Is Your Dog Getting the Nutrients It Needs?

According to dog food manufacturers today your dog is getting the healthy meal it needs. Really?

Dog owners are becoming more aware of the ingredients that go into their pets food and they are actively seeking healthy alternatives to the sub-standard rendered remains that constitutes dog food.

Labeling

When you are looking at a bag of crunchies or a can of food what are you looking at?

Let's try and break it down. According to the FDA;

1. Any label that indicates "all" or "100%" on the label can not have more than 1 ingredient in it. That does not include water, decharacterizing agents, or trace amounts of preservatives and condiments. What is decharacterizing? According to the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry
"DECHARACTERIZATION shall mean the uniform application of sufficient quantities of dye, charcoal, malodorous fish oil, acid, or any other agent approved by the Bureau, upon and into freely slashed flesh of processed meat as to unequivocally preclude its use for human food." Preclude? What that means is the food will be prevented from being used as human food. I'm not sure that is something I want to give my dogs.

Then we have the rest of the label ingredient "rules"

2. There is the 95% rule. This means that 95% of  the food must be the named ingredient. So if beef or chicken are on the label such as Chicken Dog Food or Beef Dog Food, that food must contain at least 70% chicken or beef and the balance can be the water used to process the food. These 2 elements along with any added vitamins and minerals should amount to 95% of the total weight.

3. In the 25% or "dinner" rule, at least 25% of the named ingredient must be included (and this does not include water used during processing) but it must be less than 95% of the total weight. This meal must be classified as a "dinner". If the water being used during processing is counted then the named ingredient must be at least 10% of the total weight. There are other descriptors that can be used such as Nuggets, Formula, Entree and Platter.

4. The 3% "with" rule applies to the featured ingredient on the label that indicates it is "with cheese" for example and must have at least 3% cheese present. This also applies to labels such as Dog food with Beef, which has a very significant impact on the beef ingredients in the food.

All ingredients on the label are in order of weight which includes water used in processing that ingredient. This is important if the ingredient specified has a higher or lower moisture content. Let's say that the corn ingredient has more moisture in it than the meat. Corn would be the predominant ingredient because of its weight. Although the meat ingredient might contain more protein it becomes the secondary ingredient because it weighs less.

Dog or pet food labels can be confusing and very misleading. How do you know what your getting in a can of dog food or a bag of crunchies when the real ingredients have been disguised to represent what we think is good wholesome food for our pets. Many dogs experience health problems simply because the commercial dog foods available use substandard processed food that has the nutrients, vitamins and minerals added artificially.

Get Rid of the Can Opener

Perhaps homemade dog food is not a bad alternative. By making your dogs meals you will know exactly what your feeding them. It's not as easy as opening a can but maybe its time to put a little more effort into how we feed our pets. Our pets deserve to be healthier.