Animal Digest???

During the Christmas holidays one of my brothers, who shall remain nameless at the present time, observed his nephew feeding the nephew’s kitten cat treats. And, perhaps feeling it was his moral duty to educate and inform or most probably just for the pure fun of it, he begins a conversation with the nephew about the composition of cat treats which, by all of my observations, is completely ignored by the nephew.

His monologue begins by discussing the main ingredient in the treats which is “beef-by-products.” Do you know what “beef-by-products” are he queries? He then helpfully provides the answer – the parts of the cow that we don’t eat, you know, like the udders. Now, it must be pointed out that this brother has not traveled to Guangzhou, China, or he would know that cow udders and many other “by-products” are happily served there with a side of rice and covered in sauce after chicken feet have been served as an appetizer. But, this is the U.S. The nephew continues to ignore him while he asks, “And, what do you think of that, do you think that you should be feeding that cute little kitty cow udders?” Of course, he does not care if the kitty eats cow udders but, after all, he is trying to educate and getting the student to engage is generally part of the educational process. The nephew continues to do whatever the heck he is doing and is apparently unaware that he is even being spoken to, despite the use of his name. Perhaps a defensive move against learning yet another weird but true fact from the visiting uncle.

But, I’m listening. And I start thinking what the heck is in those cat treats that I feed my darling little cat? After all, they have an odd odor about them and a strikingly bad color not found in nature which I suspect is from the use of all the red dye #5 that was banned in the U.S. years ago. Stuff has to be used up somewhere.

Now, although the treats I feed my cat may be full of weird and loathsome ingredients, they are cheap and I have no reason to succumb and buy the cat those highly priced, organic, green treats made from some sort of wheat and alfalfa. Really. Those treats must be on the market for the cat-owning vegetarians out there, although I suspect the vegetarians’ cats have a high mortality rate considering that cats are pure carnivores with the exception of their drug of choice, catnip. They aren’t going to make it long on wheat and alfalfa.

But, as usual, I digress. So, I go home, give the cat some treats and look at the ingredients. Number one is “chicken by-products” which must be what is left of the chicken after we eat the meat and the feet are shipped to China. The second is a puzzler though – animal digest - which just sounds really, really disgusting. I decide it would be a bit of fun to call the company and ask them what it is, figuring that there is just no good answer but it is their job to make it sound good and they would really, really try which would amuse me. I call but the office is closed. The voice mail helpfully gives me the option of being able to email the question and I do – “Hi, just noticed the second ingredient is animal digest. Could you tell me just what that is?”

Two days later, here is what I get:

Dear Joan,
Thanks for visiting our Pounce website and for your email. Animal digest is the organ meat selected from healthy animals and then emptied of its contents. This material is then subjected to a process which breaks the tissue into simple, more easily digestible sugars and proteins. The result is very palatable and rich in amino acids.I hope this information is helpful.
Jackie, Del Monte Foods Consumer Affairs

Huh? What organs? And does the second sentence make no sense on purpose? I also wonder how Jackie knows that the result is very palatable and who in my family can I get to verify this? I consider writing Jackie back and asking her, but figure that she might be a bit slow on the uptake as there is no way one could empty the organs of "healthy animals". Seems to me they would need to be quite dead which most people, Jackie excepted, do not describe as the picture of health.

So, I am now looking for someone to verify the palatableness of the treats. I am not about to do this test myself and, although asked, Aidan wouldn't do it for a buck and although I'm pretty sure Mia would go for it, I'm thinking informed consent should be a part of this experiment considering the ethics and all. Guess I'm just going to have to hope Robert goes out and gets good and drunk sometime in the near future.