Have you ever taken a look at your dogs food ingredients and read a few things you aren’t sure on?
We’re now in a world where dog owners are demanding more transparency with dog food products, however theres still a lot of slightly hazy wording on dog food products which can allow for misinterpretation, and ultimately the mis-selling of products.
In this special 'Turn and Learn' mini series of Hikes and Tails Blogs, we will try and break down the basics of pet food labelling, to help you make better decisions for your dogs health and well-being. Part One will be focusing on different terms when describing animal meats in food and claims a product can make legally.
One of the first things to point out is that your dog food product will not have "Ingredients" stated, instead you will find the ingredients listed under "Composition".
The ingredients will be listed by percentage with the ingredient that has the largest percentage in weight, first. In our case Whole Peanuts make up the largest percentage of HundEnergy Bars and Nutritional Yeast makes up the least.
If your pet food contains "X Meal" Chicken Meal, for example, Chicken Meal is rendered chicken meat that has been dried and ground up, and includes clean flesh, skin, and/or accompanying bone.
Meat meal from chicken could be labelled as 'meat meal', 'chicken meal', 'chicken meat meal', 'dehydrated chicken' or 'dried chicken'.
If the source animal is not specified, the general term 'meat meal' means that it could have come from any species of 'warm-blooded land animal'.
Broad terms like this are often used by dog food manufacturers instead of naming each ingredient either because the recipe regularly changes and/or because naming the ingredients could maybe even put customers off.
Rendering is the process by which meat meal (and many other animal by-products) are created, and can be quite complex.
First the animal raw materials are ground and cooked, usually with steam, for a period of 40 to 90 minutes at temperatures of approximately 115 to 145oC. Moisture is removed and pressure is applied to separate the melted fats from the protein and bone solids.
The cooking kills all micro-organisms and parasites. Following the cooking and fat separation, the mix is further processed by additional moisture removal and grinding to form the powder.
How much the rendering process affects the nutritional quality of meat is a matter of some debate but most nutritionists agree that meat meal is unlikely to be as nutritionally beneficial for dogs as fresh meat ingredients.
A good quality food will list all the ingredients by their specific name, rather than vague descriptions of ingredients such as ‘meat and animal derivatives’.
In the most broad listing is a term used for unspecified parts of an unspecified animal. This enables the manufacturer to change ingredients at any time, and use any combination of meat and animal derivatives whilst maintaining the ingredient list on the packaging.
You may also see ingredients such as 'chicken derivatives' or 'beef derivatives' in which the same rule can be applied but for one type of meat.
The term ‘X flavour’ does not actually need to contain any of the indicated ingredient at all, the taste comes from a flavouring substance (e.g. bacon flavour) which can be produced using a combination of other ingredients.
‘Flavoured with X’ indicates that less than 4 % of ingredient X is present in the product (e.g. flavoured with chicken)
So whilst there are plenty of amazing dog food brands out there, it's important to ensure you are really looking into the ingredients on your dog food label.
The claims made on dog food products could in fact just be part of a marketing strategy or more so for the benefit of the manufacturer, not your dog, so make sure you turn and learn!
HundEnergy Bars are made from just seven ingredients all designed to be beneficial to your dog during or after exercise: Whole Peanuts 35.9%, Dried Apricots 26.9%, Chicory Root Fibre (Inulin) 26.9%, Gluten Free Oats 8.98%, Flaxseed 0.9%, Nutritional Yeast 0.36%.
For further information on the nutritional benefits of HundEnergy Bars, head to our the Nutrition and Ingredients page on our website.
For full reference to the European Pet Food Industry (FEDIAF) Nutritional Guidelines to Complete and Complementary Pet Food, you can download a free copy here