In Cat Food what does "Meat byproducts" consist of?

EVERYTHING ELSE.

It can be anything from the livers, kidneys and heart to hooves, feet, beaks......even feathers and fins or bones.

A lot of by-products in pet food is the stuff that companies cannot sell to humans (all of the above--including cancerous pieces).

Byproducts consist of any part of the animal OTHER than muscle meat (the good stuff). They are inexpensive and, for the most part, indigestable. What each batch of byproducts consists of varies; it could be heads, beaks, intestines, organs, SOME feathers, feet etc. All of the stuff that isn't suitable for human consumption is used by the petfood industry to save money. While eating organs does provide nutrients to the cat, it shouldn't make up majority of the diet; whole prey consists of approximately 10% bone, 10% offal and 80% muscle meat. For these reasons, when choosing a cat or dog food I urge you to steer clear of any byproducts.

The first ingredient should be a specific meat MEAL. Avoid 'meat meal' or 'poultry meal' as these do not specify what kind of meat or poultry it came from. Instead, look for 'beef meal', 'lamb meal', 'chicken meal', 'turkey meal' etc. Although meal may not sound so appealing, there is a reason for choosing 'beef meal' over 'beef'. Ingredients are listed in order of weight, and the 'beef' consists mostly of water. Therefore, after being cooked and dried out into kibble you will be left with much left meat so in reality the beef should be further down the list. 'Beef meal' is just dried meat, so you are actually getting a large amount of meat and not water.

I was going to explain other things to avoid, but that would be going off-topic so check my sources. Just remember; contrary to popular belief dry food DOESN'T clean teeth and wet food is much healthier for cats than kibble.

heart, liver, muscle, arteries, intestines... all the gooey stuff that you don't want to hear about - but animals love to eat.

gristle, hearts, other internal oragns such as spleens, lungs, essentially anything edible yet not to most humans.

Any thing on the animal that isn't meat eyes,lips,ears,ect.....

umm...everything that is left on a animal that humans dont eat...