Interpreting the guaranteed analysis on your pet food label will reveal exactly what you’re feeding your mascot. A general rule of thumb people use is to look for certain percentages they think are appropriate for protein, fat, and fiber content. What they don’t ask themselves is: What ingredients are companies using to come up with these percentages?

This criteria is definitely not the best to make the decision to buy healthy dog food. The reason is that it’s not uncommon for companies to use cheap ingredients to fabricate the desired analysis. For example, common unhealthy protein sources in cheap commercial dog food are grains (wheat, soy or corn). Dogs are not able to digest them, and they provide very little or no nutritional value to them. They are basically just fillers used to reach the amount stated on the protein percentage.

But they also use meat for protein, right? That’s correct, but the quality of the meat is the main factor to observe. Companies will use meat, that doesn’t meet the standards for human consumption. Things like chicken heads, intestines, and other low quality ingredients that, again, provide no nutritional value. This is why dog food allergies are commonly associated with cheap dog foods.

So what criteria should you use to purchase dog food? The following points might help with that:

1. Where has this dog food been processed? the best answer is that the facility is USDA certified
2. What’s the quality of the ingredients? if they come from roadkill or animals that have died from disease then it’s no good
3. How old is it? Companies will often store their product for months in warehouses, and to make them last they use chemical preservatives that are known to cause cancer such as BHA and BHT.
4. Is there someone I can talk to that can answer these questions? Is it a company you can call and have them explain what process they used?

In short, looking at a dog food guaranteed analysis does not show us the quality of the ingredients used. It only tells us that is has protein or fat, but it might as well come from motor oil, and you wouldn’t know from reading the label. You want to avoid ingredients such as grains used as fillers, by-products (chicken heads,  fish heads, intestines), and chemical preservatives (BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin), and make an effort to look for a more nutritious option for your dog.