What are we actually feeding our pets? DogInsider.com’s new guide, “Why You Need To Know How to Read Dog Food Labels”, takes the guesswork out of dog food labels.
The Dog’s Dinner
Great expression isn’t it? The whole situation was a bit of a dog’s dinner. My kid’s choice of outfit was a complete dog’s dinner. No need to make a dog’s dinner out of it. This old British phrase just perfectly captures the chaos, bad organization, and general disapproval you feel. Especially true if you’ve ever actually watched an enthusiastic pup chow down on their dinner, scattering kibble across the floor and smearing wet food all over their faces – yuck.
But did you know that when it comes to an actual dog’s dinner – or breakfast, for that matter – the word “dinner” is actually an indicator of nutritional levels contained in the ingredients that we most definitely can approve of? That’s right! By law, any product labeled as dinner must contain at least 25% of its total weight from one single source of animal protein, such as tasty beef, lamb, chicken, or fish.
So why does that matter? Surely, all dog food contains meat. It’s what dogs actually eat, isn’t it?! Well, you might be surprised to know that a lot of dog foods you can find in the shops don’t contain the nutritious stuff that they claim to have! It’s all laid out in the latest nutrition guide from DogInsider.com, “Why You Need To Know How to Read Dog Food Labels”. Access it for FREE at https://doginsider.com/why-you-need-to-know-how-to-read-dog-food-labels
Turns out, advertisers all want to convince dog owners that their food is the best option for their pet (not surprising). However, many are prioritizing profit over nutrition when it comes to their ingredients and will use clever marketing to cover this up (again, not surprising, but nobody likes being lied to!). So, knowing how to read a dog food label correctly could mean the difference between serving your pup a nutritious Sunday roast or them eating a cheap happy meal burger every day.
The new DogInsider.com guide gives you some easy-to-follow rules for understanding dog food labels at the most basic level. The first is to know the difference between key ingredients, such as meat meal versus bone meal.
Meat – chicken, beef, lamb, fish, etc. – should be one of the first ingredients listed on the dog food label. As long as the meat is associated with the words meal, digest, or hydrolysate, then dog owners can be assured that the product contains at least 25% meat proteins. Bone meal, on the other hand, is literally just ground-up animal bones and has little nutritional value for dogs. So you should avoid it and opt for a meatier meal!
DogInsider.com also says to avoid products that have meat flavor listed amongst the ingredients or in the food description. This is a good indicator that the meaty taste is artificially added to the food. Eau de beef, anyone? The nutritional value will, therefore, be substantially lower than proteins taken from real meat sources.
Thanks to the nutritional guidance from https://doginsider.com I feel confident that my furry friend’s next meal really will be the dog's dinner!
