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In reading the linked articles, especially the articles from American Chronicle and Engormix.com, it appears to contradict the tone of the "Pet Food" subsection of this page. These are great articles, but they suggest that the nutritional value of chicken meal is an inferior source of food than natural products, i.e., real chicken. It appears from the American Chronicle article that Ms. Thixton is an excellent authority, and I greatly appreciate the link to her article because it is very eye-opening. But including it along with what appears to be some sort of stamp of approval on the use of chicken meal as opposed to real chicken, well, I think Ms. Thixton would have a huge problem with that. So in using her article solely to cite that chicken meal is not good for human consumption seems to miss the mark of the article. Her article is about her professional opinion that this makes chicken meal - and any other "meal" or "by-product" in pet food - an unnecessarily poor choice of ingredient. Mr. Aldrich in the Engormix.com article, a "Pet Food & Ingredient Technology Inc. (Courtesy of Alltech Inc.)," would appear to agree with Ms. Thixton on this issue. This article is even older than the Thixton article, with a publication date of 2007 (and as both articles suggest, changes to the labeling of these ingredients was being debated in the 2007/2008 time frame). In it, he indicates that the reliability of poultry meal (which he calls "poultry protein meal") is just as suspect as poultry byproduct meal.
I would like to see some discussion of this controversy in this Wikipedia article. Certainly, other Wikipedia articles contain discussion of controversies and/or alternative information concerning the "industry standards" or other mainstream information. I do not think it would be biased to include a section that discusses more fully the points that are brought up in the cited articles. And I am pretty sure, as a researcher myself, that if Ms. Thixton and Mr. Aldrich hold this opinion (these articles are from 2007-2008, by the way, this is now 2011, I'd like to see what opinions are current, what labeling changes have been made, etc.), then there are most likely other authorities who do, too. In my personal search for the best foods for my pets, I have found research that says if the main ingredient on the list is not a natural animal protein source, e.g., chicken, salmon, turkey, lamb, etc., the food is substandard. I can't cite my own source, I wish I could, it's been years since I did that research, but it seems to be backed-up by the articles originally cited in this article.
But my point is, without this discussion of the controversy between the food manufacturers and food analysts who are not connected to the food industry, this article is lacking an unbiased view of the usefulness of chicken meal. Taken on its face value, not looking at the source information, I am lead to believe that chicken meal is superior to real chicken because of how it is processed and the protein levels.
By the way, the AAFCO article is no longer freely available on the internet so this is a busted hyperlink (this information is now only available for a fee). I am going to see if I can find the AAFCO information on my own for free to update this citation.
The short of my problem with this page is that the section that discusses chicken meal appears to be biased towards chicken meal being more nutritious than, say, chicken itself, when in fact, not only does that assertion have no verifiable citation, it may, in practice, using the already-existing citations, be untrue. I will investigate more and see if I can find more current citations that include information about the AAFCO's current definition of chicken meal (and other animal proteins used in animal foods), and I would like to add a section discussing in more length the information these authors provide in the already-cited articles. Kelelain (talk) 14:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
