Have you ever looked at your dog food ingredients list? If you think it is hard to understand, you’re not alone. But what you don’t know about what is in your dog food could cause health problems for your dog. You only want the best for your pet, but his current dog food may actually be harming him.

Sometimes is seems like you need a degree to figure out all the ingredients in your dog food. What do all these terms mean? The dog food companies basically tell you not to worry about it – they will take care of your beloved pet. But consumers got a terrible wake-call with the massive pet food recalls over the last few years. They may know what is best for our dogs, but that is not what they are giving us. Thankfully, more organic and all-natural pet foods have been springing up, giving us healthier dog food choices.

What you need to do is learn how to compare your dog food to other brands. There are a couple of tips to help in deciphering the dog food ingredients label:

1. Ingredients are listed by weight, by law. So the first 5 – 10 ingredients listed are the main ingredients in the dog food. Good ingredients will equal a good pet food.

2. BHA, BHT, and Ethoxyquin are BAD preservatives, linked to liver and kidney damage. If your dog food uses them, you could be poisoning your dog. Look for natural preservatives, such as Vitamin E (tocopherols) and Vitamin C (ascorbic acid).

3. When looking at your ingredients, be aware of multiple ingredients in the same “family”, corn for example. You may look and see ingredient #4 is corn bran, #7 is corn flour, and #8 is corn gluten meal. This makes the corn look like it is less of a major ingredient. But if you added the weights of #4, #7, and #8 together and called it corn, it could jump up to the #2, maybe even #1 spot. Is it legal? Totally. Is it sneaky? Definitely.

4. It makes sense that a quality dog food will have a meat listed in the first 2 ingredients. But you really want to see a meat meal. The meat meal is the same as meat, but most of the moisture/liquid has been removed first. Therefore an ounce of meat weighs more than an ounce of meat meal (and is higher in the ingredient list), but there are more nutrients and protein in an ounce of meat meal than an ounce of meat. But when the dog food gets processed, the meat is first dehydrated. So you would be getting less of the actual meat if meat is listed instead of meat meal. Very confusing!

As confusing at it seems, it will really pay off in your dog’s health and well-being if you can understand the ingredients and what you are actually feeding him. If you figure out your current dog food is nothing but garbage, don’t despair. Just keep looking at the ingredient labels on various foods until you find one that you think is better. The more educated we become in what we are feeding our pets, the better quality ingredients and natural preservatives will become available. Knowledge is the key.

Learn how to keep your dog healthy by deciphering the dog food ingredients list. Visit the Healthy Dog Food blog to learn more about the ingredients used and how to find the best dog food to keep your dog healthy, naturally.

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