In this example of our education on kibble feeding is a lamb recipe kibble, but there is a little information regarding the label that you might find interesting upon further inspection.
There are four types of approved percentages of dog food. 100, 95, 25 and 3 percent protein source.
Most commercial dog foods are classified under the 25 percent protein rule. There is a dirty little secret though behind the 25 percent dog food out there.
In this example we are going to look at a Lamb Recipe from a well known dog food brand. If you feed kibble, this will most likely look like the back of your food bag.
I’m only going to focus on the proteins listed - deboned lamb and turkey meal. From the name of the dog food recipe “Lamb” you would assume that the main protein is lamb. However, when dog food is being made, the turkey meal in this instance, is already dry when added to the recipe, whereas the deboned lamb is whole meat and contains 70% moisture. What this means is when the formula is processed, the 70% moisture from the lamb is taken out, so in reality there is more turkey in your “Lamb Recipe” than lamb.
As an example and purely hypothetical let’s say the lamb is 60% of the recipe, and the turkey meal is 30% of the recipe. Once the processing is completed and all the moisture is removed for the dry kibble, you will end up with 18% lamb, and 30% turkey meal.
Brands are allowed to call this dog food ‘Lamb Recipe’ because the lamb with moisture is 25% of the recipe. Now you know what to look for when selecting a kibble for your dog that might have poultry or beef allergies.
What's in your dog's kibble? What other products does your pet consume or use that might be misleading?
