What ingredients make up your pet food?
Walking around a store to find good food for your pet then you saw: Tuna Cat Food, Tuna Dinner For Cats, Cat Food with Tuna and Tuna Flavor Cat Food, which one will you get? Here are keywords you should look for when you buy pet food: “dinner”, “with”, and “flavor”.
If a food label is named after a particular type of meat, it means that the food must contain at least 95% of that named meat. For example, Tuna Cat Food must contain at least 95% of tuna by food weight. If a food label is named Chicken and Salmon Dog Food, it must contain at least 95% of chicken and salmon combined and chicken must be the main ingredient. If somehow the food contains more salmon than chicken then the food must be called Salmon and Chicken Dog food.
Next, we have “Dinner”. If a food label is called Tuna Dinner, it must contain at least 25% of tuna. By AAFCO's rules, the word Dinner can be used only when pet food contains at least 25% of the named meat. So the number is getting smaller and smaller. Under the same set of rules, a label like Cat Food with Tuna means that the food must contain at least 3% of Tuna by weight. If the meat does not meet 3% of food weight, the food can't use “with (meat)” as its label.
The last one is “Flavor”. AAFCO only requires just enough flavor of that named meat to be able to use the word Flavor on the label. If you have Chicken Flavor Dog Food, it doesn't means that the food contains chicken meat in it. Chicken flavor can come from chicken-by-product or chicken digest as long as the food tastes like chicken.
These naming conventions are applied to both cat and dog food, no matter if it's in a can or kibbles form. Now you know the secret. Next time when you buy pet food, look for these words to get the best for your pet.
Article provided by Krazy For Pets Newsletter. Thank You!
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