Label Information 101

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 manufactur er is not technically lying about what is used, but if you don't look closely, you may not be getti ng 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...

Watch out:
The mentioned ingredient is only required to m ake 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...

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...

Watch out:
If a particular brand is sold in bags of different sizes, the smaller the size, the higher the price per pound.

Example: Brand X comes in bags of 5, 10, 20 and 40 pounds.
A 5 lb bag costs $8, the price per pound is $1.60
A 10 lb bag costs $13, the price per pound is $1.30
A 20 lb bag costs $21, the price per pound is $1.05
A 40 lb bag costs $32, the price per pound is $0.80

As you see, you are paying twice the amount per pound when you buy the smallest bag. If you are concerned about freshness and still want to save money, consider buying a vacuum food sealer to split the content of one large bag into several smaller ones. There is no need to refrigerate or freeze vacuum packed dog food, just store it in a dark, cool and dry place.

Watch out:
A good rule of thumb to distinguish the major components of a food is to look for the first named source of fat in the ingredient list. Anything listed before that, and including it, make up the main portion of the food, other items are present in much smaller amounts to add flavor, function as preservatives or because of their dietary benefits (e.g. probiotics, vitamins and minerals).

Examples:
Food A has the following ingredient list (first source of fat marked green):
Ground yellow corn, meat meal, chicken fat, ground wheat, chicken byproduct meal, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, salt, vitamins, minerals...
Food B has the following ingredient list (first source of fat marked green):
Turkey, chicken, chicken meal, ground barley, ground brown rice, potatoes, ground white rice, chicken fat, herring, apples, carrots, cottage cheese, sunflower oil, alfalfa sprouts, egg, garlic, probiotics, vitamins, minerals...

This is important to know when looking for ingredients that may not necessarily be harmful but should only be present in small amounts in a quality product (beet pulp, corn gluten meal etc.).

Watch out:
Ingredient lists can be manipulated in various ways to make a product look more attractive than it really is. On the other hand, a plain, honest ingredient list may also make a quality product look worse than one of lesser quality with cleverly formulated ingredients, unless you know what you are looking for.

Food A has the following ingredient list:
Lamb, brewers rice, brown rice, poultry fat, rice flour, beet pulp, rice bran...
Food B has the following ingredient list:
Brown rice, chicken meal, chicken fat, fish meal, flax seed meal...

Even though product A lists lamb as first ingredient, the meat still includes about 75% water. Once the moisture is removed to reach the final percentage of about 10%, the lamb meat will have shrunk to 1/4 of the original amount, while relatively dry ingredients like the different rice components will not change much. Product B lists rice as first ingredient, but since chicken is added in already dehydrated meal form, the amount will not shrink any further. Together with the fish meal the product may contain an equal amount of animal protein and rice and is pretty much guaranteed to contain more meat than product A.

Reversing this technique, let's look at examples:
Food C has the following ingredient list:
Chicken, chicken byproduct meal, brown rice, oatmeal, corn meal, chicken fat...
Food D has the following ingredient list:
Chicken meal, chicken byproducts, brown rice, oatmeal, corn meal, chicken fat...

Product C lists chicken as first ingredient (again, this still includes about 75% water) but the much less desirable chicken byproducts in dehydrated meal form - the finished product will contain much less "real" chicken than byproducts. Product D has chicken meal as first ingredient, and the byproducts as second, which will lose 3/4 of their weight by the time the food reaches its final moisture content. Product D contains a larger amount of better digestible animal protein.

To recognize whether a food even includes any real meat, you need to know the ingredient definitions. Some animal proteins in "meal" form are of high quality, including for example the whole carcasses of slaughtered chickens minus feathers, heads, feet, or entrails; while ones like "beef & bone meal" are made from any leftovers after the quality cuts of meat have been removed for human consumption. Here are two example ingredient lists of foods that do not contain a quality meat source whatsoever, despite the pretty images on the bag:

Food E has the following ingredient list (animal protein sources marked bold):
Ground yellow corn, wheat middlings, meat & bone meal, soybean meal, digest of poultry byproducts & beef, poultry fat, brewers yeast, yeast culture, salt, vitamins, minerals...
Food F has the following ingredient list (animal protein sources in bold):
Ground yellow corn, beef & bone meal, soybean meal, digest of chicken byproducts, animal fat, poultry byproduct meal, brewers rice, salt, vitamins, minerals...

Watch out:
Before comparing products by their weight, cost, content of protein, fat, and fiber, make sure they have the same content of moisture. If they differ, you need convert the values for all products to an equal percentage.

Example:
3 Products list 22% protein, 12% fat and 4% fiber "as fed". Product A contains 10% moisture, product B 12% and product C 14%. Note that the more moisture the food contains, the less nutritious dry matter is present - meaning you pay for extra water and get less nutrients:

I'll leave it up to you to calculate the differences in feeding costs per month or year.

Watch out:
Different sources of protein and fat vary in digestibility and content of valuable nutrients required to maintain good health. The amount of food your dog has to eat (and conversely the amount of cleanup to do, food to buy and money to spend) strongly depends on the concentration of nutrients present in a product. Approximate digestibility values (not the "biological value", which is a completely different concept) for protein (based on information published by T.J. Dunn, Jr. DVM):

• Egg whites and whey protein 100%
• Muscle meats (chicken slightly higher than beef or lamb) 92%
• Organ meats (heart, kidney, liver) 90%
• Fish, whole soybeans (not leftover fragments!) 75%,
• Rice 72%
• Oats 66%
• Yeast 63%
• Wheat 60%
• Corn 54%

Note: The above does not refer to the total digestibility of the item, but specifically to the percentage to which the protein part can be utilized.
Various meat and bone meals and byproduct meals range from about 45% to 80%, depending on the content of bone vs. more digestible parts.

The biological value of proteins indicates how complete a protein source is in regards to content of the essential amino acids. Combining ingredients that complement each other results in an appropriate balance of amino acids. To achieve this, not all ingredients are required to have high individual biological values. Example: if the main protein source of a food is high in biological value but has a low content of one particular amino acid, the secondary source only needs to fill that gap to create the required balance. I am not able to quote a suitable source for the BV of different protein sources, since most tables that are published are relevant for the essential amino acids for humans (histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine), dogs also require arginine in their diet - humans synthesize it in the liver.

While fats are the main source of energy in a dog food, they also supply essential fatty acids, prevent dehydration and serve as carriers for fat soluble vitamins. Chicken fat, sunflower oil, various coldwater fish oils and flax oil/seed are rich in nutrients, while cheaper ingredients like animal fat, beef tallow, and lard (though very palatable to dogs, who just love the taste) lack significant and balanced amounts and are often of questionable quality.

An interesting side note: Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids for example are still not recognized as essential nutrients by the AAFCO dog food nutrient profile. It is interesting that they are often referred to by dieticians as "essential fatty acids" though and increased supplementation often solves many health problems. Go figure.

Watch out:
If a product analyzed in an AAFCO laboratory meets the respective standards established by this organization, it is considered "complete and balanced" without actually being tested in feeding trials. Your dog is not a laboratory and neither are the nutritional requirements of different dogs, let alone different breeds, 100% the same.

Just so you can form your own opinion, here are the AAFCO requirements for their feeding trials, passing which is often used as a major point of advertising especially for low quality foods:

• Only a minimum of 8 dogs is required as a valid "test group".
• There are no restrictions regarding breed or sex.
• Of these 8 animals, only 6 are actually required to complete the 26-week trial. The reasons for which an animal might drop out are losing too much weight or other negative side effects.
• During the trial, the only food available to the test animals is the food being tested. Water is freely available at all times.
• At the beginning and end of the trial the test dogs must pass a physical examination by a veterinarian. The veterinarians evaluate general health, body and hair coat condition.
• At the end (but not at the beginning) of the trial, hemoglobin, packed cell volume, serum alkaline phosphatase, and serum albumin are measured and recorded.
• The diet being tested fails if any animal shows clinical or pathological signs of nutritional deficiency or excess.
• The maximum permissible weight loss during ther trial is 15% of the starting body weight. Specific minimum values for the blood tests are given, and applied to the average result of all participating animals that finished the trial.

Furthermore, if one particular food in a product line proved to meet the AAFCO standard, the company is allowed to include the nutritional adequacy statement on other products of the same line that provide equal or greater concentrations of all the nutrients. Breed specific health concerns, like for example orthopedic problems in large breeds, hypoglycemia in toy breeds, copper sensivity in Bedlington Terriers, zinc deficiencies in Alaskan Malamutes and other genetic and metabolic differences are not taken into consideration by AAFCO.

Watch out:
Please take these recommendations only as very basic guidelines. How much you have to feed depends on whether your goal is weight maintenance, weight loss or gain; the individual dog's age, breed, metabolism, and activity; and of course also environmental conditions. Manufacturers can over- or understate amounts depending on whether their goal is to sell more food or to make their product look more economical than a competitor's.

Watch out:
Caloric statements can be found in three different values:

• Gross Energy - The amount of energy in a food product on an "as fed" basis.
• Digestible Energy - The amount of energy available to the dog after the amount lost in feces has been substracted, and
• Metabolizable Energy - The amount of energy available to the dog after the amount lost in feces, urine and gaseous products of digestion has been substracted. This is the most common value used.

It is easily possible to compare "apples and oranges" unless the Metabolizable Energy (ME) of all compared products is taken into consideration.

Example 1:
Manufacturer A lists the following product information:
Gross energy 1,950 Kcal/lb, digestible energy 1,700 Kcal/lb and metabolizable energy 1,550 Kcal/lb.
The competitor B only lists the metabolizable energy content of 1900 Kcal/lb.
Manufacturer B offers the more nutritious food, but manufacturer A distracts from the lower relevant value by providing all 3.

Unless you have a dog who loves eating and tends to overeat, feeding a more concentrated food is the better economic solution and also cuts down on the cleaning up you will have to do, since less waste is excreted.

Example 2:
Two products both list 24% protein, 14% fat, 3% fiber and 10% moisture.
Product A contains 2,700 Kcal/kg metabolizable energy, product B contains 3,600 Kcal/kg.
Product B is clearly the better quality food with more digestible ingredients, you need to feed much less of it per day compared to product A to supply the same amount of energy.

Another detail you need to know is that the amount of Kcal per cup isn't really a good basis of comparison, since a cup is a measurement for volume, not for weight. Depending on size and density of the kibble, one cup may hold under 3 ounces(~85 grams) to over 4 ounces (~113 grams) of food. If you can't locate the amount of Kcal per pound or kilogram on a product bag or manufacturer website, email or call to find out.

Watch out:
Manufacturers are not required to include substances in the ingredient list that they did not add to the product themselves. Products they obtain from their suppliers may still contain undesirable ingredients such as synthetic preservatives and/or other additives. A prime example is fish meal, which, according to US Coast Guard regulations, must be preserved with Ethoxyquin if it is not destined for human consumption.

So while terms like "human grade", "human quality", "table quality" etc. may not be legally defined, they still provide some information about the quality of certain ingredients and the way they are handled before they end up in the food product. If words like "hormone free", "organic" etc. are used, it is not likely that such ingredients are feed grade or low quality.