How to Understand Pet Food Labels

Trying to understand the information on pet food labels can be quite

confusing. As a pet owner you want to feed your dog or cat what is the
healthiest for them. As a consumer you need to keep an eye on your
budget. Every time we look at the ingredients panel for dog or cat food
we get thoroughly frustrated and just end up purchasing based on
recommendations and budget.
Finally I decided to do some research myself to learn what it all
means. This paper may be a little in depth but it’s worth it. There is
information in here that most people don’t know.

The Ingredients

All pet foods must list the ingredients present in dog food.
Ingredients are listed in descending order, according to weight. Be
careful of one tactic used by manufacturers to disguise less desirable
ingredients. Breaking an ingredient into several different smaller
ingredients and listing them individually is used to lower these
undesirable ingredients farther down the ingredient list. For example, a
product list could contain chicken, ground corn, corn gluten, ground
wheat, corn bran, wheat flour, wheat middling, etc. If we were to
group all of the corn ingredients as one, they would probably far out-
weigh the amount of chicken, and wheat. As a consumer, you must
read all of the ingredients carefully.
Let’s look at the some of the ingredients on the example panel
below:

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• Ground whole grain corn: Ground whole grain corn is the entire
corn kernel ground or chopped. Since this is the first ingredient
listed then the pet food contains more whole ground corn than
any other ingredient.
• Chicken by-product meal: Chicken or Poultry by-products are
clean parts of slaughtered chicken or poultry such as heads, feet,
and internal organs (like heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, abdomen,
and intestines). It does not contain feathers.
• Animal Fat: Animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form
of Vitamin E) this is fat that was obtained during the rendering
process of mammals or poultry. Note that the animal source is
not specified and is not required to originate from “slaughtered”
animals.

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• Soybean Mill Run: Composed of soybean hulls and soybean
meats that adhere to the hulls which result from normal milling
operations. In other words, leftover soybean parts.
• Flaxseed: Flax seed is the richest plant source of antioxidant
lignans and Omega-3 fatty acids that both help support an active
immune system. The high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids in flax
seed meal also help promote healthy skin and a shiny coat. Flax
seed meal also has a very high level of highly digestible protein
and essential amino acids needed to keep dogs fit and healthy.
In addition, flax seed meal contains high amounts of fiber (aids
in digestion), Vitamin E, Folic Acid, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6
and is extremely high in the minerals Potassium, Calcium and
Phosphorus. This ingredient has many good qualities, but
unfortunately is farther down the list in quantity. Below is a list
of the good fatty acids found in flaxseed oil.
o FATTY ACID COMPOSITION OF FLAXSEED OIL

Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acid………..57%

Omega-6 EFA………………………….16%

Omega-9 EFA………………………….18%

• Chicken Liver Flavor: Just that. Chicken liver flavor.

• Corn Gluten Meal: Corn gluten meal is a by-product of
processing corn to make corn starch and corn syrup and is the
dried residue after the removal of the bran, germ, and starch.
• Dried Egg Product: Dried Egg Product is one of the most
nutritiously beneficial ingredients that can be used in any feed

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 product. It has a digestibility rate of over 98% which is higher
than any other protein used in the Pet Food Industry. Egg has a
good ratio of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids.

Those are the top eight ingredients from this particular food
label. All in all it isn’t the worst thing you can feed your pets. It
could use more meat, but maybe your pets need something more
easily digested instead the larger quantities of meat. That is
something that you will have to weigh against other factors when
you buy.
Other pet foods will have different variations so here is another
quick list of some of them and what they are.

• Meat: Meat is the clean flesh of slaughtered animals (chicken,

cattle, lamb, turkey, etc.). The flesh can include striated skeletal
muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart, esophagus, overlying fat and
the skin, sinew, nerves and blood vessels normally found with
that flesh.
• Meat By-products: Meat by-products are clean parts of
slaughtered animals, not including meat. These include lungs,
spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, and stomach and
intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns,
teeth, or hooves.
• Lamb Meal: Lamb meal is rendered lamb tissue such as skeletal
muscle, some bone and internal organs which have been cooked,
dried and ground.
• Fish Meal: Fish meal is the clean ground tissue of un-
decomposed whole fish or fish cuttings, with or without the oil
extracted.

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 • Beef Tallow: Beef tallow is fat derived from beef.
• Brewers Rice: Brewers rice is the small fragments of rice kernels
that have been separated from larger kernels of milled rice.
• Brown Rice: Brown rice is the unpolished rice left over after the
kernels have been removed.

After all the main ingredients are listed you will have the
various additives at the end of the list that may include vitamins,
supplements, minerals, colorings and preservatives.
The same preservatives are used in food for people and pet
food. They are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration,
are safe and are used in very small quantities. Pet foods contain
preservatives for the same reason food for people does - to keep it
fresh. Preservatives keep food from spoiling. Eating spoiled food
can cause illness in pets just as it can in people.

The Guaranteed Analysis

The guaranteed analysis on the information panel of the dog food label
lists the minimum levels of crude protein and fat ("Crude" refers to a
specific method of measuring the nutrient, and is not an indication of
quality.) and the maximum levels of fiber and water.

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The protein and fat are listed as crude sources and not as digestible
sources. The digestibility of protein and fat can vary widely depending
on their sources. Although not required, some manufacturers also
specify the percentages of other nutrients, such as ash and taurine in
cat food, and calcium and phosphorus in dog food.

The amounts of crude protein and most other nutrients appear less for
canned products than for dry ones because of differences in moisture
content. Canned foods typically contain about 75 percent water, while
dry foods contain only about 10 percent.

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Converting Dry Matter Basis

This can be the tricky part. All pet foods have different levels of
moisture. Canned foods can have up to 80% moisture whereas; some
dry foods can have as little as 6%. This is important for 2 reasons. The
first is that the food is priced by the pound, and when you buy dog
food that is 80% water you get 20% food and the rest is water. So the
amount of food your pet consumes is small and expensive. The other
reason for understanding percent moisture is to help you compare
crude protein and fat between brands and between canned and dry.
The listings on the label are for the food as it is, not as it would be on
a dry matter basis. So without converting both brands of food to a dry

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matter basis you will not be able to compare them accurately.
Fortunately, the conversion is not that complicated. Please refer the
numbers below to the label above.

1. If a dry dog food has 10% moisture we know that it has 90% dry
matter (100-10=90).
2. So we look at the label and check the protein level that reads
16%.
3. Next, we divide the 16 percent protein by the 90% dry matter
and we get 17% (16÷90=17), which is the amount of protein on
a dry matter basis. Does this make sense so far? Good.
4. Now let us compare this to canned food that has 80% moisture.
We know that with 80% moisture we have 20% dry matter (100-
80=20). Let’s assume the label shows 5% protein. So we take
the 5% and divide it by 20% (5÷20=25) and we get 25%
protein on a dry matter basis. So the canned food has more
protein per pound on a dry matter basis after all the water is
taken out.
5. We can do the same for fat, fiber, etc.

Making Sense of 'Light' and 'Lean' in Pet Food

The calorie and fat contents listed below are the maximum limits
allowed in dog and cat food labeled "light" or "lean." These definitions
are established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials
(A.A.F.C.O.) and authorized by the FDA (Food and Drug
Administration). Comparisons between products in different categories
of moisture content are considered misleading.

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 Dry Foods Semi-moist Moist Foods
(Less than 20 Foods (Greater than
percent (20-65 percent 65 percent
water) water) water)
Dogs: 1,409 Dogs: 1,136 Dogs: 409
Light, lite or
calories per calories per calories per
low calorie
pound pound pound
Cats: 1,477 Cats: 1,205 Cats: 432
calories per calories per calories per
pound pound pound
Dogs: 9 Dogs: 7 percent Dogs: 4
Lean or low fat percent fat fat percent fat
Cats: 10 Cats: 8 percent Cats: 5 percent
percent fat fat fat

(Feed ingredients as defined by the FDA) Feed ingredients might

include grains, milling byproducts, added vitamins, minerals, fats/oils,
and other nutritional and energy sources.

Conclusion

It really isn’t all that hard to figure this information out and with
a little bit of attention to detail and armed with the information
presented above you should have no troubled finding the right food for
you and your pet, one that fits into your budget and most importantly
a pet food that your furry friends will love!

www.EVERYDAYEBOOKS.info

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References:

• Palika, L. The Consumer's Guide To Dog Food. Howell Book

House of Simon & Schuster/Macmillan Company. New York, NY;
1996.
• Ralston Purina Company. Nutrition and Management of Dogs and
Cats. St. Louis, MO; 1987.
• Veterinary & Aquatic Services Department, Drs. Foster & Smith,
Inc.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
• PetFoodReport.com

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