Animal Fat (Species Not Stated)

It can be. In a cat with a food allergy, fats of unknown origin make it harder to keep track of what the cat is reacting to.

Animal fat on a cat food label is rendered fat from one or more animals that the label does not name. Cornell's Feline Health Center describes cats as obligate carnivores that rely on nutrients found only in animal products, and fat from animals is one of the main energy sources in dry cat food. The open question with this ingredient is its unnamed source. For a cat with a medical condition, ask your veterinarian.

Source: vet.cornell.edu

In cat food, animal fat is fat rendered from animal tissue when the label does not say which species it came from. It adds calories and flavor and supplies fatty acids such as arachidonic acid. A 1984 study in cats found they make almost none of this fatty acid themselves and still need it for reproduction and platelet function, so animal sources of fat matter in a cat's diet.

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

It means the label tells you the ingredient is animal fat but not which animal it came from. The fat could be from cattle, pigs, poultry or a mix, and the ingredient list gives no way to tell. Named fats such as chicken fat or beef fat state the species. This matters most to owners avoiding a specific animal, for example during an elimination diet trial.

Not necessarily. Beef tallow is fat from cattle, and a label that uses only that source can say beef fat or beef tallow. Animal fat leaves the species unnamed, so it could be beef fat, pork fat, poultry fat or a blend. The ingredient list alone cannot answer the question, so only the manufacturer can tell you what a given batch contains.

Pettings scores animal fat (species not stated) 2 out of 5 and files it as a general cat food ingredient. We found it on 18 of the 149 dry cat foods in our list. The ingredient score is separate from a food's overall score, which you can see on each food's page.