The pitfalls of labels and ingredients |
To feed an animal well means:
- Paying attention to nutrients (proteins, minerals, vitamins, lipids, carbohydrates), balancing proportions and using a diversity of sources
- Leaving aside the concept of names and ingredients (“with chicken”, “with chicory”, “with lamb”, “with salmon” and so on).
The quality of a balanced food is dependent on the proportion, quantity, quality and variety of origin in the life sustaining nutrients it contains and that are adapted specifically to cats and dogs. For instance “standard” foods usually contain about 15 nutrients, while a “premium” or “nutritional” food is formulated with about 50 nutrients.
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How can a food containing « 25 per cent fresh meat » only offer a protein content of around four or five per cent ? |
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By law, food manufacturers are required to list ingredients by weight in descending order before cooking. Thus fresh meat or other water-rich ingredients may be at the top of the list leading to the belief that they represent the main nutritional ingredient.
But if, for example the food contained 25 per cent lamb, of which 75 per cent is water, after cooking the percentage of lamb protein falls to just four to five per cent. The same food probably also contains 20% corn, 20% rice, 15% dried fish, 10% poultry fat and 10% vegetable oil. The manufacturer is allowed to write « Lamb » in big letters as the major ingredient ; but in fact, the food will only contain about 4 to 5% lamb protein, and cereals will be the highest volume ingredients in terms of quantity in the end product.
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How can the same food have three different names ? |
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Thanks to the law, a food can be formulated with, for instance, 4% chicken, 4% lamb and 4% beef, along with other ingredients, and then packaged with three different labels : « with beef », « with lamb » or « with chicken ». And you’ll always find someone to swear that their animal prefers the lamb, although it is in fact exactly the same as the chicken!!!! |
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