Understanding ingredients (to a point) is the most critical step to evaluating a food. Until you have a better understanding of what is in the bag, confusion will reign.
The obvious place to start is by reading the ingredient label. Unfortunately, this is not always the easiest thing to do, unless you are armed with some knowledge of some “tricks of the trade”. These tricks can make a low quality food appear to be of much higher quality.
One limitation of just reading ingredients, is that you have no way of determining the quality of the ingredients used. You do not know the source, or how they were handled. Understanding a few other ingredient related tips will help overcome this limitation.
Pet Food Ingredient Order
The first 5 ingredients listed on the label give you your first indication of the quality of a dog food. By law, dog food ingredients must be listed in order of “predominance of weight”.
This means that the heavier (or larger volume) ingredients, must be listed first. This is important, since it can help show how a particular ingredient in the food compares to another in terms of weight. More volume, or more weight, of an ingredient, means more of it is contained in the food.
Seems pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? But it is not.
A common practice used by most dog food manufacturers makes it a bit more challenging to evaluate ingredients or quality this way. This practice is called “splitting“. Understanding splitting will help you truly see what you’re feeding.
What is that doing in my pet’s food?
As you get further into the list of ingredients, you’re bound to start to run into a litany of unfamiliar and unpronounceable words. In most cases, these will represent vitamins and minerals.
In some cases, they may be nasty things that you should recognize and avoid.
We’ve put together a listing of some common ingredients that you’ll most likely come across in foods. Knowing what’s what will go along way to helping you make your evaluation of pet food quality.