Meat Meal in Cat Food: Ingredient Highlight

We know feeding your kitten the best quality food possible is important to you. Now more than ever, pet owners want to understand what it is they’re pouring into their fur baby’s bowls. TLC was founded in 1994 in response to the lack of quality nutrition found in commercial pet food. TLC proudly lists the ingredients found in our Whole Life Cat Food. Above all, we aim to educate our customers so they understand not only what’s inside of our kibble but why. Today we are doing an ingredient highlight for a meat meal!

Ingredients, including lamb and chicken meals, are listed first in TLC Cat Food. So what is a meat meal? What are their nutritional benefits? Below we explain what a meat meal is and why we’ve chosen these quality protein sources for our food. 

INGREDIENT HIGHLIGHT: WHAT IS A MEAT MEAL?

When you remove the moisture from fresh meat, you leave high quality and a nutritionally beneficial ingredient called a meat meal. Most importantly, the process of removing the moisture from the fresh meat does not diminish the nutritional value. As a result, the chicken and salmon meals used in TLC Pet Food contain 90% digestible protein, low ash, and valuable amino acids. 

• Meat meals are essentially meat ingredients minus moisture. In contrast, fresh meats contain approximately 70% water.
• Meat meals have 4-5 times the nutrients found in the same quantity of fresh meat.
• Meat meals are highly digestible and include low ash and valuable amino acids.

WHY MEAT MEALS?

In addition to the benefits noted above, the same quantity of meat meal has 4-5 x the nutrients found in the same weight of fresh meat. This is due to the difference in moisture. For example, a meat meal is left with approximately 5% moisture content than fresh meat, 70% water. Weight matters because ingredients are listed in order and by weight. Cat food listing only fresh meat in their food must offset the importance of the water removed in cooking. Once food using only fresh meat has been cooked, the quantity of the actual meat will be significantly less than what’s listed. Therefore, the nutritional benefits from the meat diminished. This means that your pet would be receiving much of its protein from lower quality, plant-based sources, like potatoes or tapioca, versus high-quality sources like salmon meal found in TLC Whole Life Cat Food.

Using meat meals, like quality chicken meals, allows for a greater quantity to be included in the food. The chicken and salmon meals in TLC Cat Food are considered the best and most nutritionally beneficial cat food ingredients available. This is the reason we choose to include them, in combination with fresh meat, in our Whole Life Cat Food.

QUALITY OF TLC’S MEAT MEALS

None of the fresh meat or meals in TLC include byproducts. For instance, there is no animal waste, like feathers, heads, feet, or entrails, and all of TLC’s meat meals have only the animal listed. For example, salmon meal = 100% salmon.