Fat is fat is fat?

I have a bit of fat from the sheep I got and I am wanting to feed thru it so it's not wasted but I'm actually pretty scared of giving anyone pancreatitis. Up to how much fat in a meal can safely be fed? Anyone know? I'm also wondering if the quality of fat makes a difference. This is from a pastured animal that received no wormers, antibiotics, grain or hormones. Does that make the fat better as far as omega 3's go? I know pastured or wild game is higher in O3 than grain fed but is that in the actual meat or is that contained in the fat? I normally don't have fat laying around.. it's always marbled in the meat or layered on the top (always attached).

I would expect that having extra fat like that would be pretty attractive to a pregnant bitch, a growing puppy or a really hungry dog without access to other more substantial meals. You can bet that too much fat is not good for them, or for us. I would probably not waste the freezer space for how long it would take me to get through it, but if I had unlimited space, mixing it in with rather lean meats like rabbit would stretch the food bill a bunch.

Do you just not want it to go to waste? Why not make it into tallow, and use it to feed the birds? You can mix it with birdseed and hang it in the trees for them. They love it, and you can keep it until winter, it doesn't spoil. I would make it outside though, it really stinks while your are rendering it. You could even make soap if you wanted...

Oh, and do post on the blog what you do end up doing, maybe a "what to do with the inedibles"

I might mix it with venison for Amos and give a tablespoon or so to Emily as she is still growing and I think could stand to have extra calories. I also have some beef fat that came off the kidneys I got that I couldn't bear to toss. I hate wasting anything.

I would add bits here and there if it were me. No more than about 10-20% of a meal, but I'm sure that there's many who would feed up to a third. Worry about pancreatitis is not something I think I have EVER heard British raw feeders talk about, and that's where I've heard about feeding up to a third of the diet as fat (so my 10-20% is erring on the side of caution).

As for omega 3s - omega 3 is a fatty acid so presumably exists in the fat in the muscle rather than the meat per say. So yes this fat will be higher in omega 3 than lean meat or not-pastured meat.

With that in mind I think I would combine it with lean or low in omega 3 meats. I don't know how often you feed meat like that though.

Thanks steviesun! A raw diet in general I know isn't going to cause pancreatitis but feeding straight chunks of fat I worried about as I've always been told giving fatty tablescraps is the main cause of pancreatitis esp around the holidays. I suppose everyone gives their dogs the fat off the ham or turkey and they get sick. But, that's cooked fat vs raw fat so that probably makes the difference. I found a chunk of rabbit fat in the freezer so I cut it in half and gave Emily half this morning (Amos won't eat any rabbit and Wav refuses to eat chunky fat like that) and then with the extremely lean venison tonight I'll give her the other half. Then I'll work on just giving a little chunk to Amos and her here and there.

Heather, I have a beautiful image in my head of your girl excited at the strange and interesting snack mum has for her. No, no, don't spoil it.

I don't know what it is but the health problems you tend to hear british raw feeders talking about are things like hip dysplasia (sp?), the odd upset tum, and very rarely auto-immune problems. I don't know whether those with dogs who have health problems either don't raw feed, feed BARF (and therefore don't cross my path) or it's just the sheer number difference between the size of the british raw feeding groups and the international ones. Or maybe north american puppies just aren't as healthy . Many problems, like pancreatitis I just never heard mentioned until I started conversing with those across the pond. A discussion for another thread me thinks.

Sorry for digging up this old topic but I want to make sure everyone knows what type of fatty acids are in fats. Fats do contain omega 3 fatty acids but its only the alpha-linolenic acid (according to the USDA nutrient database). Not the EPA and DHA everyone usually associates with omega 3's. Still beneficial but I just wanted to make sure you were feeding if for the right reasons. Fats of coarse are a good source of omega 6's.

Take care

I now have the change to put my money where my mouth is - I have a couple of bags of fat in my freezer.

I managed to pick up about 8 ox hearts at 63p/kg (very roughly something like 50c/kg), normally it's twice this or more. Because the humans in this household also eat offal and these are particularly fatty ox hearts, I trimmed some of the fat from the meat. I've done the same with some pork I bought for human consumption (reduced price shoulder roll STILL too expensive to justify feeding to the dog).

So . . . I am adding little bits of fat to his leaner bone-in meals and saving the rest until I'm feeding leaner meat again.

Chris - if fatty acids aren't in the fat then where in the body are they? (and thank you for doing the research to set me straight, I just pull things out of my head)

Never mind, 2 mins on google and I've answered my own question. According to wise geek.com http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-fatty-acids.htm fatty acids ARE found in oils and fat. Although it doesn't state exactly, I would still presume that this includes animal fat unless you can provide a link to somewhere that states otherwise.

For finding nutrients in food you can use these sites http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ http://www.nutritiondata.com/ Both are pretty much the same just the first is a more official government site and the second is easier to understand. Sometimes, especially using the government site, fatty acids are listed by their carbon chain. Ala-linolenic is 18:3, EPA- 20:5, DHA-22:6. For omega 6's they are Linoleic 18:2 and Arachidonic acid 20:4

In the raw world we use fat (provides energy also) and a fish body oil to satisfy the fatty acid requirement. With fat taking care of the 6's and fish oil for the 3's. I have heard that the brains and eyes of the prey contains the the desired omega 3's. Looking on the usda site at cow brains, it shows they contain DHA but not EPA. They have a couple of raw eyes listed but both have very limited information. So not sure yet were epa's are located but since there are some research that says omega 3's help in eye health. I can only suspect that epa may be located in the eyes.

[swears lots] The link I have to an article that looked at omega 3 levels in cattle raised on different diets is . . . lost. Otherwise I'd try and check which part of the body they were using for comparison. That would clear things up.

I have a problem with looking to where the omnivore or carnivore (us and our pets respectively) use the omega 3 they intake as part of their diet to determine where in the body the herbivore stored the omega 3 in their body. I do know that generally fat is a store for many nutrients. For example vitamin e is a fat soluble nutrient.

I suspect that the website that you used were based on samples taken from grain fed animals, which would mean a lower reading of omega 3. It is possible that the reading was so low that they just rounded down and said no omega 3. But I can't be sure.

According to wikipedia about omega 3 "Consumers of oily fish should be aware of the potential presence of heavy metals and fat-soluble pollutants like PCBs and dioxin which may accumulate up the food chain". Emphasis mine. The problem with the sources I am finding online all talk about the human body uses omega 3. They don't talk about other species and they don't talk about where it's stored. From this though I'd suggest it's stored in the general adipose fat.

Ah. I just followed up the reference that's attached to it (on the bbc news website). It has this quote:

Dioxins are naturally occurring in the environment and accumulate in the fat of animal species or in plant tissue.

Although not describing omega 3 it is evidently removed from the fish along with the omega 3 when oil extraction takes place. I'm still digging.

Fatty acids serve as energy for the muscles, heart, and other organs, as building blocks for cell membranes, and as energy storage for the body. Those fatty acids not used up as energy are converted into triglycerides. A triglyceride is a molecule formed by attaching three fatty acids onto a glycerol compound that serves as a backbone. Triglycerides are then stored in the body as fat (adipose) tissue.

Taken from the medicine net website
So . . . presuming that omega 3 is like other fatty acids then it should be stored in normal adipose fat. I couldn't easily find anything to suggest that omega 3 is stored in the eyes, but my guess would be that it's involved in the fatty sheath around the eye's nerves.

Btw, omega 3 isn't exclusively found in fish. It IS found in land based animals too but generally the levels are low in grain fed animals (such as intensively reared cattle, lamb, pigs, chickens, turkeys (basically any intensively reared animal or bird)) but much more normal/what we aim for when raw feeding when the animal is reared on a more natural diet. Hence why those who feed their dogs exclusively hunted venison (rather than farmed venison) don't need to worry about supplementing with a fish oil.

I think its going to be hard for us to figure out where fatty acids are stored. And which ones are located in specific ingredients. A lot of information about fatty acids says its stored in the cell membrane. Then there is info stating what you said about being converted to fat.

The usda also has a couple grass fed beef options. And it shows that the grass fed beef contains more omega 3 fatty than grain fed. But the omega 3 fatty acids it shows is not what we really associate with omega 3's. It does contain a small amount of EPA but it contains more of another omega 3 called DPA (22:5)

I am a believer you are what you eat. Its true that grass fed may contain more omega 3's than grain fed. But only a tiny bit of EPA and no DHA. Comparing the two grass fed options,lean strip steaks and ground meat which has a higher fat content, it seems that DPA may be located in fat.

All the fish oil I buy is screened by the company for the nasties.

Take care

Ummm, they're called fatty acids because they are stored in the fat

So, it stands to reason that the fattier cuts will have more fatty acids. Fat stored around organs is also a good repository, and the organs that use the fatty acids will have them too, like the eyes and the brain... Fish are wonderful in that you can use any part of the fish and still get the fatty acids!

Plant sources are from the oilier plants, like flax seeds, and nuts, and avocados.

Well yes. I should have worded that differently. The acids we are normally concerned about are Omega 3 EPA DHA and Omega 6 Linoleic and Arachidonic acid. Out of those four a 100g of ground grass feed beef, which has 12.7g of fat, has 0.4g of linoleic, 0.012g of arachindonic, 0.001g of EPA, and 0 DHA. The rest of the fat is composed of other fatty acids.

So the omega 3's that we are looking for must be located in larger quantities somewhere else. The brain showed a good source of DHA. So that just leaves the elusive EPA. The USDA has a listing for raw caribou eyes. Over a quarter of the eye is fat. But the site doesn't break the fat into categories.