How to Read Pet Food Labels
Picture yourself at the supermarket shopping for your newly adopted furkid. As you walk though the pet food aisle, you're suddenly hit with the realization that that all brands claim to be the best, most nutritious and healthy. So which brand is truly good and more importantly, suitable for your furkid?
The answer is to ignore the fancy packaging and read the labels. Here is a general rule of thumb for pawrents when it comes to picking a suitable healthy bag of food for your furkid.
Product Name
Not to be confused with the brand name, the product's name can actually tell you quite a lot about its quality. Here's what you should be looking for.
The term "beef" used alone in a product's name, means that beef makes up at least 95% of the total weight of the product. This is inclusive of the water used in the processing of the food. If the water is not included in the final product, beef must make up 70% of the product.
However, should words such as "dinner" or "entrée" follow the word "beef", it means that only 10% of the product needs to be beef. A product with a name that includes "with beef" is required to have only 3% beef.
Lastly, if a product name has the word "flavour" a specific percentage is not required. There just has to be enough to be detected.
Do refer to the US FDA for further details on the above.
Ingredient List
The ingredients on a pet food label are arranged according to weight in descending order. However, the weight of the ingredients includes water weight. This means that ingredients with higher protein content may not appear at the top of the list if the moisture has been removed. However, should your furkid have nutritional needs, you will have to look further into the ingredient list.
For example, if your pet is overweight, you should be looking for food with lower calories. bosch Light, a dry kibble with 25% fewer calories, is a tasty yet effective diet for overweight dogs.
If your dog has food intolerances, bosch has 2 specific ranges, HPC SOFT and HPC PLUS, that are suited for nutritionally sensitive dogs with dietary intolerances.
For more information on the different types of specially formulated bosch dog food, do click on this link - bosch dry dog food. brioPets is proud to be the sole distributor of bosch products in Singapore.