# Animal Fat



## claybuster (Dec 18, 2008)

How many times have you heard, avoid ingredients like "animal fat", it's generic. Well, I think the reality is, in order for a dog food to be adequate, there must be a fat ingredient, any type of fat. Fat would be an absolute essential in any dog food, it is a must. You will always hear someone somewhere say, oh my dog is a vegetarian and does very well. I would say wonderful but would think to myself, hate to see that vet bill. 

I think the problem would have to be simply aesthetics, and folks who say avoid animal fat despite its necessity are looking for a named ingredient instead. Chicken fat, or beef fat is OK, and animal fat must mean some sort of road-kill line of thinking. People will often see one of the ingredients in my food, LARD, and automatically think OMG that must be terrible ingredient. Lard, of all things! What's terrible is Pork Fat is too expensive of an ingredient for most manufactures to include in the diet, the finest land-based source of animal fat in market. People don't realize this, yet are very quick to criticize when they see certain ingredients. I say don't be too critical about animal fat and thank goodness it is in there somewhere as part of the diet. Fat is an absolute essential in dog food, regardless of type.
Meat, fat, blood, and bone are the stables in natures diet for carnivores over eons of time. When you read avoid this or that because it contains animal fat, maybe look further down the list and consider avoiding some other ingredients like plant matter and veggies.

Charlie


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

Yes, I agree. It first I doubted your statement about LARD because it is processed then I decided ALL fat in kibble is processed.


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## rannmiller (Jun 27, 2008)

Yes, it can be so hard to explain to people that dogs utilize fat like humans utilize carbs: as energy. I love giving my dogs a big fatty slab of meat, and they certainly enjoy it and my dogs are not overweight in the slightest. 

I've never heard about pork fat being the best kind of fat. Why is that exactly?


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## claybuster (Dec 18, 2008)

rannmiller said:


> Yes, it can be so hard to explain to people that dogs utilize fat like humans utilize carbs: as energy. I love giving my dogs a big fatty slab of meat, and they certainly enjoy it and my dogs are not overweight in the slightest.
> 
> I've never heard about pork fat being the best kind of fat. Why is that exactly?


It is also hard to explain to some people dogs are not humans, and there is no scientific evidence that lard causes arterial sclerosis in dogs. That is because people want to feed their dogs like they feed themselves, thank you WDJ.

What makes it a very good choice gets complicated, and the best I can do is give it to you in laymen terms. If has to do with the length of carbon-chains
and how much work the dogs body has to do in order to convert that fat to a usable form of energy. The longer the carbon-chain mean the less work the body has to do. There is a minimum carbon-length that must be achieved
I think like 22-24, so the body need to work to make up any shortage. Pork Fat supplies the most in that respect of available carbon-chains in comparison to other animal fats. You would have to look toward fish fat to find comparable carbon-length chains to that of Lard.


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## GGWOODY (Jan 9, 2009)

Cheers! I agree as well! Animal fat is a great ingredient!...typically just a mix of poultry fat and beef tallow. You can certainly apply human nutrition to dogs, but only to an extent. The animal fat found in pet foods is not a bog deal to dogs, because they don't live long enough to develope plaque buildup, among other reasons. Human spend decades building up plaque in the arteries.

I used to dump bacon grease all over my buddy's bowl of kibble...he loved it, and I loved watching him enjoy his meal even more.


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