How to choose The right Pet Food For your Cat or dog

We want to give our pets the ideal nutrition, but with so many choices, how do we separate the best from the rest?

Do words like "premium" and "gourmet" actually mean anything? Are foods labeled "natural" and "organic" actually healthier? The truth is, when it comes to pet food, many of these terms have no standard definition or regulatory meaning. There is no one perfect source for comparing kibbles and chows. There is, however, some basic information that you can use to evaluate what you feed your four-legged family members.

Checking out the food label

Pet food labels have two basic parts: the principal display panel and the information panel. The first takes up most of the packaging : it provides the brand and name of the food, and illustrative terms and images. But the most important area of the label is the information panel, which is the parallel of a human nutritional information label. It includes the guaranteed analysis, ingredient list, feeding guidelines and nutritional adequacy statement.

You won't find as much detail here as on human foods, but the nutritional information does give minimum proportions of gross protein and gross fat, and maximum proportions of gross fiber and moisture. "Crude" refers to the strategy of measuring that is used, not products you can the protein, fat or fiber. These proportions are on "as fed" basis, so foods that incorporate more water (canned foods) appear to have less protein than foods with less water (dry foods) : but that's not usually the case.

Ingredients in a pet food must be listed on the label in descending order by weight. One detail to remember, though, is that the weight includes the moisture in the ingredient, so certain ingredients may appear higher on the list even if lower : moisture ingredients contribute more actual nutrients. The order isn't by nutritional value, but by weight. dog food toppings

For example, the first ingredient on a label may be "chicken", which weighs more than other individual ingredients because it may contain 70% water. But wheat may be present in various forms that are listed as individual ingredients, such as "wheat flour", "ground wheat" and "wheat middling". Thus, the food may just contain more wheat than chicken. Just because a protein source is listed first does not mean the food is high in protein.

Feeding guidelines are also on the information panel of the label. Like human food labels, pet food labels give broad feeding guidelines. Pet food guidelines derive from average intake for all dogs or cats. But a pet's nutritional requirements can vary according to his age, breed, weight, your age, activity level and even the climate he lives in. So, these guidelines are a starting point, but might need changing for your particular dog. If your cat or dog starts gaining weight, you may have to feed her less, and vice versa.

Let's look at the nutritional adequacy statement, developed by an advisory organization that standardizes pet food chemical contents called the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). This statement means pet parents that whenever the pet food is provided as the sole source of nutrition, it meets or is greater than nutritional requirements for a cat or dog at several life development. However, the AAFCO appreciates only "adult maintenance" and "reproduction" (which includes pregnancy, lactation and growth) as life development; or, if the diet meets both, "all life stages".

The nutritional adequacy statement also shows how manufacturers have met the AAFCO's standards, either by measurements or by feeding demos. Measurements estimate the amount of nutrients in a pet food either on the basis of the average chemical content of its ingredients, or on results from clinical testing. Such a food will carry a statement like: "Brand A is designed to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Food Chemical Profiles for (stated life stages)".

Feeding demos signify that the manufacturer has tested the product by feeding it to dogs or cats under specific guidelines. These products carry a statement such as: inches Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that Brand A provides complete and balanced nutrition for".

The ingredient panels on pet food labels contain a lot of information for pet parents to breakdown, but there's still more to savor, including getting a taste for the terms on the principal display part of those labels. For instance, a pet food can claim to be "light/lite" or "lean" on condition that it meets the AAFCO's standard updates for these terms, which differ for cat and dog food and depend on the dietary moisture content.

"Less calories" and "reduced calories" mean only that the product has fewer calories than another product, and the same is rue "less fat" or "reduced fat. inches Pet food labels are not usually required to provide calorie content.

Some pet parents try to eat an organic diet, and often they want their pets to eat that way, too. Keep in mind, though, that even if a pet food is "natural" or "organic" it usually contains added synthetically-produced vitamins and minerals. To date, there are no studies showing that natural or organic foods provide any health benefits over conventionally manufactured processed cat or dog foods.

More recently, there is a trend for feeding "biologically appropriate raw food" (also known as BARF) and "grain free" pet food.

Barf diets have been reported to have many health benefits over conventionally processed foods, such as being easier for pets to breakdown. While no scientific publications have documented the health benefits of raw diets, they have not been been shown to be detrimental, either. When feeding any raw food, there is always concern about the risk of bacterial infection, such as Salmonella, but of course, conventional pet foods have also been were recalled for contamination.

Proponents of "grain-free" diets claim they have many health benefits for pets, including increased digestibility and decreased allergens. But in fact, dogs and cats easily breakdown carbohydrates from grains or veg sources. Food allergies are often assigned on the grains in the diet, but this is not based on scientific data either, and most food allergies may be due to chemical reactions between the protein and carbohydrate ingredients in a diet.

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