If a bag of dog food lists beef as the first ingredient, it should be a pretty good choice, right?
Wrong. While the food might actually contain beef, when the rest of the ingredients are combined they far outweigh the beef. Your dog ends up consuming a diet of mostly grain fillers!
Not only do commercial dog foods consist of such high quantity fillers, but the ingredients labeled as meat might not be what a pet owner expects to find in their dog’s food, either.
All dog food manufacturers are required to display their list of ingredients on the label of the pet food. Ingredients must be listed in descending order based on weight.
EVO Vension Canned Dog Food
For example, EVO’s 95% Venison, canned, contains the following ingredients:
Venison, venison broth, natural flavors, carrageenan, potassium chloride, minerals, guar gum, vitamins, choline, chloride, herring oil, salt, sodium ascorbate, taurine, sunflower oil, sodium phosphate, and beta carotene.
According to the label, EVO’s product contains more venison and venison broth by weight than any other ingredient.
But how do you determine just what the ingredients listed actually are?
The pet food industry—an offshoot of the Food and Agricultural industries—often uses parts of animals that are left over from the processing of foods intended for human consumption.
Another trick that is of the pet food industry is the separating of ingredients into differently named products, especially empty fillers. Corn, for example, may be listed as three separate ingredients, such as corn gluten, corn meal, and corn hulls. This gives the impression that these three types of corn contribute less to the total weight of the pet food than they actually do. When these three same ingredients are combined, they make up the majority of the pet food—far outweighing the earlier listed ingredients!
When reading a pet food label, there are certain things to keep in mind:
- By-product refers to parts of an animal that we definitely wouldn’t eat, such as heads, viscera (organs and intestines), and feet.
- Hulls refer to the empty casings of such products as peanuts, wheat, and corn. They provide absolutely no nutritional value and are only present to act as a filler.
- Salts while some salt is necessary, a high quantity is often added to lower quality dog foods to help entice a dog to eat something he normally wouldn’t touch.
- Sugars Sugars are often found in dog foods to sweeten the taste, making the dog more likely to overeat. Some dog foods contain up to 15% sugars and sweeteners!
- ‘Grain’ glutens, meals, husks, are nothing more than fillers and often result in skin allergies and other conditions.
With such a list of what to avoid, what should a conscientious pet owner look for?
Keep an eye out for ingredient lists with words such as ‘chicken meal’ (or any other recognizable meat meal) near the beginning of the list. “Meal” refers to rendered (processed for preparation, often by the removal of water content) meats, resulting in a heavy, nutrient-filled powder. Look for ingredients after the ‘meal’ that you recognize.
Innova Adult Dog Food
Innova’s Adult dog food contains ingredients that you’d find in your own cabinets—turkey, chicken, potatoes, rice, apples, carrots, cottage cheese, and eggs.
When reading a pet food label, there is one quick and easy guideline—If you don’t recognize what’s in it, you shouldn’t buy it!
Today we are inundated with so many difficult choices, what to feed our best furry friends should be one of them! Read carefully and know what exactly is going into your dog. Its all right there on the label.
:: 
:: 
:: 
Filed under: Articles
