Dog Food Label Study

This is 1 of the clearest explanation i ever read about Dog Food by Sabine Contreras.
If you are feeding your dog dry food, I would strongly suggest you have a look at this article, quite long indeed, but it's very useful.

If a food is named specifically, e.g. "Beef Dog Food", the named ingredient must not be less than 95% of the total weight if the water required for processing is excluded, no less than 70% if the water is included in the calculation. If more than one ingredient is named, e.g. "Beef and Liver Dog Food", all of them combined must not be less than 95% (or 70% respectively) and they must be named in descending order of content by weight. This description is used almost exclusively for canned foods.

If a food name includes the word "dinner" (or similar ones like "formula", "nuggets" etc.), e.g. such as in "Lamb Formula", the named ingredient must not be less than 25% of the total weight. If more than one ingredient is named, e.g. "Lamb and Rice Formula", all of them combined must not be less than 25% and they must be named in descending order of content by weight.

Watch out:
Since the named ingredients are only required to make up 1/4 of the total product, they may not even be descriptive of the main ingredients! The manufacturer is not technically lying about what is used, but if you don't look closely, you may not be getting what you intended to buy.

Ingredient list example where "Lamb and Rice Formula" is correct but misleading:
Ground yellow corn, meat and bone meal, lamb, brewers rice...
Example of truthful use:
Lamb, ground rice, barley flour, fish meal...

If the name of a food includes the phrase "with [ingredient]" (e.g. "with beef"), the named ingredient must not be less than 3% of the total weight.

Watch out:
The mentioned ingredient is only required to make up 3% of the total product, so it will not be descriptive of the product at all! Unless you take a close look at the ingredient lists of such foods, you are very likely to be deceived.

Ingredient list example for "Product X With Real Lamb and Rice":
Ground yellow corn, chicken byproduct meal, wheat, animal fat, corn gluten meal, lamb , rice, natural poultry flavor, salt, minerals, vitamins...


Last but not least, if a name only includes the word "flavor" or "flavored", no specific percentage is required at all, but a product must contain an amount sufficient to be able to be detected.

Watch out:
If you buy a "flavored" product, you are guaranteed to find only a minute amount of the flavoring ingredient in it, while the predominant ingredients are not mentioned in the name at all.

Ingredient list example for "Product X with Liver Flavor":
Ground yellow corn, poultry byproduct meal, brewers rice, soybean meal, beef tallow, corn gluten meal, brewers dried yeast, digest of beef liver, natural flavors, salt, vitamins, minerals...

Complete article is here...
http://top10world.net/?cat=21

If you have time, it's really good to read this, try to understand what are you feeding your dogs everyday.
Say thanks if you like it
By the way, Happy Hari Raya to all of you!
Drive safe ya...

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Added on October 12, 2007, 12:03 amSeems like I'm not successful in sending my message out.
Anyway, here's some summary if you guys think the story is a bit too long to read them.

When you are buying a Dry dog Food, try to look at the ingredient.
According to AAFCO, the major ingredient should arrange descending at the label.
If you are seeing Corn as the first ingredient, means this is the major ingredient of this pack of dog food.

Below are some points on selecting a high protein dog food. Protein, in the form of quality meat ingredients, is the most important component of a dog's diet.

What to look for:
1. The first source of fat or oil that appears in the ingredient list. This can either be from an animal or vegetable source, there are good and bad ones of both, but more details on that later. Anything listed before that first source of fat, and including it, are the main ingredients of the food. Any other items are present in much smaller amounts to add flavor, function as preservatives.

2. Specifically named meats and meat meals such as chicken, chicken meal, turkey, turkey meal, lamb, lamb meal, duck, duck meal, beef, beef meal, eggs and so on.

3. The following are lesser quality ingredients and are not found in truly high quality products, but may be present in smaller amounts (not as the main protein ingredients) in "mid range" foods: fresh byproducts indicating a specific species (e.g. beef/chicken/turkey/lamb byproducts), corn gluten, corn gluten meal. Products that include these as main ingredients should be avoided.

What to avoid:
1. All generic meat ingredients that do not indicate a species (meat, meat byproducts, meat byproduct meal, meat meal, meat & bone meal, blood meal, fish, fish meal, poultry, poultry byproducts, poultry meal, poultry byproduct meal, liver, liver meal, glandular meal etc.)

2. Byproduct meals, even if a species is identified (chicken/beef/turkey/lamb byproduct meal etc.), since highly questionable ingredients may be used in these rendered products.

3. Any food that contains corn (ground or otherwise) as a first ingredient, especially if corn gluten meal is also a main ingredient and no concentrated source of identified meat protein (e.g. chicken meal, lamb meal etc.) is present.

4. Corn gluten or soy(bean) meal as main ingredients. Note: Not all dogs tolerate soy products! Small amounts, especially of organic soy, are okay as long as a dog is not sensitive. There are only very few products on the market that include high quality soy ingredients, none of them sold at grocery stores or mass retailers.

Dogs lovers, spend some time for you dogs by knowing what you feed them



This post has been edited by jiajilah: Oct 12 2007, 12:03 AM

Finally, someone did read my post I'm glad

A little study can avoid we, as a consumer being cheated by all commercial advertisement.

I've made some a random comparison here, no offense to any brand ok?

Let's take a look at Science Diet Puppy Original.
http://www.hillspet.com/zSkin_2/products/p..._details.jsp...

Check the ingredients and you will see the major 3 ingredients before Animal Fat are Ground Whole Grain Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, Soybean Meal.
1. In our discussion, we prefer Chicken Fat or Sunflower oil, we DO NOT want any unspecified Fat (Animal Fat for this case).
2. The 3 major ingredients before fat are Grain, By-Product and Soybean. See the problem? Non of these are Real Meat.

Now, let us look at Chicken Soul Puppy Formula
http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul..../puppy_formula/
The 6 majors ingredients before chicken fat are Chicken, turkey, chicken meal, ocean fish meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, chicken fat.

You are smart, compare yourself, how much Real Meat available for this product compare to previous product? Are you feeding your dog a fast food? Perhaps a hamburger made of grain and bean?

This post has been edited by jiajilah: Oct 12 2007, 09:54 AM