The #1 Thing You Can Do For Your Pet’s Health: Learn to Read a Pet Food Label

While attractive packaging and seals of approval on the front of a bag or can of pet food are what attract most people, the real information you need is found on the back… on the nutrition label. As a savvy pet parent, you also need to be aware of what’s NOT listed on the label. But let’s start with the label itself. If you pick up any bag or can of pet food, you should see two key things:

1 The ingredients list 
2 The guaranteed analysis

1 An ingredient list is required to display all ingredients in decreasing amounts (by weight) used in the product. The biggest contributors are first on the list and the smallest are last. While you’re reading the ingredients list, pay most attention to the first 10 ingredients. These are the major ingredients that make up the bulk of the food. The very first ingredient you want to see is a specific named source of meat (beef, lamb, chicken, etc.) – especially for cats.

Other Things to Pay Attention  to in the Ingredients List Are:

Ø Do you see mostly real food names that you recognize? (i.e. pork, pumpkin, rice, barley)

Ø Are corn, wheat, soy, white potato, powdered cellulose, or their byproducts listed in the first few ingredients? These are common allergens. Grains such as oats, barley, quinoa, and millet are much better options.

Ø Does the food contain fresh sources of fruits and vegetables? Bonus points if they’re organic.

Ø Are there a lot of chemical names listed? BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin, Glycerol Monostearate, and Propylene Glycol are chemical preservatives that are toxic to pets, but are often added to pet foods.

Ø Be aware of vegetables and grains being used as a source of protein. The majority of the protein in the food should come from real meat sources, not peas, soy, corn, gluten, or grains.

Ø Avoid foods that use byproducts such as “chicken byproduct meal,” or “beef byproduct meal.”

Ø If you can, it’s best to stay away from protein “meals” in general. If you’re purchasing a product that contains “meal,” it’s better for it to specify the animal (i.e. “lamb meal”) than for the more generic “meat meal” or “poultry meal.”

Ø Stay away from foods with MSG, artificial colors, and added sugars such as high fructose corn syrup. These ingredients aren’t healthy for your precious pet… or you.

2 The guaranteed analysis section of the label lists by percentage the breakdown of the food. You’ll almost always see a percentage for protein, fat, fiber, and moisture. Other things will also often be listed such as ash and different nutrients.

How Many Carbs is Your Pet Consuming?

What you usually won’t find in the guaranteed analysis is the percentage of carbohydrates. This is a critical number that you can roughly gauge by subtracting the percentages of protein, fat, moisture, crude fiber (an indigestible part of carbohydrates), and ash listed on the label from 100. The number you have left over will be a rough estimate of the percentage of carbs the food contains. Why does knowing the percentage of carbs in your cat or dog’s food matter? Because in the wild, dogs and cats naturally consume very few carbohydrates. Feeding them high-carb foods is a surefire recipe for chronic health problems to develop.

An Uncomfortable Truth About Pet Foods 

There’s an ingredient in pet food that sounds innocent, but has a dark side that most consumers aren’t aware of. According to the National Renderers Association, “Rendered protein meals such as meat and bone meal, poultry byproduct meal, and fish meal are almost universally used in pet foods.” Rendering is basically a process where a whole lot of animal parts that can’t be used for human food are thrown into large vats and cooked into a “sludge” that is then sold to pet food companies and used to make pet food. Included in this sludge can be road kill and euthanized animals (including cats & dogs!). While you as a loving pet parent may find this disturbing, it’s not illegal. Look at how the FDA defines “rendered animal feed ingredients”: “Rendering of poultry and other animal tissues has been practiced for over a hundred years as a means of salvaging valuable protein and fat content from otherwise waste material. For many years end products from rendering have been used to feed animals. The rendering industry utilizes packinghouse offal, meat processing waste, restaurant waste and animal tissues from other sources including animals that have died otherwise than by slaughter.”