Why is it that pet food does not contain pork ham or bacon?

Answer 1

Pork, Ham, and Bacon in Pet Foods

In response to your question, I think it's more of a matter of economics. Human consumption for pork products outweigh the demand for pork products in animal food. Most often, horse meat is used in some animal foods, and humans for some reason don't care to eat horse as part of their diet. I've never tasted it. For all I could know, it may be delicious. Then again....

The pet food manufacturers can use most all the parts of the animal, including bone, veins, etc. in various ways. Many times you can see on a label, "animal byproducts". That's usually what it means.

Hill Prescription cat food lists pork by-product as its main ingredient.

Dogs aren't picky when it comes to meat. They come from a long line of scavengers and to them, meat's meat.

Now for the bacon part. I just checked a national brand of bacon style doggie treats and on the list of contents, it does contain bacon fat, along with a lot of grains as well. They probably use the bacon fat for the flavoring. My dog loves 'em, but they're full of salt (at least they smell very salty) and he drinks a lot of water after eating some, so I ration them as an "extra special doggie snack", for when he's been a very good boy. When he gets one of those, he knows he's done something exceptional.

Bacon's also a cured product for human consumption and probably isn't all that good for dogs, although a strip here and there when you're making breakfast probably isn't going to hurt. As a matter of fact, and egg here and there (at least once a week) is good for the coat.

If pork products show up in dog food at all, it's going to most likely fall under that animal byproduct category. Pork's just too expensive of a commodity to put in animal foods. Guess if we were all horse meat eaters, pork could have taken a back seat and have become the main ingredient in someone's brand of dog food.

Good question though. Certainly worth further consideration and research. Next step would be an internet search to find out if there's more.

Another view:

There is actually a parasite that lives in pork that is completely safe for humans but dangerous for cats, dogs and some other domesticated animals..... due to the way that dog and cat food is produced, it is not feasable to remove this parasite completely before the food is canned....

So technically yes its because its non economical, but it has nothing to do with the price of pork (relative to beef or lamb, pork is cheap) its the removal of the parasite that would cost too much....

And as for the salt, that's untrue as well, dogs, just like humans can't produce salt in their bodies, so they need to eat it like we do.... BUT as dogs don't sweat, they don't need to eat as much as a human does, but the amount of salt in bacon (which is in fact quite minimal these days anyway) isn't going to kill your dog if it's just an occasional treat.