The Importance of Understanding the Ingredients in Dog Food

Many people who learn about the ingredients found in processed dog food brands have changed to feeding their dogs a healthy home-made diet. By providing their dogs with quality food, they can offer their pets a longer and healthier life. Their reason for doing so is very simple.

You might know that the dog food ingredients are listed in descending order of the amount of each ingredient. The meat contained in dog food refers to only cows, goats, sheep and pigs, and includes only muscle tissue that is specified. Most of us know that dog food is made up of animal byproducts. When cattle, chickens, lambs, pigs or other animals are slaughtered, the lean muscle tissue is trimmed away from the carcass of each animal for human consumption. About fifty percent of the animal does not get used in food for humans. The remains of the carcasses include heads, feet, bones, lungs, spleens, livers, intestines, ligaments, fat trimmings, unborn babies and other parts. These remains are used in pet food, animal feed, fertilizer, soap, rubber, industrial lubricants, and other products.

The nutritional quality of by-products can vary from batch to batch. Years ago even road kill was used in pet food. Road kill is not commonly used in dog food today, even though there are still no laws or regulations against it. On the other hand, animals that are dead, dying, diseased or disabled, sometimes referred to as “4D,” were only recently banned for human consumption, but are still legitimate ingredients in dog food.

It might surprise you to lean that the grains and vegetable products used in dog food are not any better than the meats used. The amount of plant products used in commercial dog foods has increased dramatically over time and now replaces a large percentage of the meat that was formerly used. This change led to serious nutritional deficiencies, but that has been corrected along the way.

Most dry dog foods contain a large amount of cereal grain or starchy vegetables in order to give texture to the food. The high-carbohydrate plant products provide a cheap source of energy in the form of calories. High-protein extracts removed from carbohydrates, known as gluten meals, are often used to increase protein percentages without using expensive animal-source ingredients. The most commonly used plant product for this purpose is corn gluten meal. Wheat gluten is used to create shapes in the food, such as cuts, chunks, shreds, bites, flakes and slices, and as a thickener for gravy. Dog foods that contain vegetable proteins are among the poorer quality foods in most cases.

Low-carb dog food that substitutes potatoes, green peas and other starchy vegetables for grains offers little or no advantage to pets. Except for dogs that are allergic to grains, feeding your dog a dry low-carb diet tends to be very high in fat and could result in weight gain. In addition to lacking in nutrients, dog food is also saturated with preservatives and additives. Since dry dog foods need to have a long shelf life to remain edible through shipping and storage, manufacturers spray fats that are preserved with either natural or synthetic preservatives on the dog foods to make them more appealing.

Once dog owners discover how commercial dog foods are manufactured, it is easy to understand why so many pet owners are changing to feeding their dogs home-made fresh meals.

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