This is a topic that can make your head spin when you are trying to figure out which high protein, low fat, high fat, etc. food you want to give to your dog. A lot of us look at the label and take it at face value, which hey, we do that with our own food labels so it makes sense. Well, here’s the thing when you are looking at dog food and especially comparing kibble and our raw products, face value is not going to work.
Let’s explain this with a comparison of our Chicken Total Formula and Blue Wilderness Chicken for Adult Dogs. Our formula says 14.8% protein and the label on their bag says 34.0% protein. Well if you go with that you will think that the kibble product has much more protein than ours which is confusing right? Well let’s break this down.
Pack Leader Pet Food Chicken Total Formula – (14.8/29.8 ) X 100 = 49.6%
Blue Wilderness Chicken for Adult Dogs – (34/90) X 100 = 37.7%
How do we get this? Well we have to look at the moisture and the dry matter in food. Raw food has a lot of moisture in it and when you remove the moisture you are left with the 29.8, which is the dry matter. Kibble is generally low in moisture and this food has 10% moisture so you are left with the 90% of dry matter. The equation is the same for all food to figure this out; you would take the percentage of protein, fat, fiber, etc. divide that by the dry matter and multiply by 100 to find the true number. So after you do this you will see that first glance tells a different story.
Use this simple equation no matter what you feed your dog so that you get a true picture. We didn’t mention the quality of meats or AAFCO’s requirements for “complete and balanced” but that is for another time.
