Why make such a big deal about a pets food? They’re all the same right? OK, so I know you know that’s not true. I also know that you know some foods are better than others, but how can you tell? When I was goring up, my mother always told me to read the list of ingredients on any foods I wanted, and if there were any words I couldn’t pronounce than it probably wasn’t healthy for me. For the most part it’s a pretty good rule of thumb to live by, but when it comes to your pets food the rules are a little different. Because pet foods are a pet’s only source of nutrition it needs to a complex balance of all the daily nutrients a pet needs.
Nutrients are different than ingredients. An ingredient is the edible material that provides the nutrients that a pet’s body needs. Nutrients are the actual components of each food required to support life. To give you a few examples corn is an ingredient that provides various nutrients such as fiber, protein and carbohydrates, Blueberries are an ingredients that contain the nutrients iron, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, and vitamin K. When a veterinarian says to offer your pet a “Balanced Diet” they are referring to a diet that contains all the required nutrients to sustain a happy and well-balances life for your pet. Many pet foods that have a healthy balance of nutrients are made from the actual nutrient and not always the whole source ingredient which can lead to some difficult to say words. For example the nutrient Tocopherol (Vitamin-E) can be found naturally in wheat germ, corn, vegetable oils, nut and seeds. However the amount of those ingredients that a pet would need to eat to get the appropriate amount of Vitamin-E would also add too many calories and fats causing our pets to become unnecessarily overweight. We humans often take a daily multivitamin for that very same reason.
So back to the real question at hand. How do we know what food is best for our pets? After all isn’t this what we are really after. When you are examining a bag of food trying to figure out if it is good for your pet or not there is really only one place to look. Every pet food brand is required by the Association of American Feed Control Officials to meet a minimum level nutrient profile for the various life stages of a pet (growth, adult or all life stages) and the pet food companies are required to add a nutritional statement to the side of their food bags. There are two different nutritional statements, one for food that is formulated to be balanced, and one for food that has been tested to be a complete and balanced diet. For example:
- Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that X Brand Dog Food provided complete and balanced nutrition for adult dogs.
- The X Brand Dog Food is been formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by AAFCO for dogs of all life stages.
Testing a pet food to know if it truly is complete and balanced diet is very time consuming and expensive and a step that many pet food companies just aren’t willing to take. If you want to find out if a food is a healthy option for your pet then find a brand that has taken the time to test the food to make sure that it will do what it claims.