How to Read & Understand Pet Food Labels

We want the best for our pets, but it's hard to tell what's really in their food when pet food labels are so confusing and misguided. Let's break down your food labels for pets so you can make educated decisions for your pet's health. 

Legally, pet food companies have to provide certain information, such as an ingredient list and a guaranteed analysis of nutrients in the food. This can help you select appropriate foods and get a sense of the quality of the diet.

On paper, this sounds great, but if you don't know how to interpret that information, you could be falling for some classic marketing tactics. You can't just take everything at face value if you want to find a diet that truly nourishes your pet.

This means you must be extra careful to avoid being tricked by clever wordplay in dog food and cat food. In this blog, you'll learn the basics of reading and understanding pet food labels to help you make informed decisions about your pet's diet and health.

What Foods Do Dogs Need In Their Diet?

A dog’s diet must include essential nutrients to ensure they stay healthy and active. Protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals are all critical components. The same is true for cats.

Animal proteins should form the foundation of any diet designed for dogs and cats, as they are bioavailable and nutrient-dense. They offer the widest spectrum of essential nutrients needed for growth and maintenance.

What nutrients do dogs need? These include the 10 essential amino acids (11 for cats) sourced from animal protein, omega fatty acids for skin and coat health, and fibre for digestive health.

Though nutrients can be sourced from multiple food ingredients, look for fresh, whole foods to offer the most natural and digestible nutrition. 

Here are some of the most effective food sources of the core nutrients that dogs need to thrive:

• • Fresh, named meat
  • Fish
  • Eggs
  • Low glycemic vegetables
  • Legumes
  • Whole grains

It’s also important to ensure your dog gets the right vitamins and minerals. Calcium, phosphorus, vitamins, and antioxidants are all essential to a complete and balanced diet. These nutrients can all be sourced from natural food ingredients as well.

Fruit and vegetables are a tasty and nutritious source of antioxidants and many essential vitamins like E and A, while bones, goat's milk, and even some leafy greens can be included in dog food to ensure adequate calcium and other minerals.

Different types of pet foods will offer a different combination of many or all of these key ingredients. Raw dog food, for example, is a predominantly meat, bone, and organ-based diet, while dry foods will offer more carbs and usually have a variety of nutrient-rich produce and botanicals.

Who Decides What Goes in Dog Food?

There are so many brands and types of dog food out there, so who is it that determines which foods are complete and balanced, which diets are right for each life stage, and what claims are they allowed to make?

There are some rules for pet food brands can, and in some cases must, use to make pet food in Canada. While they are not all-encompassing rules and pet food brands are allowed to take some liberties when crafting their recipes, pet food brands in Canada are required to follow the guidance of a few governing bodies.

AAFCO Statement

The Nutritional Adequacy Statement, often referred to as the AAFCO Statement (Association of American Feed Control Officials), is a critical component of food labelling in the U.S. but is also used in Canada.

This statement ensures that the product meets the minimum nutritional requirements established by AAFCO for a specific species and life stage, such as "adult maintenance" or "growth and reproduction."

Feed control officials (AAFCO) can help owners make informed choices about their pets' nutrition by ensuring key information is shown on pet food labels and feeding instructions are provided.

Consumers need to look for the Nutritional Adequacy Statement food labels to ensure they're providing their pets with a balanced and complete diet suitable for their pet's specific needs.

CFIA Labelling Requirements

In Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) oversees pet food labelling and ensures the safety and nutritional adequacy of pet food products.

While there isn't a direct equivalent to the AAFCO Nutritional Adequacy Statement in Canada, most pet food manufacturers adhere to specific labelling and nutritional requirements outlined in the Feeds Regulations under the Food and Drugs Act - not to mention, feeding trials.

Labels must also provide legally accurate information about the product's ingredients, guaranteed analysis (typically including crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, and moisture content), calorie statement, feeding directions, and more for a pet owner to reference.

These rules are also designed to prevent misleading claims or language on the product packaging. Claims such as flavour or life stage need to meet certain guidelines so that you can get a better sense of what is actually in your pet's food.

How to Read Dog Food Nutrition Labels

We are looking at this from the perspective of dog food, but if you have a cat at home too, then these tips are just as useful for deciphering their food labels.

In this post, we will focus mainly on the ingredient list and the guaranteed analysis, but stick around to the end for a simple summary of our top pet food label tips!

From clever names to exciting graphics, your pet food packaging is designed to lure you in. This is the nature of marketing, but you don't have to fall for the trap. Deciding on the best diet for your furry friend can have life-long consequences, so make sure you know how to identify important information and ignore the fancy marketing jargon.

We don't begrudge a brand for wanting their pet food packaging to look fun or appealing, so long as what is in the bag is as good as what's on it.

Reading the nutritional information of the product may seem a little intimidating at first, but with some simple tips and a little practice, you can easily weed out some of the junk food and get your pet on a healthy, wholesome, and tasty diet that will help them thrive.

Pet Food Labelling Rules

The first thing you'll see on your pet food label is the front of the package. This will include simple and summarized information about the food to help you find formulas that meet your pet's individual needs. 

Things like brand, title, flavour, and size are all going to be slapped in plain sight on the bag, can, or box. This might seem a little too basic to give you any meaningful insights about quality or formula, but there are a couple of things we can glean from this info.

Formula Names for Dog Food

First, look at the title of the food. There are specific rules for how brands can label their formulas so as not to mislead customers. The most helpful of these rules are the 3% and the 25% rules. 

3% Rule in Dog Food

The 3% rule states that if the food contains less than 25% but more than 3% of the ingredient (typically referring to the main animal protein or flavour), then the packaging must specifically use language such as beef flavour or chicken flavour.

25% Rule in Dog Food

To use terms such as beef entrée, beef meal, or beef dinner then the final product must contain a minimum of 25% of that ingredient. 

This is a very fast way to tell if your pet's food actually contains any meaningful nutrients from the animal protein. Formulas that fall under the 3% rule are more likely to be lower quality. In many cases, the "flavour" is made from heavily rendered and poor-quality ingredients.

Life Stage Recommendation

The next tidbit of info you should see is the species and life stage of which animals this food is suitable for. Formulas designed for puppies and growing dogs are often not ideal for adult or ageing pets, and vice versa. Feeding the wrong type of dog food can lead to weight and digestive issues. 

You should see a statement or tag that says a specific life stage or that it's suitable for all life stages. This can help you choose the type of formula that is best suited to your dog's age.

Guaranteed Analysis in Dog Food

The guaranteed analysis, typically located on the back, bottom, or side of the package, will tell you the minimum and/or maximum percentages of protein, fat, fibre, moisture and potentially some other key nutrients in the food.

This will give you the broadest sense of the food's makeup, and while this is only a snapshot it may help you decide if this food could be a good fit for your pooch.

Let's take a look at a standard guaranteed analysis:

While the percentages provided in the analysis help you determine if your pet's food has the right levels of protein, fat and fibre, they do not represent where these macronutrients come from.

It's also important to understand the difference between the "as-fed" percentages and "dry matter" percentages. As-fed percentages are based on the food's makeup as it is fed, which includes moisture.

While moisture is an important part of their diet, it contains no nutrients, and in fact, dilutes the nutrients from the food ingredients.

How to Calculate Dry Matter Values

To find out the true quantities of macronutrients in your pet food, you'll need to calculate the dry matter basis, or in other words, the percentages of each macronutrient after moisture has been removed.

To give an example, most canned foods contain 70-80% moisture, and most kibble, roughly 10%. Removing this moisture content will give you a more accurate percentage of nutrients in the food.

A wet food that contains 75% moisture, means that the other 25% contains all of the nutritional value of the food. This is called the dry matter.

To find out the dry matter on the product label, subtract the moisture percentage from 100% to get the total dry matter in the food. Next, divide the nutrient percentage by the total dry matter percentage.

Let's say the protein of a canned food is 9% and the moisture is 75%.

100 - Moisture = Dry Matter Total

100 - 75 = 25

Protein / Dry Matter Total = True Protein Value

9/25=0.36

Now multiply that by 100 to get your real protein percentage.

0.36 x 100=36%

Although the label on a can of pet food tells you that the protein is 9%, after your dog's system separates the nutrients from the moisture, you are actually feeding a 36% protein-rich diet. 

Don't worry, we hate math too. Here's a calculator to make it easier. 

Dry Matter Dog Food Calculator

This is a helpful tool when comparing different types of diets. Dry vs Wet, for example, will look very different, but the nutrients might be more similar than they look at first glance.

Does High Protein Mean More Meat?

When reading the guaranteed analysis statement on your dog food, the protein percentage doesn't just refer to meat. Protein can come from plant sources too, and while these can be a great addition to a complete and balanced diet, plant protein alone isn't always the ideal source.

Carbohydrates, including grains, legumes, and vegetables, can contribute to the overall protein percentage in the pet food, so don't confuse high protein with high meat content.

In a premium-quality pet food product, at least 50% (the higher the better) of the protein should come from animal ingredients.

This is called animal or meat inclusion. It tells you how much of the protein in the food comes from animal sources, while also indicating that the remaining protein comes from plants.

Carbs in Dog Food

Carbohydrates are not listed on your food's guaranteed analysis. This is because carbs are not explicitly essential for dogs and cats. Though in many cases carbs like legumes and whole grains are beneficial, dogs and cats can thrive a dog with very little carbs.

That being said, knowing how many carbs are in your pet's food can be useful for managing specific dietary or health needs. Using the dry matter calculator above, we can roughly determine how much of your pet's food is made of carbohydrates by simply subtracting the dry matter protein, fat, and fibre totals from 100.

For example, if you've calculated that your protein is 28%, your fat is 15%, and fibre is 4.5%, the leftover is approximately 50%.

Most of that 50% comes from plant products, some of which will be fruits and vegetables, but the rest will be starches, grains, and other plant ingredients that are just not necessary in those quantities.

In some cases, unnecessarily high carbohydrate content may contribute to digestive problems in some dogs by overfeeding bad bacteria in the digestive tract.

Calories in Dog Food

The last piece of information you will find on the guaranteed analysis is the calorie content of the food. It is required that every bag of food lists the calorie content, usually next to or below the guaranteed analysis. It is listed as a measurement per cup and a measurement per kilogram.

Seems simple, right? Well, just to be difficult, they call them Kcals. 

Kcal, which stands for Kilocalorie, is what we refer to in our own diets as a calorie. So look for something similar to this:

Kcal/cup and Kcal/kg

To get technical, a calorie, or Kcal as it is properly shown on your pet's food bag, is the amount of heat (or energy) required to raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Of course, this information doesn't really explain much, so just think of Kcals as energy. Knowing this information can you decide if the food is going to offer your pet the energy they need to match the energy they put out. 

Want to get an idea of how many calories your pooch needs? Try our Dog Food Calorie Calculator.

Pet Food Ingredient Lists

Understanding how to read and interpret dog food ingredients ensures you choose the best food for your pet. 

The ingredient panel is simply a list of ingredients in the food listed in order of weight. That's why it's important to pay close attention to the first 5 ingredients listed—these make up the majority of the food’s nutrients.

The ingredients closer to the end of the list are going to be very small portions and are often reserved for supplements and botanicals that are meant to buffer nutrient quantities in food.

There are going to be some ingredients you recognize and there may be some you can't even pronounce. That's ok. We don't have to be that granular to get a sense of the formula.

Here are a few basic things you should look for in dog food:

1. Meat First AND Second

Meat as the first ingredient is a pretty basic principle that most dog food brands follow. It contributes to flavour, of course, but we also know that dogs need protein to thrive. 

The trick here is that meat first doesn't necessarily mean lots of meat. Ingredients are listed in order of pre-cooked weight, which includes moisture.

Once cooked, the final weight of each of the high-moisture ingredients, like meat, will only be a fraction of its starting weight. Dry goods like grains will remain relatively similar to the pre-cooked weight.

This is why we recommend looking for foods that have meat as the first and second ingredients. This is especially important if the food claims to be high in protein.

This is not to condemn carbs as a bad ingredient. Carbs can be very nutritious when you choose the right type and in the right quantities. But dogs, and especially cats, are carnivores. This means that their bodies are designed to get many vital nutrients from meat.

2. Chicken Meal in Dog Food

One way to ensure a higher animal protein content in food is to use meat meals either instead of, or ideally in combination with, fresh animal proteins. So instead of chicken, you might see chicken meal on your dog food ingredient list.

So, what is chicken meal in dog food? This is a common question among pet owners. Chicken meal and other named animal meals are created by removing moisture from animal meat to create a concentrated protein powder.

This method allows brands to increase the amount of protein coming from meat while still offering a palatable and cost-effective formula.

Meat meals have their benefits, but it's important to understand the trade-offs:

It's Cooked Twice

While chicken meal and other meat meals offer a highly concentrated protein source, it ends up getting cooked twice. Once to make the meat meal, then again after being mixed with other ingredients to form the final food product. This additional and longer cooking process leads to more nutrient degradation due to heat damage.

Questionable Sourcing

Meat meals are not as strictly regulated as fresh meat, so the true sourcing of the meat used for meat meals can be difficult to ascertain. Even brands that manufacture their own formulas still usually buy meat meal from a third-party manufacturer. The more middlemen in the manufacturing process, the harder it is to guarantee quality.

So is chicken meal bad for dogs? No, but it is important to stick to trustworthy and transparent brands that are committed to selecting only high-quality ingredients. 

3. Low Glycemic Ingredients

Whether you opt for a low-carb diet or not, the type of carbs you feed are going to break down differently during digestion. Ingredients like wheat and corn contain more simple sugars and can lead to spikes and drops in blood sugar levels. 

The most common concern with feeding these types of carbs regularly is that the drops can lead to more frequent cravings and overeating. It's also not ideal for calorie management, so overweight dogs should steer clear.

Instead look for low-glycemic ingredients like oats, barley, and legumes. These offer plenty of dietary fibre, but also break down slower and regulate the release of sugar into the bloodstream. Dogs eating diets that include these types of carbs can feel fuller for longer and use the energy more efficiently.

It's also important to remember that too much of a good thing can be bad. Even low glycemic ingredients when fed in high quantities can be lead to blood sugar spikes. That is why this tip pairs so well with our first two, ensuring a better balance of nutrients and calories.

5 Red Flags in Pet Food

Now that you have a few positive examples of what you see in pet foods, let's take a look at some red flags that might make you question if this is the right food for your pet.

We focus a lot on the top ingredients, because it's the best place to start, but when you are looking for potentially problematic ingredients or patterns in the dog food ingredient panel, you are going to have to expand your search grid. 

Here are five signs that your dog food isn't as natural and nutritious as it claims to be:

1. Mystery Meats

You might be surprised to learn that your beef dog food doesn't really contain any real beef. When the front of the package says beef, but the ingredient list doesn't, that's a red flag.

When the source of animal protein is not specified, the protein likely comes from heavily rendered meats. Rendered meats are separated, ground, heated, and sometimes emulsified to create cheap and easy-to-apply animal sources for food.

While this is a widely accepted practice in both pet and human foods, rendered meats often don't offer the same variety or quality of nutrients that a non-rendered meat source would.

Examples of non-descript proteins that you want to look out for are:

• • Poultry meal
  • Meat meal
  • Animal by-products
  • Porcine plasma
  • Animal fat

This rule can be applied to fat, too. Unspecified or very general animal fat sources can indicate very cheap and inconsistent quality food.

By-products are another indicator of lower quality food, even when they are named. Chicken will always be superior to chicken by-product, as a fresher and more natural ingredient will contain more nutrients that are easier for your dog's body to digest.

2. Ingredient Splitting

One of the craftiest ways that some brands get away with passing off carb heavy foods as meat rich delicacies is called ingredient splitting. This is the practice of using broken down parts of a grain, legume, or starches and listing them as separate ingredients. 

As all ingredients are listed by weight, these ingredients will end up a little further down the list and make it seem as if there is less of it in the food. But when you add all the split ingredients  back up, the total dry matter weight can easily overshadow more important and nutritious ingredients, such as meat.

Some examples of common ingredient splitting tactics in dog food are:

• • Peas, yellow peas, and pea fibre
  • Potatoes, potato starch, and potato protein
  • Corn, corn meal
  • Green lentils and Red lentils

You might see only one of these in the top 5 ingredients with the rest much further down, but the result is still usually a deceptively high carb content and a lower than expected meat inclusion.

3. Artificial Flavours and Colours

There is no reason that your pet needs artificial flavours or colours in their food. These ingredients have been linked to serious conditions such as cancer and diabetes, and they have absolutely no health benefits.

When a food is made from high quality and fresh ingredients, it won't need any flavour enhancements. Additionally, artificial colours in dog food are only used to grab your attention, not your pets, making them 100% unnecessary.

So if cats and dogs love the taste of real meat, why would pet food require artificial flavour? The only reason for using artificial flavour enhancements in dog food is that they don't have nearly as much meat or other real food ingredients as the rest of the packaging might imply.

Here are some common artificial ingredients you might see in a lower quality pet food:

• • animal digest
  • caramel
  • propylene glycol (a sweet-tasting sister to anti-freeze)
  • Blue 2, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6

As none of these are nutritionally needed, and are more often a way to mask poor quality food, it's a no brainer that these red flag ingredients should have you on the hunt for a new diet for your pooch.

4. Fillers

Ingredients in your pet food recipe should be chosen to enhance nutrition, not just fill space. When foods use a lot of filler ingredients, it's a good indicator that the food may not be as natural and nutritious as you'd like for your pup.

Here are some common filler ingredients that are best to avoid:

• • corn (and various types of)
  • maize (also corn)
  • peanut hulls
  • cellulose
  • apple or grape pomace
  • pea bran
  • oat hulls
  • white rice
  • wheat (or other) mills
  • soy

Fillers ingredients aren't always unhealthy ingredients, but the way they are used is not designed to enhance the diet. Rather they are used to make the food cheaper to produce. They may offer some nutritional benefits like protein or fibre, but they are far from the most suitable ingredient for that purpose.

More often then not, they are cheap-to-source option compared to a more nutritious whole grain, legume, or animal product.

5. Too Many Synthetic Nutrients 

Synthetic vitamins and minerals are very common in cooked pet foods, so expect to see some. They are intended to buffer any essential nutrients the diet needs to be complete and balanced. But they should be used in moderation, and only when necessary.

Diets that rely on too many synthetic nutrients and not enough real food ingredients should set off your spidey senses. Because they are so concentrated, synthetic supplements can be a cheap way to completely replace some fresh foods, like vegetable and fruits. 

Some high quality specialty diets do use this type of recipe, like limited ingredient or hypoallergenic diets, but these types of diets are meant for the purpose of identifying food sensitivities and not long-term feeding. Over time, you are meant to slowly reintroduce additional food ingredients and eventually find a more robust diet full of fresh and whole foods. 

Outside of these factors, diets that show a dictionaries worth of unpronounceable vitamins and minerals should be considered with caution. Whenever possible, opt for real food ingredients to provide your pet with the most natural and biologically available nutrition.

Learn more about pet dietary needs in our Dog Nutrition Guide

Feeding Guidelines for Dogs

The last vital and legally necessary piece of nutritional info on your pet's food should be the feeding guidelines or directions. As every food offers different ingredients, calories, and benefits, a universal portion based on weight is impractical.

Brands need to offer guidance on how much to feed of each specific formula based on age and weight according to the caloric density of the food. This is an ideal starting point and a system that works for most dogs. 

That being said, not every dog is average, so the guidelines provided won't be 100% perfect for every pooch. By monitoring their weight, digestion, and activity, you can make small adjustments to your dog's portions as needed. 

These instructions are typically given in the most convenient measurement based on the type of food. 

• • Kibble is measured in cups or grams
  • Wet food is measured in cans (based on the size of the can)
  • Raw food is measured in ounces
  • Freeze-dried and dehydrated foods can be measured in pieces (called patties or nuggets), scoops (set serving size that comes with the food), or by cup depending on the format.

When trying a new food, we recommend starting with the given feeding guidelines for that food. Use the most appropriate measurement based on age and weight. You can make small adjustments over time to find the ideal portion size, and continue to adjust to suit growth, weight, and age.

Dog Food Label FAQ's

What must be on a pet food label?

Product information (including the product name, net quantity, and the manufacturer's name and address), an ingredient list, and a guaranteed analysis.

What is the 25% rule in pet food?

Also called the dinner rule, refers to a labelling rule that states that if an ingredient accounts for between 25% and 90% of the total weight of the final product, then the name must include a quantifying term like dinner, entrée, or formula.

What is the 3% rule in animal food?

Ingredients that make up less than 25% but more than 3% of the food must be labelled as a flavour. Meaning it's unlikely that this key ingredient provides significant nutritional value.

What should the first 5 ingredients be in dog food?

The first five ingredients of dog and cat food make up the bulk of the food and its nutrients. The first five ingredients should all be high-quality whole food ingredients, starting with a named animal protein as the first (and preferably second) ingredient.

Why is it important to pay attention to the first five ingredients in dog food? 

The first five ingredients in dog food provide valuable insight into the overall quality and nutritional composition of the food. As they are ordered by weight, the first five ingredients are likely to make up the bulk of the food.

Can pet food labels include vague or generic terms for ingredients?

Pet food labels should ideally provide specific and descriptive terms for ingredients. However, some labels may use vague or generic terms like "meat by-products" or "animal digest" instead of explicitly listing the exact source or type of ingredient.

Are there regulations regarding the order of ingredients on pet food labels?

Pet food sold in Canada must list ingredients in descending order by weight. This is precooked weight, so it includes moisture. The final product may have most of the moisture removed or more moisture added, so how much each ingredient contributes to the finished product may not be accurately reflected in the ingredient list.

Can I rely solely on the pet food label to assess the overall quality of the food? 

While the pet food label provides essential information, it should not be the sole factor in determining the overall quality of the food. The brand should provide information on ingredient sourcing, manufacturing practices, and company culture to help you determine whether they are committed to providing high-quality and safe pet food.