The Apalachee Golden Retrievers (Horseheads, New York) : A Trick for a Food Label

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A Trick for a Food Label

Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 January 2012 21:28

Dog Food All pet foods must list the ingredients present in the food. The ingredients must be listed in order of weight. This is one of the best ways to determine the quality of the food. With a little knowledge of the ingredients, you can choose a food that is highly digestible and free of unwanted products. Be careful of one tactic used by manufacturers to disguise less desirable ingredients. Breaking an ingredient into several different smaller ingredients and listing them individually is used to lower these undesirable ingredients farther down the ingredient list.

I, as a dog person, have notice how many brands of dog food went grain-free and top-notch first three ingredients in the past year in all of a sudden. I find it hard to believe that everybody just re-did their formulations. For example, a product list could contain chicken, ground corn, corn gluten, ground wheat, corn bran, wheat flour, wheat middling, etc. If we were to group all of the corn ingredients as one, they would probably far out-weigh the amount of chicken, and wheat. So, your dog is eating not chicken with corn, but corn with chicken - big difference! As a consumer, you must read all of the ingredients carefully including the ingredients at the end, to know the type of preservatives and colorings that are used.

Standards set by AAFCO, show there are problems with the pet food industry's labeling practices. The labels follow a secret code, and consumers do not have the key to decipher it. In fact, most consumers do not even realize that there is a hidden meaning in the label's wording.

The "Flavor" Rule states that a food may be labeled as "Beef Flavored Dog Food" even if it does not contain any beef, as long as the flavor is "sufficiently detectable." This is achieved by using meals, by-products, or various parts from the animal listed on the label.

When a label reads "With Real Turkey," a consumer may assume that he is purchasing quality turkey dog food for his pet. However, according to AAFCO's "Nutrient Profiles," a label may use "with" if it contains 3% of the meat, excluding water.

The 25% or "Dinner" Rule states that any label that has a qualifier such as "dinner," "entrée," or "nuggets" must contain at least 25% of that meat. If two ingredients are listed, such as "Chicken and Liver Dinner," then the total product weight must equal 25%. The first ingredient listed must contain more than the second, and the second ingredient must comprise at least 3% of the total product weight excluding water for processing.

Very few all-meat commercial foods are available, because they do not provide a balanced diet. Some companies offer canned meats with 95% and 100% of one ingredient as a supplement. To qualify for using "all" or "100%" on a label, a food must contain 95% of that ingredient or 70% of the total weight excluding water for processing.