One pet food company advertises their food as better than others because the main ingredient in their food is poultry meat and others use feathers. But when we read the labels on all the different pet foods we can't find "feathers" listed as an ingredient in any of them. The words used on pet food labels can hide many evils. They are sometimes misunderstood, often ignored and can be confusing. To limit confusion when listing each ingredient in a food, all pet food companies should be required to also use the International Feed Number (IFN) that has been assigned to each feed grade ingredient. Then we could clearly identify the ingredients in each pet food and be able to make intelligent choices amongst them.

To help you determine what may be in the pet food you are now buying, here are definitions of some words that can be found on most pet food labels today:

• By-product: An ingredient produced in the course of making a primary food ingredient; a secondary or incidental product. Feathers are a by-product of poultry meat processing. Feathers which are removed from a carcass during production of poultry meat are then hydrolyzed (pressure cooked with steam until they are an edible gel) which makes them an acceptable feed grade ingredient. Hydrolyzed feathers have been assigned the (IFN) International Feed Number 5-03-795 and can appear on a label as "Poultry By-products." On page 158 in the AAFCO book, Official Publication, 1994, Association of American Feed Control Officials Incorporated, they show: Hydrolyzed Poultry By-Products Aggregate is the product resulting from heat treatment, or a combination thereof, of all by-products of slaughter poultry, clean and undecomposed, including such parts as heads, feet, underdeveloped eggs, intestines, feathers and blood." The IFN assigned to this mix is 5-14-508. Today's regulations allow the entire mix or any part of it to appear on a label as "Poultry By-products." A "Fish By-product" can contain heads, tails, intestines and blood. This fish process residue has been assigned the IFN 5-07-977. A "Meat By-product" could be viscera and blood soaked sawdust from the floors of a packing house where meat is being processed. The meat being processed can be lamb, beef, horse, or any other source. Each one has its own IFN. Some of the animal feed IFN's that contain wood shavings from the floor of a processing facility include "Dried Ruminant Waste" #1-07-526, and "Undried Processed Animal Waste Products" #5-02-790. It is important to note that the amount of wood shavings in either of these two "Meat By-products" is limited and should not be more than 35% in one and 40% in the other. When a pet food label's list of ingredients shows the word By-product you can be assured that there is NO measurable amount of meat in the ingredient. If the ingredient contained enough meat that it could be measured the pet food company would proudly list the MEAT, not just the By-product of that meat's production.

• Mill Run: An ingredient consisting of residue left after the primary food product has been extracted during a milling process. A "Corn Mill Run" would be a pulverized blend of the corn husk and cobs which are left after a milling process has removed the kernels. Mill Run is the vegetable or produce equivalent of meat's By-product.

• Digest: An animal feed-grade ingredient that must be made soluble with the use of heat and moisture. Since these ingredients are not soluble in their natural state they require this manufacturing process before they can be put into pet food. An example of this would be the feet of poultry IFN 5-07-947. When a pet food label shows "Poultry Digest" as an ingredient this could be what is in the food.

• Meal: A ground or pulverized composite of animal feed-grade ingredients. One example of a Meal is found on page 156 in the AAFCO book, Official Publication, 1994, Association of American Feed Control Officials Incorporated. It shows "Poultry By-product Meal consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices." The IFN for this blend is 5-03-795. The only MEAT that might be in Poultry By-product Meal" 5-03-795 is what could be left on the necks after becoming clean rendered By-products of meat production. This is not enough that it can be measured and thus have an ingredient listing showing any POULTRY MEAT to be in the food.

• Gluten: The sticky substance in wheat or corn starch that gives the starch its tough elastic quality. It is used to hold together the pulverized composite of animal feed-grade ingredients.

• Digestibility Test: A test to see how much time it takes a food solid to break down in a strong laboratory acid. There are companies that are claiming the food which passes this test in the shortest amount of time provides the best nutrition for all animals. But the word digestibility is not a synonym for the word nutritious. Just because a food solid can be broken down in an acid does not mean the animal eating it can nutritionally use that kind of food. Not all dogs or cats have the same nutritional acceptance of any one food source. This has been established in tests cited in the 1985 Nutrient Requirements of Dogs by the National Research Council. Since pet foods are made from many different food sources we could thus be making the proverbial comparison between apples and oranges. It would be a mistake to judge any food's total nutritive value on one test demonstrating how fast it breaks down in laboratory acid. Comparing pet foods by using a Digestibility Test is valid only if the foods being tested are of equal nutritional value for the animal that will be eating them. Then the faster a food breaks down the easier it is for the animal's digestive system to make use of it.

Today, pet food labeling is done using the honor system. AAFCO, which claims to be the governing body of the pet food industry, has tried to get some form of standardization (see the quotes above), but even the terms AAFCO wants are so vague that two different foods could be made with two different ingredients and have the same term on their labels. The ingredients going into pet foods today have no clear single set of label terms with a precise set of definitions attached. If pet food products used the IFN with each ingredient listed we would know if a food contained Dehydrated swine excreta (IFN 5-02-790) or Hydrolyzed hair (IFN 5-08-997) as a "Meat By-product" or if the ingredient identified as "Poultry By-product" was feet (IFN 5-07-947) or feathers (IFN 5-03-795). Unfortunately, until we get new labeling regulations requiring the use of IFN's, pet food buyers will remain at the mercy of competing pet food companies to tell them what is in their food.

I believe laws should be passed that would require all commercial animal feeds to use IFN numbers along with the wording they now use to list the ingredients in their product. That would give us all a way to know what is in their food. I also have a suggestion of what can be done until all animal feeds are labeled with the IFN numbers. If you are now buying a pet food with words you don't understand on the label you might try this: contact the manufacturer and ask them for their definitions. If they do not give them to you in words you, the buyer, can understand then maybe it's time to consider home cooking your pet's food. You'd know what was in the food, and for thousands of years before commercial pet food was available (just 75 years ago), that's what pet owners successfully did.