Protein Amount Conversion

by Danny Seymore
(Heber Springs,Arkansas,United States of America)

I just learned a few days ago how to convert can dog food protein to dry food protein.Example: Can food is 10% protein,75% moisture= 25% dry.Formula:10 divided by 25 = 40% dry protein,correct me if i am wrong.My question is, does that example of can dog food have the same protein as a kibble that is 40%?I hope I explained so you know what my question is.Thank you in advance Dr. Per.



Hi Danny

Sorry to keep you waiting, but I have been away with my family for a couple of days.

Yes this is true, but even dry dog food have some water in it as well.

You can use the same way of calculating "real percent protein" in dry dog food as you did for canned dog food.

The difference is the water content.

It should still be listed on the bag - often its around 8-10 percent and named either "water" or "moisture"

So kibble listed protein content of 40% and we estimate 8% moisture, then the protein content should be 43% converted into dry matter values.

The ingredients can also be listed as "pr 100 kcal" and you can see from where the energy in the dog food is coming from.

Examples:

One "brand x dog food" have listed Protein:10,8g Fat:3,2g and Carbohydrates:6,9g pr 100 kcal.

Most of the energy comes from protein, less from carbohydrates and least from fat.

Where as -

Another "brand y dog food" have listed Protein:3,8g Fat:3,8g and Carbohydrates 11,3g

Showing most of the energy in this one comes from carbohydrates.

Actually the first one is a dog food used in obese dogs and the other one is use in liver diseases.

This brand dog food is not any high protein dog food brand.

In comparison Orijen has listed the energy on the bag and: energy is from 50 percent protein, less than 25% from fat and less than 25% from carbohydrates.

If you calculate my examples in this way:

- the first one "brand x" has 52% from protein, 15% from fat and 33% of its energy from carbs.

- The other one "brand y" has 20% from protein, 20% from fat and 60% from carbs.

The calculation is done as: Amount of Ingredient (g) / protein+fat+carbs (g) and multiplied by 100

This is very interesting to look at the ingredients in this way and not just the "raw" amount of protein. You can see a specialized diet for obese dogs is almost as a high protein dog food in its energy composition.

I can tell you that this is the only diet, in the whole list of different diets, this is the case. In all the others it is mainly from cabs the energy is coming from carbohydrats.


All the best

DVM Per Schonbeck