When buying dog food, the first thing you see on the label is the name of the food. For example, the food may be called something like “Gourmet Beef Dinner”, but did you know that if it is labeled “Gourmet Beef Dinner”, it can legally contain 70% fish? That’s right. I’m not kidding. Dog food called “Gourmet Beef Dinner” can legally contain more fish than beef. It can also legally contain road killings, euthanized dogs and cats, zoo animals, cancerous tumors, and diseased chickens. Depending on the particular batch of food it came from, “Gourmet Beef Dinner” could contain a healthy dose of dead zoo giraffe that died from mysterious causes, run over skunk (fur and all), or various types of sick birds (feathers and all) .
The way dog food labels are read is actually very complicated and difficult for consumers to interpret. It is extremely difficult to understand what is really happening. This is absolutely intentional and pet food companies pay lobbies a lot of money to keep it up. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does establish some federal regulations (compliance is another ball of worms), in general, the pet food industry is fed through the Association of American Pet Control Officials. Food (AAFCO). This is like the fox that guards the chicken coop.
To give you an idea of how dirty they play, I am going to describe the “rules” they follow for the basic name of dog food. The name of the product is, of course, one of the most important factors consumers use in deciding which dog food to buy. I think this will illustrate how complicated this business really is and how most consumers really have no idea what they are actually giving to their pets. If they did, I don’t think they would actually feed their beloved dogs the vast majority of commercial canine foods out there.
95% rule
The 95% rule applies to dog foods where the main ingredients are derived from mammals, birds, and fish. It almost always applies to canned dog food and not dry dog food. Include names like:
Dog meat
Chicken canine food
Dog food with chicken and tuna
In these examples, at least 95% of the product must be the product (s) listed in the name, not including water. If you exclude water, it must contain at least 70% of the indicated product. So, for example, “Beef For Dogs” must include at least 95% beef, excluding water content. The “chicken and tuna dog food” must include at least 95% chicken and tuna and there must be more chicken than tuna by weight. Very few dog foods will fall into this category because it is more expensive to make, so let’s move on.
25% rule (also known as the “dinner rule”)
If the ingredients listed in the product name represent less than 95% of the total product, excluding water, and more than 25%, excluding water, then the listed ingredients must have a “qualifying descriptive term” such as dinner, main dish or formula. If you count water, the listed ingredients must make up at least 10% of the total product. Here are some examples:
Meat dinner
Meat entrance
Beef Formula
Meat platter
Meat nuggets
Meat recipe
Chicken and fish formula
Meat and rice starter
The truth is that a can of dog food that contains beef can also contain dozens of other types of animals. In fact, a product for your dog that includes “beef” in the name with a descriptive descriptive term may have MORE of another type of animal and / or a vegetarian source than beef. So the “meat dinner” could very well be more chicken than meat or, if you get the right batch, more roadkill than meat or more corn than meat. In other words, if they add the qualifying descriptive term, the main ingredient does not have to be the one in the product name. Each ingredient listed must constitute at least 3% of the total product. Therefore, the “Chicken and Fish Formula” must have at least 25% chicken and fish combined and at least 3% fish. Here’s another trick. They can also add a cheaper plant-based ingredient to lower your cost. So “Meat and Rice Starter” can contain only 13% beef and 12% rice for a total of 25% beef and rice combined.
3% rule (also known as “with rule”)
Now it gets really complicated. You should be aware of the word “with” in the product name because it is generally designed to mislead you into believing that the majority of the product is a certain ingredient, where it is actually only a very small portion of the product, that is, just the 3% of the total product. Consider the following name:
Dog food with veal
Hungry meal with meat
Stew With Beef
The two examples above only need to contain 3% beef to be legal. Of course, these names can easily be confused with foods that contain a much higher percentage of beef such as:
Dog food with meat
Beef chow
Beef stew
The taste rule
According to the “taste rule”, a specific percentage is not required. The FDA simply states that the food must contain “a sufficient quantity to be detectable” and “impart a distinctive characteristic.”
Therefore, a food called “Chicken Flavored Dog Food” does not even have to be 3% chicken as long as the word “flavor” is included in the name and the font size is as large as the rest of the product name. A dog food company could just add a bit of chicken “digestion” to give it a chicken flavor and call it that.