A Bag of That Complete & Balanced Dog Food Please

by Jim McBean on February 23, 2010 · View Comments

It’s Friday afternoon and you’ve just arrived at the pet food store from work to buy dog food. You’re not sure the foodyou’ve been buying is a “good one” so you’re going to see what other options there are. So many choices! Large breed, small breed, with glucosamine, without glucosamine, organic, holistic, natural – it’s enough to give you a migraine.

Then, you spot a colourful bag with a picture of the most handsome Shepherd/Lab cross you have ever seen. Below the handsome doggythere’s a sumptuous looking arrangement of boneless/skinless chicken breasts, potato’s, carrots, tomato’s and green beans. It looks like the horn of plenty and you were wishing it was Thanksgiving.

Dog Balances Cookies on Nose

Flickr: Shutterclick's - http://bit.ly/bcMJN

You notice that the bag has the phrase “Complete and Balanced”printed on it. That seals the deal for you. Your migraine starts to let up. You feel good, because you’ve just bought your furry four legged pal (the one that actually cares if you live or die) a “complete and balanced” dog food. Everybody knows that “complete and balanced” means healthy . . . right?

Hate to break it to you but just because “complete and balanced” is mentioned on the bag, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy.

How is Complete and Balanced Determined?

There are two ways (either/or) that a pet food company can legally make the claim that their product is “complete and balanced”.

1. Dog foods labeled as “complete and balanced” must meet standards established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) – Dog and Cat Food Nutrient Profile

2. By meeting a nutrient profile or by passing a feeding trial.

Who is AAFCO and What Do They Do?

AFFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials)

“To provide a mechanism for developing and implementing uniform and equitable laws, regulations, standards and enforcement policies for regulating the manufacture, distribution and sale of animal feeds; resulting in safe, effective, and useful feeds.” – From AAFCO’s website:

AAFCO is the “watchdog” of the pet food industry so to speak, but their main focus relates to feed fed to animals entering the human food chain. According to the FDA, AAFCO as an agency has no enforcement authority.

Summary of the AFFCO Feeding Trial Protocols

  • Only 8 animals required (either cats or dogs)
  • Duration of the trial is 26 weeks (6 months)
  • Only 6 of the 8 animals are required to complete the trial. (what happened to the other two?)
  • Animals cannot lose more than 15% of their starting body weight
  • No baseline blood tests taken, only post trial values recorded

    • Essentially, 6 of 8 animals need only survive 6 months (not a very long trial) without losing 15% of their body weight, and whatever product they were being fed during the trial is “good to go” and granted the AAFCO “Complete and Balanced” seal of approval.

    Now before you say, well, ok the feeding trial doesn’t seem all that great, but we’ve got the nutrient profile to fall back on.

    “Substatntiation of the nutritional adequacy of a pet food based on the nutrient profiles may be less reliable than the results of feeding trials.” – from the AAFCO Official Dog and Cat Food Nutrient Profiles

    By the way, dog food products that do not meet either Nutrient Profile standards or pass the feeding trials, can still be legal products. They just aren’t allowed to display terms as ‘complete’, ‘balanced’ or ‘; 100% nutritious’ on the bag.

    Would any dog over the last 15,000 years (+/- 70 years) have ever had a “complete and balanced” meal? NO!! Somehow they’ve managed to survive, but how?

    More Dog Food For Thought

    “Many pet foods are labeled as “premium,” and some now are “super premium” and even “ultra premium.” Other products are touted as “gourmet” items. Products labeled as premium or gourmet are not required to contain any different or higher quality ingredients, nor are they held up to any higher nutritional standards than are any other complete and balanced products.”

    “The term “natural” is often used on pet food labels, although that term does not have an official definition either. For the most part, “natural” can be construed as equivalent to a lack of artificial flavors, artificial colors, or artificial preservatives in the product.”

    “Do not be swayed by the many marketing gimmicks or eye-catching claims.”

    The preceding three quotes are from Pet Food Labels – General on the FDA’s website.

    I guess I’ll keep feeding my dogs a completely unbalanced raw meaty bones diet.

    1. Dog Food Ingredients and Claims: What Do They Mean?
    2. New! Complete and Balanced Food for People
    3. A Pet Food Company Dressed in Sheep’s Clothing?

    Tagged as: AAFCO, aafco dog food nutrient profile, aafco feeding trials, complete and balanced dog fooddog food

    • I never really used to think of dog food ingredients much until I got baby Jersey. before the recipt of said puppy, I bought the Puppies for Idiots book that was authored by the Volhardt's. They have an extensive section on canine nutrition(but they didn't talk about raw). One of the biggest eye openers for me was the use of corn and rice. The biggest advice that I took away from the book is that if you are going to buy a kibble, or the first three ingredients, two of them should be meat based.

      This first food that I thought of was Puppy Chow. After all, it's Purina, a trusted brand. My family fed Princess (my first pet) Purina and she lived to be 14 years old. The first three ingredients? Whole grain corn, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal. So then I thought about Nutro. The first three ingredients? Lamb Meal, Rice Flour, Rice Bran. Yeah, not so much. Seven years ago really good foods like Orijen and Before Grain weren't even on the market yet, or at least they weren't available in Canada. Jersey turned out to be a very fussy eater and after all the searching and trying out different foods, I ended up making my own ( supposedly "unhealthy" and "unbalanced") which turned out to be quite the blessing after the melamine scandal.

      Jersey is a model of health. She has an awesome coat and super clean teeth. In 6 1/2 years, she's had one ear infection and pretty much no other health problems that are associated with feeding poor quality dog foods.
    • michelechollow
      Jim, You really know this subject inside out. Your dogs are lucky too. It's scary what goes into pet food, and our food too. Thanks for the informative article.
    • Another thing I thought was of interest is how people get stuck on number of grains vs. number of meats when comparing bag to bag of food of kibble with grains. And what I tell folks is this: If you see 23% protein and a bag with 25% protein, which do you think has more meat based protein in it (if they have no glutens listed)? The one with the 25%. So no matter what brand if they all have the same amount of protein and they aren't getting the protein from plants then they all contain about the same amount of meat to get to the %. It isn't rocket science to figure that one out - although it took me a long while! It kind of hit me when I was comparing the EVO and Orijen (grain-free) to other foods. They have a very high % of meat based proteins compared to the competition.
    • Yes, AAFCO...so useful that they actually allow a dog to die during feeding trials, and still "pass" the food as just fine. My holistic pet store let me look at her copy of the regs. And any "Front of bag" claim is just advertising, as Rod mentioned, the Lying Liars. I think this is still allowed by current law but I think it is under challenge in court.
    • Somebody was telling me last week that it is still "legal" for pet food manufacturers to use rendered euthanized animals in dog food. I was of the understanding that practice went by the wayside with all the scrutiny that came upon the pet food industry in 2007?

      Either way and even then (2007), AAFCO was still "the" regulating body "looking out" for our pets with regards to their food. AAFCO = #FAIL!
    • Thank you so much for working to decode the mystery of dog nutrition! I find the lack of comparability of different dog foods to be completely frustrating and overwhelming. The research you're doing and putting into terms that make sense is so helpful!
    • The Dogvinci Code? Should that be added to your Do You Speak Dog Speak? list? =P
    • I like it!!
    • Dog speak for dinner - "bags are for tearing, chicken legs are for eating!"
    • namaste1
      After careful research and talks with my holistic vet, I have settled on a raw food diet for my pup. She has been on this diet for 7 years now since she was 4 months old.
      I like this diet because it offers both of us worry free flexibility.
      I have a lot of flexibility with the types of foods I can give her, and I never worry if i don't have "dog" food because I can feed her from what I buy at the same grocery I buy from.
      She eats organ meat, raw egg yolks, chicken and turkey necks, yogurt, most fruits and veggies and a pre made packaged complete raw dog food.
    • I rarely feed Sweety & Zeus the same thing two days in a row, and I fast them once a week. They don't like that much. LOL

      I rotate with turkey wings, turkey necks, buffalo tripe (ground), chicken back/neck.

      They each get 1 whole raw egg 2-3x per week and the same goes for organ meats which are really cheap around here. Sometimes it's beef heart, sometimes beef kidney or liver.

      If I find a good deal somewhere on chicken quarters or drumsticks, I'll pick some of those up. There are really tons of ways to do it, and that won't break the bank.

      The treats I give consist of one animal source ingredient and that's it! My dogs' favourite treat is Tripe Treats. Their second most favourite treat is Purebites Liver..

      I've got well fed, healthy dogs. =)
    • I've tried to explain that to people too - premium, super premium, etc. doesn't mean the ingredients are any different. I remember reading an article that showed one of the more famous brands of food cost about $10 a bag to produce and charged about $40 - $50 in the store. Therefore, in today's difficult times, they have a lot of room to shift pricing. My dogs had chicken quarters for dinner tonight. Breakfast was a kibble with freeze-dried raw on top. I love hearing the them crunch on their bones! And my cats now get freeze-dried on top of their kibble. They love it!
    • Take what you pay for a bag of dog food at retail. Cut that price in half and you have the wholesale price. So yeah, your $10 figure is probably pretty close on average.

      Zeus had a big turkey wing this morning for brekkie and Sweety had some whole ground free range, non-medicated, no antibiotics, Vancouver Island grown turkey/chicken. #omnomnom!
    • My dogs had their chicken quarters and chicken wings this morning =) #omnomnom
    • This is SUCH a useful series. We all know there's likely something fishy going on, giving the fishiness of similar terms for human food, but you've done the hard work of figuring it out and explaining it to the rest of us. Thank you!!
    • Thanks Mary-Alice. I'm trying. =)
    • EdieJ
      Yeah, and many vets are really hung up on that whole AAFCO designation (I speak for all of those in the practice I take Frankie to), but the protein source can be old shoes or other things that are too disgusting to go into! There's nothing dictating the digestibility of the protein source either. The Dog Food Project, www.dogfoodproject.com, is a great source of information on de-coding the dog food labels, and the Whole Dog Journal, www.whole-dog-journal.com is also an excellent source of info on high quality (as opposed to simply AAFCO approved) food.
    • Edie,

      I actually had a rep from a BIG pet food company tell me that the AAFCO "seal of approval" means basically nothing , and that the only reason they inlcude it on their products is because everyone else does, and they have to compete.
    • AAFCO reminds me of Al Franken's political satire, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. In the case of our pets, AAFCO is a government agency that just doesn't seem to be working ... yet, they are only enforcing the laws that already exist. Sounds like we need to start over by creating new laws and, until that happens, educate people. Say, through this blog?! In the meantime, I don't blame you for sticking to the RMB diet for your dogs.
    • Rod, actually AAFCO isn't a government agency, as per this statement from the Iams website;

      "Although not a government agency, AAFCO operates within the guidelines of federal and state legislation including laws administered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). "

      For the 72+ million pet dogs in North America, their nutritional health doesn't yet seem to warrant having an "effective" unbiased organization lobbying for them.

      As you know, my overall objective with Doggy Bytes IS to help educate people, or at least get them to question the status quo, when it comes to what we as pet "guardians" feed our pets.
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