An animal product is any material derived from the body of an animal. Examples are fat, flesh, blood, milk, eggs, and lesser known products, such as

isinglass Isinglass () is a substance obtained from the dried swim bladders of fish. It is a form of collagen used mainly for the clarification or fining of some beer and wine. It can also be cooked into a paste for specialised gluing purposes. The E ...

and

rennet Rennet () is a complex set of enzymes produced in the stomachs of ruminant mammals. Chymosin, its key component, is a protease enzyme that curdles the casein in milk. In addition to chymosin, rennet contains other enzymes, such as pepsin and a ...

. Animal by-products, as defined by the USDA, are products harvested or manufactured from livestock other than muscle meat. In the EU, animal by-products (ABPs) are defined somewhat more broadly, as materials from animals that people do not consume. Thus, chicken eggs for human consumption are considered by-products in the US but not France; whereas eggs destined for animal feed are classified as animal by-products in both countries. This does not in itself reflect on the condition, safety, or wholesomeness of the product. Animal by-products are carcasses and parts of carcasses from slaughterhouses, animal shelters, zoos and veterinarians, and products of animal origin not intended for human consumption, including catering waste. These products may go through a process known as rendering to be made into human and non-human foodstuffs, fats, and other material that can be sold to make commercial products such as cosmetics, paint, cleaners, polishes, glue, soap and ink. The sale of animal by-products allows the meat industry to compete economically with industries selling sources of vegetable protein. The word animals includes all species in the biological kingdom Animalia, including, for example, tetrapods,

arthropods Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

, and

mollusks Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

. Generally, products made from fossilized or decomposed animals, such as petroleum formed from the ancient remains of marine animals are not considered animal products. Crops grown in soil fertilized with animal remains are rarely characterized as animal products. Products sourced from humans (ex; hair sold for wigs, donated blood) are not typically classified as animal products even though humans are part of the animal kingdom. Several popular diet patterns prohibit the inclusion of some categories of animal products and may also limit the conditions of when other animal products may be permitted. This includes but not limited to secular diets; like, vegetarian, pescetarian, and

paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

diets, as well as religious diets, such as

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

, halal, mahayana, macrobiotic, and

sattvic Sattva (Sanskrit: सत्त्व, meaning ''honesty'') is one of the three guṇas or "modes of existence" (tendencies, qualities, attributes), a philosophical and psychological concept understood by the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy.James ...

diets. Other diets, such as vegan-vegetarian diets and all its subsets exclude any material of animal origin. Scholarly, the term

animal source foods Animal source foods (ASF) include many food items that come from an animal source such as fish, meat, milk, eggs, honey, cheese and yogurt. Many individuals do not consume ASF or consume little ASF by either personal choice or necessity, as ASF m ...

(ASFs) has been used to refer to these animal products and by-products collectively. In international trade legislation, the terminology products of animal origin (POAO) is used for referring to foods and goods that are derived from animals or have close relation to them.

Slaughterhouse waste

Slaughterhouse waste is defined as animal body parts cut off in the preparation of carcasses for use as food. This waste can come from several sources, including

slaughterhouse A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

s, stores and farms. In the UK, slaughterhouse waste is classed as category 3 risk waste in the

Animal By-Products Regulations The European Union's Animal By-Products Regulations (Regulation No 1069/2009) allows for the treatment of some animal by-products in composting and biogas plants (anaerobic digesters). The following article describes procedures required to allow sol ...

, with the exception of condemned meat which is classed as category 2 risk.

By-products in pet food

The leftover pieces that come from the process of stripping meat from animals tends to get used for different purposes. One of them is to put these parts into pet food. Many large, well-known pet food brands use animal by-products as protein sources in their recipes. This can include animal feet, livers, lungs, heads, spleens, etc or an admixture in the form of meat and bone meal. These organs are usually not eaten by humans depending on culture, but are safe and nutritious for pets regardless. By-products can also include bad-looking pieces. They are always cooked (rendered) to kill pathogens. Some pet food makers advertise the lack of by-products to appeal to buyers, a move criticized for contributing to food waste and reducing

sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

Additives

Carmine Carmine ()also called cochineal (when it is extracted from the cochineal insect), cochineal extract, crimson lake, or carmine lake is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminium complex derived from carminic acid. Specific code n ...

, derived from crushed cochineal beetles, is a red or purple substance commonly used in food products. It is common in food products such as juice, candy, and yogurt. The presence of carmine in these products has been a source of controversy. One major source of controversy was the use of carmine in Starbucks frappuccinos. Carmine is an allergen according to the FDA. It takes about 70,000 female insects to produce a pound of dye. * L-cysteine from

human hair Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and f ...

and pig bristles (used in the production of

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be ...

bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...

and dietary supplements) *

Rennet Rennet () is a complex set of enzymes produced in the stomachs of ruminant mammals. Chymosin, its key component, is a protease enzyme that curdles the casein in milk. In addition to chymosin, rennet contains other enzymes, such as pepsin and a ...

(commonly used in the production of cheese) * Shellac (commonly used for food dye, food glaze and medicine glaze) * Swiftlet's nest (made of saliva)

Food

Ambrosia In the ancient Greek myths, ''ambrosia'' (, grc, ἀμβροσία 'immortality'), the food or drink of the Greek gods, is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus ...

also known as “bee bread” (which is made from both plant pollen and the insect’s secretions) *

Arachnids Arachnida () is a Class (biology), class of joint-legged invertebrate animals (arthropods), in the subphylum Chelicerata. Arachnida includes, among others, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, pseudoscorpions, opiliones, harvestmen, Solifugae, came ...

* Blood, especially in the form of

blood sausage A blood sausage is a sausage filled with blood that is cooked or dried and mixed with a filler until it is thick enough to solidify when cooled. Most commonly, the blood of pigs, sheep, lamb, cow, chicken, or goose is used. In Europe and the A ...

* Bone, including bone char, bone meal, etc. * Broths and

stocks Stocks are feet restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law describing ...

are often created with animal fat, bone, and connective tissue * Caviar * Casein (found in milk and cheese) * Civet oil (food flavoring additive) *

Dairy product Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items in th ...

s (e.g., milk,

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

, yogurt, etc.) *

Egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s and egg products (e.g.,

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...

, eggnog,

custard Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency fro ...

, etc.) * Escargot Pearls *

Animal fat Animal fats and oils are lipids derived from animals: oils are liquid at room temperature, and fats are solid. Chemically, both fats and oils are composed of triglycerides. Although many animal parts and secretions may yield oil, in commercial p ...

(e.g.,

lard Lard is a semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of a pig.Lard
entry in the o ...

, lardon, schmaltz, suet, tallow, etc.) * Hard Roe (as food is used as a raw or cooked ingredient in various dishes) *

Honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

(including

comb honey Comb honey is honey intended for consumption by humans, which is still contained within its original hexagonal-shaped beeswax cells, called honeycomb. It has received no processing, filtering, or manipulation, and is in the state that honey bees ha ...

products) * Honeydew *

Isinglass Isinglass () is a substance obtained from the dried swim bladders of fish. It is a form of collagen used mainly for the clarification or fining of some beer and wine. It can also be cooked into a paste for specialised gluing purposes. The E ...

(used in clarification of beer and wine) * Insects (some edible insects are consumed whole or made into a powder, like

cricket flour Cricket flour (or cricket powder) is a protein-rich powder made from Cricket (insect), crickets, using various processes. Cricket flour differs from true flours made from grains by being composed mainly of protein rather than starches and dietary f ...

. The flours are then used to make products like insect fitness bars or burger patties.) * Kopi luwak &

Black Ivory Coffee Black Ivory Coffee is a brand of coffee produced by the Black Ivory Coffee Company Ltd in northern Thailand from Arabica coffee beans consumed by elephants and collected from their waste. The taste of Black Ivory coffee is influenced by elephants ...

Meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

(which includes fish,

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...

sauces In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French word t ...

made from them, and poultry in addition to livestock,

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

, and "exotic dishes" made from

amphibians Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...

) * Offal * Skins (remaining skin scraps as a by-product of meat production or fat rendering are made profitable by being fried/roasted and sold as snacks, like; gribenes, rinds,

scratchings Pork rind is the culinary term for the skin of a pig. It can be used in many different ways. It can be rendered, fried in fat, baked, or roasted to produce a kind of pork cracklings (US) or scratchings (UK); these are served in small pieces ...

, and rambak) *

Snake wine Snake wine (; vi, rượu rắn; km, ស្រាពស់, ) is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol. The drink was first recorded to have been consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty ...

(also used as medicine) * Soft Roe also known as “White Roe” (is commonly fried, used as an ingredient in a larger dish, or used as a condiment in some European and Asian countries) * Whey (found in cheese and added to many other products)

Non-food animal products

* Animal fiber * Ambergris * Beeswax *

Bear bile Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...

(used to make medicine) * Blood and some blood substitutes (blood used for transfusions is always human in origin, though some blood substitutes are made from animal sources. Many diagnostic laboratory tests use animal or human sourced reagents) * Casein (used in plastics, clothing, cosmetics, adhesives and paint) * Castoreum (secretion of the

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

used in perfumes and possibly in food flavoring) *

Civet oil Civet (''Zibeth''; ''Zibet''; ''Zibetum''), also known as civet musk and civet oil, is the glandular secretion produced by both sexes of Viverridae species. Production A number of viverrid species secrete civet oil in their perineal glands, inc ...

* Coral rock (

Precious coral Precious coral, or red coral, is the common name given to a genus of marine corals, ''Corallium''. The distinguishing characteristic of precious corals is their durable and intensely colored red or pink-orange skeleton, which is used for ma ...

in particular is beloved for jewelry making) *

Donkey milk Donkey milk (or ass milk, or jenny milk) is the milk from the domesticated donkey ''(Equus asinus)''. It has been used since antiquity for cosmetic purposes as well as infant nutrition. History Donkey milk has been used by humans for alimenta ...

* Egg oil (used in skin care products as a preservative and as skin conditioning agent) * Emu oil (serves as a ”natural” emollient in cosmetic preparations, especially in products that claim it has the ability enhance and

maintain Maintenance may refer to: Biological science * Maintenance of an organism * Maintenance respiration Non-technical maintenance * Alimony, also called ''maintenance'' in British English * Champerty and maintenance, two related legal doct ...

beauty.) * Ejaculate (used in artificial insemination) *

Feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premier ...

s * Fishmeal * Fur * Gallstones (from livestock for Traditional Chinese Medicine) *

Guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

* Horse oil (used in East Asian skincare masks and creams for similar purposes as emu oil.) *

Horn Horn most often refers to: *Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound ** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...

, including antlers etc. * Ivory * Lanolin * Limulus amebocyte lysate (a chemical in horseshoe crab blood used to detect bacterial endotoxin) * Leather * Manure *

Mink Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera ''Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the A ...

lashes Flagellation (Latin , 'whip'), flogging or whipping is the act of beating the human body with special implements such as whips, rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails, the sjambok, the knout, etc. Typically, flogging has been imposed on ...

* Mink oil * Musk * Nautilus (decorative shell or pearl alternative) * Ovine Placenta * Pearl or mother of pearl (Treated as a precious gem for making jewelry or adorning clothing & accessories.

Pearl powder Pearl powder () is a preparation of crushed pearls used in China and elsewhere for skin care and in traditional Chinese medicine. Preparation Pearl powder is made from freshwater pearls or saltwater pearls below jewellery grade. These are steri ...

is used as a natural skincare product for hydrating & healing the skin as well as lightening, brightening and maintaining youthfulness of the complexion) * Royal jelly (used as a dietary supplement) *

Scale Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...

s (fish scales are often used in makeup to impart a refractive & pearlescent finish) * Silk * Sponges *

Skunk oil Skunk oil is an oil that is obtained from the two lateral glands that run the length of a skunk's back. Skunks store fat in these glands for use during hibernation or semi-hibernation in warmer climates. Skunk oil has minimal odor. Uses Skunk o ...

* Snail Mucin (used in topical medications and skincare products as a treatment for lesions and acne or as an antioxidant to brighten and hydrate the skin) *

Stearin Stearin , or tristearin, or glyceryl tristearate is an odourless, white powder. It is a triglyceride derived from three units of stearic acid. Most triglycerides are derived from at least two and more commonly three different fatty acids. Like o ...

* Tallow, may be used in food and soap * Tortoiseshell * Urine * Venom (used to produce human and veterinary antivenin) * Whale oil * Wool

Slaughterhouse waste

By-products in pet food

Additives

Food

Non-food animal products

See also

References

Further reading