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Introduction Growing meat in a lab for pet food from animal stem cells has many potential benefits including avoidance of legumes or animal by-products as sources of protein and providing a sustainable production of meat for cats and dogs. However, could this production of cell-cultured meat (also known as lab-grown meat and in vitro meat) provide meat for pets that is nutritionally sustainable? Nutritional sustainability is “the ability of a food system to provide sufficient

A newsletter article published in the Burdock Advisor a year ago1 described an existential threat to the AAFCO system of approval of Feed Ingredient Definitions (FID). The threat arose as a result of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) determination that an FID does not confer federal compliance. According to CVM, as many as 500 ingredients in AAFCO’s Official Publication (OP) may be affected. Today’s article also describes a pathway for AAFCO to survive another th

During the last three decades, world aquaculture production increased more than tenfold, reaching 73.8 million tons in 2014 (FAO 2016). Globally, fish currently represent about 16.6 percent of animal protein supply and 6.5 percent of all protein for human consumption. It is predicted that aquaculture will provide the most reliable and sustainable supply of seafood (i.e., marine-derived food) in the future (Hixson, 2014). However, there are a number of difficult issues associa

The American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO)[1] was formed in 1909 by officials from individual State governments at a time when Federal oversight of animal feed ingredients and standards was virtually non-existent.  Following passage of the Food Additives Amendment (FAA) in 1958, which put the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) in charge of vetting animal feed ingredients, CVM saw the successful process AAFCO had developed for defining ingredients for consist

Within the last decade, there has been an increase in the level of concern for the moral and ethical treatment of animals. Pets are now increasingly treated as if they were members of the family, and there is an increased concern for the safety and well-being of commercial livestock, as evidenced by the increased cage size requirements for egg-producing chickens and the consumer-driven preference for “free-range” animal-derived products. Today’s consumers and pet owners deman

Time is running out for pet food ingredient suppliers to conform to Federal regulations for their ingredients. The choices are either a Food Additive Petition (FAP) or a Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) determination – the only two processes by which compliance to Federal law can be assured.  Current American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) definitions in its Official Publication (OP) that are not the subject of a FAP, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) GRAS