[QUOTE=popsy;1077238]I came across this recently, which really horrified me as all dry dog food contains 'chicken meal' or 'cooked chicken' (which is meal) - all meal is from rendered animals....The Dark Side of Recycling - Rendering Plants

You have to differentiate between what used to go on in the US (the article above) and the meat used in pet food in the UK.
There are far too many horror stories around!

If the ingredient declaration says chicken meal (or just chicken) then this is chicken meat from the human food chain after we've had all the bits off that we want. The carcasses are rendered down and usable protein is dried to a powder that can then be incorporated into the pet food. It will also include a proportion of bone which is actually good.

There is actually a good arguement which goes along the lines of 'If this product wasn't used in pet food then the amount of chicken/lamb carcasses remaining after processing for humans would be almost impossible to get rid of - would we want it in landfill?'

If your ingredient declaration says 'animal by-products' then that's a different story of course!