bohemianbint - OK you talked me into it.
The animal feed mill I worked in did the following things in 1982 - and it was my job to run the lab tests on the feed samples coming out of the factory and also on what went in.
We used to mix pure poultry manure (which contains ammonia) in the feed for dairy and beef cows as their gut can transform the ammonia into protein. This is now banned in many countries as it is thought to cause botulism but was certainly legal in 1982.
We used to put ground up blood, bones, rendered animal fat and skulls containing nerve and brain tissue in almost all animal feed. It was impossible to separate different animal tissue so chickens, pigs, cows, sheep would have been eating bone and flesh from their own species. Where do you think BSE came from? It is not allowed now but was legal in 1982.
We used to put all kinds of food industry waste, out of date food waste, including foil and plastic wrappers and brewery sludge in all types of feed apart from chickens and turkeys. I am pretty sure this is still legal and was in 1982.
Of course once we had ground it all up and blended it and pelleted it there was no way of knowing what was in it. All we cared about was hitting protein, fat and carbohydrate levels in the cheapest way possible.
If you ate food anywhere in the UK in 1982 you certainly ate food that went through that mill that I tested and passed as fit for consumption and to enter the human food chain.
I eat free range and organic for good reason.