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All Natural Dog Food
Commercial
dog
food is a great convenience for busy
caregivers. You want the best for your companion
animals, but with a bewildering array of foods and claims to choose from,
how do you decide what’s best for your animals?
Standards For Dog Food Ingredients
The dog food industry is huge and extremely profitable ($25 billion a year
in revenue worldwide). While manufacturers may appear to have the best
interests of your companion animals at heart, they are generally more
concerned about their
stock
prices and bottom lines. This may be especially true of
dog food manufacturers owned by large, diverse, multinational parent
companies. What this means to you is that if an inexpensive ingredient is
available to replace a costlier one, many companies will make the
substitution to save money. A few companies pride themselves on their
“fixed formulas,” meaning that they always use the same ingredients. This
may be good ... if the ingredients are of acceptable quality to begin
with.
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Healthy Dog Food System
Dog food may be labeled as “complete and balanced” if it meets the
standards set by a group called AAFCO, the Association of American Feed
Control Officials. These standards were formulated in the early 1990s by
panels of canine and
feline nutrition experts. A food may be certified in two
ways: (1) by meeting AAFCO’s published standards for content (“Nutrient
Profiles”), or (2) by passing feeding tests or trials. While most
researchers agree that feeding tests are superior in assessing the
nutritional adequacy of a food, clinical experience as
well as scientific studies have confirmed that even foods that pass
feeding trials may still be inadequate for long-term maintenance. Also
keep in mind that the standards set only “minimums” and “maximums,” not
“optimums.” Commercial foods are designed to be adequate for the average
animal, but not all foods will be suitable for an individual animal’s
variable needs.
Dog Food Problems
Commercial dog foods and some dog food ingredients have been implicated in
a number of diseases in
companion animals.
Allergic skin disease, obesity, food intolerance,
inflammatory bowel disease, chronic ear infections, cystitis (bladder
inflammation), bladder and
kidney
stones, certain heart diseases, pancreatitis, feline
hyperthyroidism, hip dysplasia, canine mammary cancer, bloat, and diabetes
all have nutritional components — that is, nutritional factors are
suspected or known to play a role in inducing or perpetuating these
diseases. Thus, it is crucial that we, as caregivers, pay close attention
to what we are feeding our animals and how they are reacting to the food.
One potential problem with commercial dog food is pesticide residues,
antibiotics, and molds contained in dog food ingredients. Meat from sick
animals may be loaded with drugs, some of which are known to pass
unchanged through all the processing done to create a finished dog food
(such as
penicillin and pentobarbital). Between 1995 and 1999,
there were two major recalls of dry dog food by different manufacturers
due to mold contamination of grain ingredients. Some fungal toxins are
very dangerous. The second recalled food killed more than 20 dogs.
Another problem is the unpredictable quality of common dog food
ingredients. By-products, by-product meal, meat and bone meal, and similar
ingredients can vary widely in their nutrient composition. Bone meals in
the U.S. have had a lead contamination problem for many years. The protein
in a meal containing a large amount of bone may be poorly digestible and
fail to provide adequate nutrition, even though chemical analysis will
reveal an acceptable amount of
amino
acids.
One of the biggest problems with commercial foods is the processing they
undergo. Meals are rendered (cooked) at moderate to high temperatures for
hours. Extruded foods pass through a steam heat/high pressure device that
allows them to “puff” into kibble shapes when they come out of the
machine. Even though they move through the extruder quickly, the extreme
conditions may alter or damage some nutrients.
Dog food manufacturers are aware of these factors, and most add sufficient
extra
vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to compensate for
losses in the manufacturing process. However, because the AAFCO profiles
set only minimums for many nutrients, tests have shown that some minerals
may be added to the food in excessive amounts.
Dog Food Label "Rules"
- The 95% Rule: If the product says “Salmon Cat Food” or “Beef Dog
Food,” 95% of the product must be the named ingredients. A product with
a combination label, such as “Beef and Liver for Dogs,” must contain 95%
beef and
liver, and there must be more beef than liver, since
beef is named first.
- The 25% or “Dinner” Rule: Ingredients named on the label must
comprise at least 25% of the product but less than 95%, when there is a
qualifying “descriptor” term like “dinner,” “entree,” “formula,”
“platter,” “nuggets,” etc. In “Beef Dinner for Dogs,” beef may or may
not be the primary ingredient. If two ingredients are named (“Beef and
Turkey Dinner for Dogs”), the two ingredients must total 25%, there must
be more of the first ingredient (beef) than the second (turkey), and
there must be at least 3% of the lesser ingredient.
- The 3% or “With” Rule: A product may be labeled “Cat Food with
Salmon” if it contains at least 3% of the named ingredient.
The “Flavor” Rule: A food may be labeled “Turkey Flavor Cat Food” even
if the food does not contain such ingredients, as long as there is a
“sufficiently detectable” amount of flavor. This may be derived from
meals, by-products, or “digests” of various parts from the animal
species indicated on the label. Source: Animal Protection Institute
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