I often read pet food labels to clients when they come meet me for the first time. People are usually shocked. I mean, they know kibble is highly processed and not healthy. But they don’t KNOW. They just don’t know how bad it really is.
Recently, I was working with a client whose Frenchies are struggling with tummy and skin issues. We reviewed the food (one, so she could really know how bad it is) and two so we have a starting point in their slooooooow food transition. By reading the ingredients, we can mimic the ingredients but use ingredients legal for humans to eat, as compared to what’s in the bag.
So, let’s look at a label together.
Label:
Milled rice, dehydrated fish, rice middlings, potato protein, ((AFS tablet – 7% of the food): potato protein, hydrolyzed fish protein, Grifola frondosa (Maitake), Curcuma longa, products and co-products from the processing of fresh fruits and vegetables (Carica papaya, Vitis vinifera), pomegranate (Punica granatum), products from the processing of herbs (Aloe vera), dried algae (Haematococcus pluvialis)), fish oil, sunflower oil, beet pulp, dried algae (Ascophyllum nodosum), hydrolyzed poultry protein, mannan oligosaccharides (MOS), fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), Yucca schidigera, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin PP, calcium D-pantothenate, folic acid, choline chloride, zinc sulphate monohydrate, copper(II) chelate of amino acids hydrate, DL-methionine, clinoptilolite of sedimentary origin, tocopherol extract from vegetable oils, Rosemary.
Get your favorite adult beverage for reading a bunch of math and logic – coffee +/- Baileys, beer, wine, or tequila. Here we go:
Start with the fact that things are listed in order. The AFS tablet is 7% of the diet. Everything after it is less. So let’s make an assumption or two.
The first four items are probably 90% of the diet. (Cause then you add the 7% AFS tablet (no, I don’t know what an AFS tablet is) and now we’ve got 97% of the diet. Fish oil is expensive, there isn’t a lot. So we can guess all the rest is less than 3% of the diet.)
There’s more milled rice than anything else. Let’s say 24% milled rice. 23% dehydrated fish. 22% rice middlings, and 21% potato protein. That’s 90% (24+23+22+21=90). Add the rice together – 24+22= 66% rice. That’s 2/3 of this diet is rice.
The mystery AFS tablet contains products and co-products (well worded to not use the word by-products, but I guarantee they mean the same thing) of select fruits, vegetables and herbs. Vitis vinifera – sounds Latin, sounds scientific, should be healthy because the manufacturer said there was science in this formulation. If you took the time to look it up, you’d learn that is grape vine! GRAPE vine. That’s right. Grapes are poisonous but the vine is ok and I’m sure there are NO grapes on the ground up vines in this food. (Sarcasm alert, in case you missed it.)
Did you notice the number one ingredient of the mystery AFS tablet is potato protein? That means there’s more potato than our original math suggested.
Did you also see hydrolyzed poultry protein down at item 18? “Hydrolyzed” is a chemical process that allegedly chops meat protein into tiny pieces so small that the animal’s immune system doesn’t have an allergic reaction to the meat. Poultry is how we say “it has some kind of bird in it but we don’t know which one and it might be different with every batch.” Does hydrolysis work to avoid allergies? It’s controversial.
We have to visit the fish ingredients, too. Dehydrated fish, hydrolyzed fish,` and fish oil. Every time, you were not told which fish. By law, the manufacturer does not have to tell you which fish it is. But it’s shady because the fish in this bag may be totally different than which fish was in the last bag and if your four-legged friend has food sensitivities, it might matter if shark is in this bag but tuna in the next bag.
Now, let’s look at the cost of this “food”. $89.04 for a 22 pound bag. That’s $4.05 a pound. For 66% rice, probably 25% potato, and 25% fish. I could go to my favorite food shopping warehouse and buy rice, potato and fish. Drumroll. Here’s the math (have another sip of coffee).
25 pounds of “signature” rice is $28 (I’m rounding and skipping tax). 10 pounds russet potatoes is $5. Canned “premium” Pink Salmon is $3 (the can is almost a pound). Let’s make a 22 pound pot of rice, potato and fish in ratios really similar to this $89 bag. $15 rice, $3 potato, $ 9 fish. That’s $27 to make this at home. Then, we can throw in some vitamins for balance, a little salt (because we all need salt) and let’s just say this costs us $30. Quite the mark up on this “specialty” “limited ingredient” food, huh? It takes a little work and time. But, dang! People pay almost $100 for essentially 3 very limited ingredients.
And the ingredients are meticulously worded so that bells don’t go off when pet owners read the list.
But, did you see all the problems I pointed out? (I didn’t torture you with the nit-picky stuff, just the high level look at the food.)
Not one of those ingredients is legal for human consumption – if they were, the food would cost manufacturers $30 to make a bag. But since they are every single ingredient is a waste product – the costs are literally pennies on the dollar – you can guarantee the actual cost to make that $89 retail value of an atrocious food was probably $3-5 (I’m guessing).
There you go – how to read an ingredient list.
PS
Here is the nitpicky:
Tocopherols from vegetables. Which tocopherols? Which veggies? Aren’t veggie oils inflammatory? So the tocopherol, which is supposed to help preserve, is made from inflammatory ingredients – so what are we preserving?
Clinoptilolite – Many know this as zeolite and the manufacturer wants you to know it was obtained from the ground, not from a chemical process. It’s known to be a detox agent. But it’s (almost) the last ingredient – there’s so little in there, it’s not detoxing anyone – it provides trace minerals and it’s cheap. That’s why it’s there. But clinoptilolite. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?
.