy, non-processed and natural like brewer's yeast or molasses. Um... wait a sec... brewer's yeast and molasses are by-products. Brewer's yeast is a by-product of making alcohol and molasses comes from sugar refining. There is something in the name though! Brewer's yeast sounds better than an ethanol fermentation by-product and molasses sound better than 6-(hydroxymethyl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol (the crazy and yucky sounding name for sugar!) extraction by-product. However you name it though, they are the same substances.

A cat reading on by-products.... or just surfing

A by-product is something that is made in the process of making something else. It can come in two main methods, mechanical or chemical/biochemical. Chicken by-product is from the first category, the mechanical.

Simply put when a dead chicken is cut and chopped to keep the parts that most people like to eat, the "leftovers" are called "chicken by-product". Thus chicken byproducts are, ipso facto, processed to the exact same degree as "chicken" - no more, no less. These leftovers commonly include internal organs like stomach, intestines, heart, liver, etc. They also include the head and feet.

Here are other items that you may not have known were by-products: ^{11 12}  

• Beef Bouillon
• Gelatin
• Feathers
• Whey
• Bran
• Grape seed oil
• Vegetable oils
• Vitamin E
• Orange oil
• Salt

But not all by-products are edible. Some are hazardous and damaging to the earth, especially those from chemical and biochemical processes. This is one reason why the term by-product has a negative connotation. Some non-edible by-products include:

• Asphalt
• Ash and smoke from our cars
• Mineral oil
• Sludge from waste water

So by-product is a very wide term! There are many terms that we need to be wary of. A good example is the term "all natural". When we say that something is "all natural", we think that it must be safe, however, Socrates did not find the "all natural" hemlock solution very salubrious when he had to drink it. Nor would dogs or cats that suffer from toxic ingestion of a myriad of harmful plants agree everything "all natural is good". In fact there is a growing concern with many of the "all natural" remedies as some of the plant parts may contain harmful tannins or resins. Just because an herb or vegetable is safe to eat does not mean that all parts of the plant is healthy. If tapioca is not properly processed, it can contain deadly amounts of cyanide (a situation of not enough processing!). The leaves and stems of the tomato, eggplant and potato plant are toxic. So when separating these leaves and stems from the vegetable, the all natural tomato by-products are toxic. So as much as "all natural" products may be great or terrible, so must by-products be thought of living within this range of good and bad. The key is knowing when to watch out.

A lion eating a zebra - starting with the high nutrient rich "by-product" areas

One of the benefits of chicken by-products is that in addition to the protein that a basic chicken breast would supply the internal organs, bone marrow, joints, and skin supply many additional nutrients. Wild predators know this as the internal organs are often the first thing eaten from the prey. The liver, kidneys, pancreas, adrenals and intestines have high levels of vitamins, essential fatty acids, antioxidants and other key nutrients like lipoic acid and iron. Furthermore the joints that are included supply high levels of glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM which are needed for joint health including anti-inflammatory effects. You don't get that from just a chicken breast!

So wild animals know how important all parts of the animal are to eat. They know that skeletal muscle makes up only 30-45% of the body mass (approximately 30% of which is found in by-product cuts) and that much of the nutrient value is in the internal organs, viscera and joints. Thus if they only ate the human choice cuts of the chicken, they could miss up to 79% of the prey's mass. As humans, we may not find the internal organs, vicera and joints particularly appetizing but in nature, it is part of the main course!

Were does your pet food's meat come from??

Yes and no. My major problem with by-products is the same as I have with the ingredients labeled: "chicken", "beef" or "lamb". Where are these animals coming from? The US? Are these animals exposed to growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides? What are they fed?

Currently Hill's Science Diet does not get any ingredients from China. All meat sources, by-product or otherwise, come from the Unites States of America.

So just as corn is indigestible or digestible depending on whether it is uncooked, unground or cooked and ground; by-products are unhealthy or healthy based upon where they come from.