AAFCO stands for the Association Of American Feed Control Officials. This association is responsible for setting the standards and guidelines for the commercial production of pet foods. AAFCO tests the ingredients used and applies a minimum nutritional value that pet food manufacturers must follow. Having this minimum value however, allows for much interpretations to the standards, making the quality of the food produced less than desirable. The AAFCO stamp of approval on a label of dog food just means that the food meets minimum requirements.
There is much information found on a dog food label. Much of which is difficult to understand. So how are we to know what we are actually buying? How can we tell what is the best dog food and what is a poor quality product. In order to tell the difference we must learn how to correctly read what we are being told on the label.
Because of the constant exposure to the marketing tactics of pet food manufacturers, many of us have are loyal to a certain dog food brand or product name. We have been led to believe that this brand has high quality food products. The first rule to remember when reading a label is that if the product label mentions an ingredient such as “beef chow” for example, then that product must contain 95% of that ingredient by weight if the product is a dry product and 70% if it is a wet or canned product. If the label includes words such as “dinner” or “formula” then only 25% of that ingredient is required.
Pet food labels list their ingredients by weight. Ingredients weighing the most are listed first. Taking the above example into consideration, a “dinner” labeled product will only contain 1/4 of the mentioned product. So even though the ingredient is part of the labeled product name it is not necessarily the main ingredient. Corn or bone meal is more than likely the main ingredient. Both these ingredients can be found in cheap discounted or generic brands.
Most often times the main ingredient is never mentioned in the product name. We will see words like flavored like in “beef flavored.” Products using this type of labeling are not required to have a certain percentage of the mentioned ingredient. Premium is another word we see on labels. Manufacturers of premium dog food maintain a strict following to the AAFCO standards and are products that we can rely on being nutritious. “Natural” is another word used on labels. It just means that this product contains no preservatives or artificial ingredients.
A sure fire way to find the best dog food products when reading the list of ingredients is to find the first fat ingredient such as “chicken fat.” All the ingredients before the fat source are the main part of that food product. The fewer the ingredients the better. All the other items on the list are used for flavoring or preserving the product. By finding where the fat source is listed we can then find ingredients that maybe harmful to our dogs such as corn gluten.
Because of busy schedules many of us have to feed our dogs commercial brands. By just taking a little extra time we can prevent exposing our animals to poor quality foods. If we read an ingredient that we are unfamiliar with or that we would not eat ourselves, then why would we think of feeding it to our dogs. Lets be more careful when reading those dog food labels.
As dog owners we are totally in control when it comes to caring for our dogs. Knowing what the best dog food is, what are the right dog food ingredients and what they provide can sometimes be overwhelming. Learn more about commercial and homemade by visiting www.onlinedogfoodrecipes.com.