Choosing a premium dog food or cat food is not an easy task.  Without lengthy details, here is the best advice I can give you to find the right dog food or cat food for your pet.

Pay no attention to the front of the bag or can, the words there are mainly marketing or advertising claims that may or may not be truthful.  Pet food regulations allow “unqualified claims, either directly or indirectly” on pet food labels.  Thus, statements like ‘Premium’, ‘Natural’, and ‘Choice’ may be unqualified or untrue.  Go directly to the ingredient list to begin your review.

Ingredients are listed on a pet food in order of pre-cooking weight, heaviest to lightest.  Thus, the first five or so ingredients, by weight, make up the majority of the food.  Always read those first five ingredients.  The following list are some the most popular ingredients found within the first five along with the AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials) definitions.

Chicken (or other poultry): is the clean combination of flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of poultry or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails.
 
Good ingredient(s) to see within first five ingredients.  Must call manufacturer to discover grade or quality of meat; human grade meats are optimal.  Any meat contains high amounts of moisture; thus, chicken or other poultry listed high on the ingredient list includes the high amount of moisture which is basically useless nutrition.  This is not a bad thing, it just needs to be noted that a significant portion of this ingredient provides no nutrient value to your pet. 

Meat (example beef, venison, lamb): is the clean flesh derived from slaughtered mammals and is limited to that part of the striate muscle which is skeletal or that which is found in the tongue, in the diaphragm, in the heart, or in the esophagus; with or without the accompanying and overlying fat and the portions of the skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the flesh.

Good ingredient(s) to see within first five ingredients.  Must call manufacturer to discover grade or quality of meat; human grade meats are optimal.  Any meat contains high amounts of moisture; thus, beef, venison, lamb listed high on the ingredient list includes the high amount of moisture which is basically useless nutrition.  This is not a bad thing, it just needs to be noted that a significant portion of this ingredient provides no nutrient value to your pet. 

Chicken Meal (or other poultry meal): is the dry rendered product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts of whole carcasses of poultry or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet, and entrails.

Good ingredient to see within the first five ingredients.  Chicken Meal (or other poultry meal) differs from chicken or poultry in that the moisture is removed prior to manufacturing the pet food.  The weight of the ingredient is all animal protein, not added moisture.  Thus, this ingredient can provide more animal protein to your pet by weight compared to chicken or poultry.  Must call the pet food manufacturer to discover grade or quality of meat; human grade meats are optimal.  As well, it is suggested to ask the pet food manufacturer if the chicken meal or poultry meal contains muscle meat only (optimal) or includes bones and internal organs.
 
Meat Meal (example beef meal, venison meal, lamb meal): is the rendered product from mammal tissues, exclusive of any added blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices.
 
Good ingredient to see within the first five ingredients.  Meat Meal (example beef meal, venison meal, lamb meal) differs from beef, venison, lamb in that the moisture is removed prior to manufacturing the pet food.  The weight of the ingredient is all animal protein, not added moisture.  Thus, this ingredient can provide more animal protein to your pet by weight compared to beef, venison or lamb.  Must call the pet food manufacturer to discover grade or quality of meat; human grade meats are optimal.  As well, it is suggested to ask the pet food manufacturer if the beef, venison, or lamb meal contains muscle meat only (optimal) or includes bones and internal organs. 

Chicken By-Products (or other poultry by-products): Must consist of non-rendered clean parts of the carcasses of slaughtered poultry such as heads, feet, viscera, free from fecal content and foreign matter except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice.

This is a less than optimal ingredient to see anywhere in the list, especially within the first five ingredients.  Chicken by-product and/or poultry by products are basically left over bits and pieces of slaughtered animals not used or unfit for human consumption.  There is little consistency to this ingredient as well; one batch of food might contain more internal organs, the next batch might contain more chicken feet.  The pet owner has no guarantee to consistency.  While some pet food manufacturers claim their by-products are ‘human grade’, by definition this ingredient is not human grade.  Although this ingredient analyses as protein, this ingredient is not, by definition, meat.
 
Meat By-Products (example beef by-products, venison by-products, lamb by-products): is the non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals.  It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents.  It does not include hair, horns, teeth and hoofs.

This is a less than optimal ingredient to see anywhere in the list, especially within the first five ingredients.  Beef by-products, venison by-products, and/or lamb by-products are basically left over bits and pieces of slaughtered animals not used or unfit for human consumption.  The pet owner has no guarantee to consistency with this ingredient.  While some pet food manufacturers claim their by-products are ‘human grade’, by definition this ingredient is not human grade.  Although this ingredient analyses as protein, this ingredient is not, by definition, meat.

Chicken By-Product Meal (or other poultry by-product meal):  Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices. 

This is a less than optimal ingredient to see anywhere in the list, especially within the first five ingredients.  Chicken by-product meal (or other poultry by-product meals) is a rendered (cooked) product that can include diseased animals rejected for use as human food.  As with chicken by-product (and other poultry by-products) there is no guarantee to consistency with this ingredient.  As well, some pet food manufacturers claim their by-product meals are ‘human grade’; by definition this ingredient is not human grade.  Although this ingredient analyses as protein, this ingredient is not, by definition, meat.

Animal By-Product Meal (example beef by-product meal, venison by-product meal, lamb by-product meal):  is the rendered product from animal tissues, exclusive of any added hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices.
 
This is a less than optimal ingredient to see anywhere in the list, especially within the first five ingredients.  Beef by-product meal, venison by-product meal, and/or lamb by-product meal is a rendered (cooked) product that can include diseased animals rejected for use as human food.  As with beef by-product, venison by-product, and lamb by-product there is no guarantee to consistency with this ingredient.  As well, some pet food manufacturers claim their by-product meals are ‘human grade’; by definition this ingredient is not human grade.  Although this ingredient analyses as protein, this ingredient is not, by definition, meat.

Fat (example chicken fat, poultry fat, animal fat): A substance composed chiefly of triglycerides of fatty acids.

Chicken fat is considered as the industry standard optimal fat for pet foods.  Optimal only if the chicken fat is preserved naturally, typically listed as Chicken Fat preserved with mixed tocopherols.  Less than optimal preservative is BHA/BHT; typically listed as Chicken Fat preserved with BHA.  BHA/BHT has been linked to cancer and serious disease in scientific research.

Poultry fat can be a combination of various birds such as chicken, duck, turkey, and so on.  Only a good ingredient if poultry fat is preserved naturally, typically listed as Poultry Fat preserved with mixed tocopherols.  Less than optimal preservative is BHA/BHT; typically listed as Poultry Fat preserved with BHA.  BHA/BHT has been linked to cancer and serious disease in scientific research.

Animal fat can be derived from any animal.  The FDA determined animal fat to be the pet food ingredient most likely to contain pentobarbital, thus most likely to contain a euthanized animal.  Animal fat is a less than optimal ingredient to see anywhere in the list, especially within the first five ingredients.  This ingredient can be preserved naturally with mixed tocopherols or with BHA/BHT.
 
While there is much controversy to carbohydrates in dog and cat foods, if you don’t look at the ingredient as a carb and instead look at the nutrition that can be provided by the ingredient, carbohydrate ingredients can provide a pet food with added nutrition.  Below is a partial list of commonly used good carbs (as example carbohydrates that provide antioxidants) that are frequently seen within the first five ingredients. 

Brown Rice, Oat Groats, Oat meal, Oats, Barley, Rice Bran, Flaxseed, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Rice Bran, Beet Pulp, Peas.

Below is a partial list of commonly used carbohydrate ingredients that don’t provide much nutrient value to pet foods. These are not risk ingredients; they simply do not provide the nutrients that the above ingredients provide.

Any Flour ingredient, corn gluten meal, corn, soy, Brewers Rice, Rice, White Rice.

Other ‘things’ to look for on your pet food ingredient list (optimal ingredients found further down the ingredient list):
Chelated or Proteinated minerals (allows for better absorption of the minerals).  The ingredient list will read something like Copper Proteinate or Chelated Copper.  Minerals that are not chelated or proteinated will be listed as ‘copper’ (example).

Probiotics (friendly bacteria that benefits the pet’s immune system).  Look for long, scientific sounding words like Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Bifidobacterium Thermophilium Fermentation Product, and Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product.  It is best to call the manufacturer and ask if they guarantee the probiotic to be live and viable (if it is not live and viable, it is useless). 

With dog foods, the ingredient selenium yeast is an optimal ingredient.  Sodium selenite however is more commonly used.  Selenium yeast is the safer form of delivering selenium to your pet (this ingredient has not yet been approved by the FDA for use in cat foods).

Alfalfa is a natural source of vitamin K, used in some dog and cat foods (optimal ingredient).  Less than optimal ingredient Menadione Sodium Bisulfite is a synthetic vitamin K linked to serious disease in some research. 

Several meat proteins within the first five ingredients is optimal (excluding by-products).

Not within the ingredient list, always look for the Best By date on the pet food label.  The shelf life of the pet food varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, anywhere from one year to three years for dry foods and 18 months to 5 years for canned foods.  The fresher the food, the more nutrition it provides your pet.  Always look for foods that have a distant Best By date (it’s best to call the manufacturer and learn the exact shelf life to properly understand how fresh the food is by the Best By date).

Key questions to ask the pet food manufacturer:
1.  What is the country of origin of ingredients?  Pet food manufacturers are getting wise to this questions; many exclude vitamins and minerals when they report country of origin information.  Make sure you specifically ask about country of origin of vitamins and minerals too.

2.  Is the meat a human grade or pet grade?  Again, pet food manufacturers are wise to this question as well.  Some will respond that all meat ingredients are human grade, including by-products (by definition, by-products are not human grade).  According to regulations, any meat that leaves a USDA human food processing facility and enters a pet food facility cannot be classified as ‘human grade’.  Only meats processed into foods in a human food facility can officially be classified as ‘human grade’.  Almost all pet foods are NOT manufactured in an approved human food processing facility.  One way to know for certain if the grade or quality of meat is the same as the meat you would provide to any other member of your family is to ask if the pet food facility is APHIS EU certified.  APHIS EU (Animal Plant Health Inspection Services European Union) is a pet food manufacturing certification of the USDA that requires all ingredients to be of human grade.

3.  What is the shelf life of your dry foods, canned foods, and treats?  The response to this question will provide you with the information to determine, according to the Best By date on the label, when the food was made and in turn, how fresh it is.

4.  Do the meat meal ingredients contain muscle meat only or does it include internal organs and/or bones?  This information is especially important due to the recent research findings of EWG (Environmental Working Group) of high amounts of fluoride in dog foods.  Only dog foods were tested, however the same risk would apply to cat foods.

5.  Do the canned foods have BPA in the lining?  BPA has been scientifically linked to serious disease.  Only some pet foods bother to use BPA free can linings. 

Always examine the bag or can for stains, tears, or punctures; do not purchase damaged bags or cans.  When you open the food, closely examine the appearance and smell of the food.  Make sure it looks and smells the same as the previous bag or can.  If you have any doubt to appearance or smell of the pet food, do not feed it to your pet.  Return it to the retailer.

While the above is not the perfect answer to finding the perfect pet food, it should provide you with a good start.  For a printable abbreviated version of the above, click here.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Truth about Pet Food
Petsumer Report
www.TruthaboutPetFood.com

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