Gun Dog Forum

"The guaranteed analysis found on all pet foods sold under AAFCO guidelines cannot be used to compare one pet food to another. Pets are fed by calorie, not by weight, so comparisons should ideally be expressed in the amount of a particular nutrient per calorie."

This was a brief and interesting article on calculating the percentage of protein and fat on a caloric basis that was part of a larger study on feeding a k-9 athlete. The interesting part is doing some quick comparative calculations of some of the common formulas we feed, and how they stack up against each other. Some of the "High Protein/High Fat" diets we regularly use are classified as "moderate" in both categories, while some that one would think is a moderate ratio ends up higher in both on a caloric basis.

Garrison

https://todaysveterinarypractice.com/nu ... pet-foods/

That is interesting. When I've compared dog feed (and like everyone else)... I have always looked at the calories, % of protein, fat and then looked at the list of vitamins and nutrients. I feed dry dog food but add a whack of canned food or similar that I make myself. Maybe the canned food adds more nutritional value than I realized, besides flavor and smell?

Being honest, food comparison is a superfluous process at best for me and I have not had a clue what benefit the different vitamins and nutrients provide or how to apply in any meaningful way, things like wet vs dry on a "dry matter basis".

Your attached article got me to dig deeper on a cold winter day and I found a science based article that breaks down nutrient and calorie requirements and functions, which I found to be really helpful for me to better understand what I am actually looking at on the side of the bag.

Too cold to go outside for any period of time, so it seemed like a good time to catch up on some reading.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resou ... al_fix.pdf