One of the most important parts of feeding your dog or cat a healthy and nutritious diet is understanding what is in the foods you feed. Dr. Elizabette Cohen, a highly-regarded veterinarian in New York, and author of Most Of My Patients Wear Fur: Tales of Small Animals And Their Big City Vet has detailed the important aspects of a pet food label:
The pet food industry is regulated by AAFCO (the Association of American Feed Control), the FDA/CVM (Food and Drug Administration/Center for Veterinary Medicine), the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). The list of ingredients states all of the items that are contained in the food from the highest quantity listed first to the least listed last. The first ingredient is the most important one because this is what the food has most of. If the first ingredient is water, skip over to the second ingredient. It should be a good quality protein like found in all of the Evanger’s varieties. If a meat is listed then it is a muscle meat like chicken, turkey, beef, lamb or fish, the best quality proteins.
The biological
value of a protein determines how well the body can use it. The better the body can use a protein, the higher the biological value it will have. Protein eaten provides the body nitrogen and amino acids, the building blocks. There are 9 essential amino acids that the body cannot make itself and therefore, must be provided for in the diet. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy all have a high biological score. For example, eggs have a biological value of 100; beef has a biological value of 80. As far as the vegetarian diet goes, the combination of legumes and grains provide complementary proteins. In other words, separately, these ingredients may not score high because separately, each is missing an essential amino acid (legumes are missing methionine while grains are missing lysine) but together they complement each other with the end result of a good quality, high biological value protein source.
The pet food industry is regulated by AAFCO (the Association of American Feed Control), the FDA/CVM (Food and Drug Administration/Center for Veterinary Medicine), the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). The list of ingredients states all of the items that are contained in the food from the highest quantity listed first to the least listed last. The first ingredient is the most important one because this is what the food has most of. If the first ingredient is water, skip over to the second ingredient. It should be a good quality protein like found in all of the Evanger’s varieties. If a meat is listed then it is a muscle meat like chicken, turkey, beef, lamb or fish, the best quality proteins.
The biological
value of a protein determines how well the body can use it. The better the body can use a protein, the higher the biological value it will have. Protein eaten provides the body nitrogen and amino acids, the building blocks. There are 9 essential amino acids that the body cannot make itself and therefore, must be provided for in the diet. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy all have a high biological score. For example, eggs have a biological value of 100; beef has a biological value of 80. As far as the vegetarian diet goes, the combination of legumes and grains provide complementary proteins. In other words, separately, these ingredients may not score high because separately, each is missing an essential amino acid (legumes are missing methionine while grains are missing lysine) but together they complement each other with the end result of a good quality, high biological value protein source.
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