To best evaluate the ingredients listed in the dog food panel on the label, you need to ask three questions:
What? Where? How Many?
What?
How pure (less processed) is the ingredient.
- Look for named species meats, fats or meals (i.e.,
chicken, turkey, salmon, chicken meal, etc.).
- Try to avoid un-named species meats, fats or meals
(i.e., meat and bone meal, poultry fat, fish meal, etc.)
- Look for whole complex carbohydrates verses
grain fractions (Brown Rice, Barley, etc., instead of
brewer’s rice, ground corn, etc.)
- Avoid grains often associated with dog allergies such
as corn, wheat and soy
Where?
How close to the top of the ingredient list does this
ingredient appear.
- To be a meat based product, the meats MUST be the
first ingredients in the diet. An example ingredient
panel list would be: Turkey, Chicken, Chicken Meal,
Pearled Barley, Oatmeal, etc.
- Ingredients are listed in order of their weight.
The farther down the list, the smaller the percent of
ingredients.
How Many?
Count the number of similar ingredients on the list.
- Look for several grains or other carbohydrates
listed after one or two protein sources. Even though
the first ingredients listed are proteins, several
carbohydrates can reduce the overall percentage of
meat in the food.
- To truly be a meat based diet, the first three out of
five ingredients should be meats. The exceptions
to this would be single source protein diets or
limited ingredient diets.