OK, I waded through a bunch of FDA and FSIS stuff last night. Man, they need new writers.

Snopes says it most succinctly. In short, there is meat that's graded fit for human consumption and meat that isn't. Period.

From http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/badmeat.asp

QUOTE: In order to protect the public from foodborne illnesses, meat products (a group which includes beef, pork, lamb, and veal) sold in the U.S. are inspected by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to ensure that they meet U.S. food safety standards for safety, wholesomeness, and accuracy in labeling in accordance with the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA).

However, the FSIS does not "grade" meat as part of the standard inspection process: inspection is strictly a pass/fail system, and meat products either pass or are rejected as unfit. There is no such thing as "Grade D but edible" or "pet food only" grades of meat.

If a meat producer wishes, he can have his products graded by a USDA grader, who will assign it to one of eight categories: Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner. END

By-products can be organs, bone, blood and fatty tissue. They may also include brains, feet, heads, entrails, intestines, noses and stomachs. They can contain cancerous or diseased tissue (including parasites).

From what I read, AFS procures their meat ingredients from a USDA certified plant (which I guess means that some of its products are labeled "human grade"), but that it may or may not be passed in that plant as fit for human consumption.

It appears that their statements about no four-D, no brain matter, etc., are their own statements, but not anything that the FDA certifies.

I may be wrong; this was long, dry reading, and it was hard to weed out the facts from the zillions of long-standing beliefs.

My initial feelings about wanting to feed only human-grade meat have definitely not changed.

Angelika,

Ed sells Honest Kitchen on his web site. That's where I ordered it from.

Connie, you rock. Do you have a day with more hours in it than the rest of us? How do you do it???

Thanks!

Amber

Connie,

I heard about Common Sense from a friend of mine who gets it through their breeder. From the web site, it doesn't look like they have an American distributor East of Idaho.

My family doesn't like the rolls, the AFS patties were just so darn easy to work with. With the patties, my wife would open the roll, put the individual patties into small baggies, and put a couple of baggies in the refridgerator, and the rest into the freezer. Hans, our dog, was getting one patty, twice a day, with 1 cup of Cannidae. So in the morning 1 patty would come out of the refridgerator, and another would move from the freezer to the fridge to thaw. Very, very easy to handle.

Now she's dealing with these rolls. Put the frozen roll in a plastic container in the fridge. Why a platic container? Because that's her habit when dealing with frozen meat. Turned out to be a good thing, because one of the rolls had a hole in the wrapping. Anyway, she has to measure out the meat she wants to use, not as easy as the patties, and, as I said, she and my son object to the odor of the meat. What is funny about this is the person who recommended Common Sense to us tried AFS, and said she objected to the odor of that. I never detected an objectionable odor from AFS.

 Quote: Rich Pallechio

Angelika,

Ed sells Honest Kitchen on his web site. That's where I ordered it from.

I get it from Leerburg, too.
http://www.leerburg.com/honestkitchen.htm

A friend ordered it directly from THK and complained about how long it took. It's very fast from Leerburg.

Rick, I understand 100% about patties v. extra handling.

A forum member here gets good patties that he feeds in conjunction with THK. I'll ask him (again) what those patties are. I remember looking at the site when he started getting them and thinking how excellent they looked.

 Quote: ambermorgan

Do you have a day with more hours in it than the rest of us?

Ho ho.

No!

I started educating myself about canine nutrition and allergies a few years ago when I had an adopted dog who was an itchy, bleeding, infected, deaf mess, all from 33 severe allergies. The road to controlling her allergies led to a world of information about the ways we have gone awry with grain-heavy foods, overvaccinating, etc., and I started spending as much time as I could on this research. It has paid off with my own dogs (all "pre-owned" and all restored to good health) and with some new ability to help other people with their dogs.

It's very interesting, too!

Thank you for the gracious words. :>

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Rick, I understand 100% about patties v. extra handling.

A forum member here gets good patties that he feeds in conjunction with THK. I'll ask him (again) what those patties are. I remember looking at the site when he started getting them and thinking how excellent they looked.

Connie, thank you. I look forward to finding out where else we can get patties.

 Quote: rich pallechio

 Quote: connie sutherland

Rick, I understand 100% about patties v. extra handling.

A forum member here gets good patties that he feeds in conjunction with THK. I'll ask him (again) what those patties are. I remember looking at the site when he started getting them and thinking how excellent they looked.

Connie, thank you. I look forward to finding out where else we can get patties.

He already answered. It's Nature's Variety, and they have "nuggets" and "patties."
http://www.naturesvariety.com/content.lasso?page=1329&-session=naturesvariety:45B56FFA1b39225448roM12F9140

Connie...don't want to beat a dead horse here, BUT I am really interested in finding patties or rolls that I can use.

I looked at the link you sent for the Nature's Variety and I couldn't see anywhere that they said anything about the meat being fit for human consumption. It said the veggies were, but didn't address the meat. It said (I put the things I thought were relevant in bold):

 Quote:

Nature's Variety Raw Frozen Diets are a convenient, complete, and natural way to feed your pet the way nature intended. Wholesome raw meat provides the greatest source for bio-available nutrients, including unaltered proteins, enzymes, and amino acids. Made in a USDA inspected processing plant, these natural diets are 95% meat and 5% fruits and vegetables. Raw Frozen Diets are easy to feed! Diets are available in convenient 8 oz patties and 1 oz medallions.


Natural, Wholesome Ingredients

Each diet is 95% meat, organs, and bones, from USDA inspected plants. Together, these quality meats, organs, and bones are rich in Vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D, E, K, Biotin; Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, protein, fats, zinc, manganese, selenium, iron, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur, copper, and the essential amino acids. Also, 5% of each Nature’s Variety Raw Diet contains human edible fruits, vegetables, and cold processed Norwegian Virgin Salmon Oil. All diets contain over 50 trace minerals from montmorillonite clay, which also sequesters toxins.

It basically said the same thing as AFS--the plants are USDA inspected...but it didn't say anything about the meat. I also didn't see that it addressed the 4D issue.

This is soooo confusing! Did I miss something, or is there just no shortcut to buying your own raw meat parts?