Best Quality Dog Food

All About Best Nutrient Profiles and Ingredients

The best quality dog foods combine impressive nutrient profiles with top quality ingredients and processing methods that leave nutrients largely intact.

Sounds good, but what exactly does that mean in practice? Let's examine the best nutrient profiles and best quality dog food ingredients one by one.

Best Quality Dog Food Nutrient Profiles

The nutrient profile refers to the nutritional content of your dog's food. The levels of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, the amounts of vitamins and minerals, and the fatty acid and amino acid content.

For most dogs, the best quality dog food will be high in available proteins (at least 30%), moderate in fat (14-18%), and low in carbohydrates (no more than 30%).

Highly active dogs require more fat, while those less active can benefit from slightly reduced fat levels, but in general the best quality dog food more or less resembles the natural diet dogs evolved to eat over thousands of years.

Unfortunately that's not what most commercial dog foods look like.

Although dogs have no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates, most kibbles contain 50-60% carbohydrates, mostly from cereal grains. Worse, a good portion of the protein content frequently consists of plant matter as well.

While seemingly inexpensive, this type of diet might not in your dog's best interest.

Unfortunately, no. AAFCO nutrient profiles are designed so the average dog will not develop signs of nutritional deficiency or excess over a six month period.

That's it.

Moreover, these nutrient profiles haven't been updated in fifteen years. So nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) that we now recognize as vital for optimal canine health are not considered essential nutrients by the AAFCO dog food nutrient profiles.

That means a food can be labeled "complete and balanced" despite a total lack of omega-3 fatty acids. You would might think this is best quality dog food, and its not.

Additionally, there is often a big difference between having enough antioxidants and amino acids to survive vs. having enough to truly thrive.

AAFCO nutrient profiles require only the minimum levels necessary for most dogs survival. 25% of the dogs in an AAFCO feeding trial can drop out from malnutrition or other problems, and the food will still pass and be considered "complete and balanced".

But nutrient deficiencies aren't the only problem.

In some cases, excessive amounts of certain minerals or vitamins can be every bit as damaging as deficiencies.

For instance, dog foods meeting the AAFCO Nutrient Profiles for Growth or All Life Stages can contain between 1% and 2.5% calcium, despite research studies indicating that giant breed puppies can develop severe skeletal abnormalities if fed a diet containing in excess of 2% calcium.

The fact that most dogs will be fine on such a diet is all that matters. If you want the best for your dog and find best quality dog food, the only solution is to become an educated dog owner.

Best Quality Dog Food Ingredients

Most dog foods consist primarily of waste products from the human food industry and may even contain ingredients specifically rejected for human consumption. Moldy grains, rancid fats, and meats from disease-ridden animals, for example.

When a number of investigative journalists began to expose these practices (which, by the way, are perfectly legal) in the 1990s, demand grew for dog foods made from the type of ingredients you find in grocery stores.

It didn't take long for a number of boutique companies to start making super premium dog foods from ingredients fit for human consumption.

Today some manufacturers have taken a step beyond ordinary human-grade by using sustainably produced ingredients from local farmers, free-range meats raised without antibiotics and growth hormones, and even ingredients that are certified organic.

While manufacturers aren't allowed to label their foods as human-grade. But companies that use ingredients fit for human consumption typically discuss this fact, on their websites and in their promotional literature.

Foods consisting of at least 95% certified organic ingredients will be labeled as such in addition to bearing the USDA Organic seal.

This seal is a guarantee that the food contains only ingredients grown and packaged without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, genetic engineering, irradiation or sewage sludge, and that any included meats, eggs, or dairy products are from free-range and drug-free animals raised on organic feed.

The overall quality of the ingredients is very important, but so are the types of ingredients contained in your dog's food because they determine how much of the previously discussed nutrient profile is actually available to your dog.

Quality Protein In Best Quality Dog Food

If you look at dog food labels, you'll notice that the protein content is expressed in crude form. How much of that protein is available to your dog depends on the ingredients as well as the processing method, but let me discuss the ingredients first.

It's entirely possible to create a "food" consisting of shoe leather, feathers, and hooves that is high in protein, but entirely unavailable to your dog. Proteins vary widely in both digestibility (how easily the protein can be digested and absorbed) and biological value (how readily the absorbed protein can be utilized by the body; depends primarily on amino acid composition, but food preparation and vitamin and mineral content play an important role as well).

The best quality dog foods contain large amounts of proteins with high digestibility and a high biological value: fresh muscle meat, whole eggs, organs such as livers and hearts, fish, tripe. And meat meals originating from quality human-grade muscle meats.

Mid-range kibbles typically contain a fresh feed-grade muscle meat (usually chicken) and a by-product meal, so once the moisture of the fresh meat is removed during cooking, the final product contains more by-products than muscle meat.

They may also derive some protein from grain or soy sources. Low-grade kibbles derive the bulk of their protein from grains, gluten isolates, and soy, as well as from generic meat sources such as meat & bone meal that are poorly digested and may consist of 4-D meats (an industry term for meats from animals that were dead, dying, disabled, or diseased upon arrival at the slaughterhouse; such meats are automatically rejected for human consumption).

Quality Fat In Best Quality Dog Food

Like protein, fat content is expressed in crude form on dog food labels, but digestibility is less of an issue with fat.

That does not mean, however, that fat quality doesn't matter. The best quality dog foods contain fats rich in important fatty acids.

Good examples include fresh fatty fish such as salmon or herring, salmon oil and other fish oils, and naturally preserved chicken fat (not to be confused with the generic poultry fat that may contain 4-D meats and worse).

Low quality fat sources include generics such as animal fat and poultry fat as well as nutrient-poor lard and beef tallow.

Quality Carbohydrate In Best Quality Dog Food

Canned foods need not contain any carbohydrates, but a certain amount of starches is necessary in kibble or the pieces won't hold together.

If grains are used, make sure they are whole grains, not grain fractions or flours.

Many of the best quality dog foods contain 70-80% meat and 20-30% vegetables and fruits. Indeed, I believe fresh vegetables and fruits that are rich in antioxidants and phytonutrients are the best carbohydrate source for dogs.