The Big City

I was looking at the ingredients list on a “Pro-Flapjack Bar” my girlfriend bought at work. It had some weird things in it, including Hydrolysed Collagen. I had a vague idea that this might be some weird animal by-product so I had a look around. It is really hard to find out how this ingredient is made but as far as I can tell it’s a bit like Gelatine, i.e. it’s made out of boiled down animal carcasses. A vegetarian site had this to say about the places where this process is carried out; it’s funny to think that people who buy something as wholesome sounding as a flapjack bar might actually be eating cat or dog!

Caring Consumer: “Rendering plants process the bodies of millions of tons of dead animals every year, transforming decaying flesh and bones into profitable animal ingredients. The primary source of rendered animals is slaughterhouses, which provide the ‘inedible’ parts of all animals killed for food. The bodies of companion animals who are euthanized in animal shelters wind up at rendering plants, too. One small plant in Quebec renders 10 tons of dogs and cats a week, a sobering reminder of the horrible dog and cat overpopulation problem with which shelters must cope.”