Understanding pet food labels is very important.
Pet food labels tells us a lot about the food, but at the same time, much is still hidden. I’m my opinion, this hidden information behind the words in needed in order to truly understand what we are looking at.
Here are some important points to notice when reading the label:
Ingredients:
The ingredients list will include all the ingredients put into the food by the manufacturer itself. it doesn’t need to include ingredients that are apart of one of the foods raw materials. For example: the label will indicate the presence of “chicken meal” but if there is added preservative to it, it wont appear on the label. Usually meals have added synthetic preservatives to them.
The ingredients are listed in descending order according to their weight once they entered the manufacturing procedure. For example: Chicken, Chicken meal, Oats, Brown rice, Barley, Chicken fat….. In this case, when entering the extrusion process, the chicken weighted the most at lets say 4 kg, but because meat looses its weight as a result of the heating process (and loss of moisture) he will descend in the list and so the second ingredient is actually the first, in this case the chicken meal. What this means? sometimes manufacturers market the food as having fresh meat protein as the first ingredient, when in reality we can see that once the meat looses its moisture, it moves down the ingredient list.
The first 5 ingredients provide the major part of the food and so they usually indicate the quality of the food.
Because every ingredient counts, its important to read all the ingredients in order to find those which you can label as not welcome, such as preservatives, food coloring, thickeners, stabilizers, etc.
Feeding Guidelines:
Remember that these are a recommendation only and you need to adjust according to your specific pets needs. Each manufacturer has its own way to calculate how many calories your pet needs, and usually this is based on long they want the food to last you. This is why its important to watch your pets weight and see if you need to make any adjustments to the feeding quantities. Don’t forget to take into account all the treats and other food you give your pet each day – everything has calories to it and they all add up.
Declaration that the food is complete and balanced:
This statement indicates that the food is either complete and balanced or for supplementary use only. The declaration also indicates which life phase the food is meant for. Take notice that you cannot feed supplementary food on a daily basis for this may cause nutritional deficiencies.
Additional points to consider:
Ingredient split:
Most manufacturers know that pet owners want to see quality protein (or any protein) as the first ingredient on the list, or at least second. So, in order to make the meat source seem higher up on the list, they split the carbohydrates. For example, wheat is the largest volume ingredient; If we divide it into several parts (wheat flour, ground wheat, wheat bran… etc.), it wont look that way. And, because of the split, the chicken by-product meal which was the second ingredient, will move first.
Ingredients before the split – Wheat, Chicken by-product meal, meat and bone meal, corn gluten, animal fat….
Ingredients after the split – Chicken by-product meal, ground wheat, wheat flour, meat and bone meal, corn gluten….
Quality of ingredients:
The AAFCO doesn’t allow manufacturers to state the quality of the ingredients on the label. This makes it impossible for pet owners to know which ingredients had been used to prepare the food. Pet food can be manufactured from many animal parts, each with a different quality. For example, by-product meal can include medium/high quality ingredients such as liver, kidneys, intestines, eyes, spleen, stomach and the reproductive organs; or low quality ingredients such as legs, feathers and beaks.
Changing recipe:
Sometimes the ingredient list will include none specific ingredients, like, poultry flour, animal fat or grain flour. Animal fat can be from chicken, pork or beef for example. Therefore, the manufacturer can change ingredients according to his costs needs without needing to update the label/pet owners. And because each ingredient has different nutritional values, the overall values of the formula may change. This flexibility allows the manufacturer to choose the cheapest ingredients.
Taste enhancers:
Some foods are just not tasty. This can be form lack of quality protein and/or too small amounts of animal fat. One of the ways to make your pet like its food is to add taste enhancers. These can range from garlic powders, onion powders, sugar and/or artificial flavors. Hence, if you see these in the ingredient list, you can assume that the food has low palatability; Perhaps due to low quality ingredients.
In conclusion, just as you read the labels of your food, its as important to understand what’s in the food you feed your pets.
You are welcome to contact me with any question about the current food you are feeding.