If you happen to haven’t heard of limited-ingredient pet food, you could be questioning, “Why would I need to restrict the quantity of components in my canine’s meals? How can or not it’s full and balanced? Certainly extra sources of vitamin could be higher?”.
Restricted-ingredient meals have advantages, significantly for canine with allergic reactions (of which there are a lot of). We requested Braeden Ruud, CEO and founding father of family-run pet food firm Raised Right, rated 5-star by DFA, to debate these advantages and inform us extra about limited-ingredient pet food. That is what he wrote.
What are the advantages of limited-ingredient pet food?
Earlier than we get into the advantages of feeding a limited-ingredient weight-reduction plan to your canine, I feel it could be useful to present some context about what precisely limited-ingredient pet food is and what it isn’t.
Since there isn’t an outlined most variety of components allowed in limited-ingredient diets, you want to be sure you’re checking the ingredient record earlier than shopping for as a result of not all limited-ingredient canine meals are created equally.
Whereas the time period “restricted ingredient pet food” could seem self-explanatory, there may be extra to it than simply probably having fewer components than typical pet food recipes.
What is restricted ingredient pet food?
For a recipe to be thought-about a limited-ingredient weight-reduction plan, it ought to solely include one supply of animal protein. Which means if the recipe has each beef and hen in it, then it wouldn’t be a restricted ingredient pet food. Moreover, the recipe ought to solely include one fruit and one vegetable within the record of components.
Right here’s an instance of a limited-ingredient recipe from Raised Right. As you’ll see, the recipe beneath has one fruit, one vegetable, and the meat components all coming from turkey because the supply of animal protein:
Turkey Thigh, Turkey Coronary heart, Turkey Liver, Carrots, Blueberries, Natural Spearmint, Cod Liver Oil, Egg Shell Powder, Flaxseed Oil, Natural Dried Kelp
Chances are you’ll be questioning, is the recipe above full and balanced? The reply is ‘sure’ as Raised Proper works with veterinarian, Dr Karen Becker and pet meals formulation skilled Steve Brown to formulate all of their grownup canine recipes to satisfy AAFCO’s standards for a whole and balanced recipe utilizing solely complete meals with out having so as to add any artificial nutritional vitamins or minerals. This leads me to our subsequent subject…
Are all limited-ingredient canine meals full and balanced?
One of many most important issues you want to watch out of when varied limited-ingredient canine meals is to examine if the recipe is formulated to meet AAFCO’s standards for a complete and balanced diet. You are able to do this by on the lookout for an AAFCO statement on the label. If there isn’t any AAFCO assertion on the label, it means the recipe isn’t full and balanced so your canine seemingly isn’t getting all of the vitamins they want.
Raised Proper took this a step additional by being the primary firm to voluntarily submit a recipe to be examined by Examine Your Pet Meals, which is a non-public company unbiased of any pet meals model or group that exams pet meals to see if the recipe is what the model says it’s.
Not solely did the take a look at outcomes present that Raised Proper meets AAFCO’s requirements for a whole and balanced weight-reduction plan, nevertheless it additionally exhibits that the assured evaluation precisely matches what’s on their label.
Why does restricted ingredient pet food exist and what are the advantages?
Whereas many individuals select to feed limited-ingredient recipes as a result of they’re on the lookout for a pet food that has less complicated components, there are some individuals whose canine can solely eat limited-ingredient recipes on account of meals sensitivities that trigger allergic reactions or abdomen points like IBD.
Similar to people, some canine battle with quite a lot of meals sensitivities. Since lots of the pet food recipes in the marketplace in the present day have over 30 components in them, it may be onerous to seek out an choice that doesn’t include any components they should keep away from. Raised Proper understands this and that’s an enormous motive why all of their grownup canine recipes include 10 components or fewer, with some having simply seven or eight components in them.
Once we had been formulating our recipes, it was essential to us that each single ingredient wanted to have a dietary goal as an alternative of together with a bunch of high-carb filler components like potato, rice, or pasta. This lack of ineffective and even dangerous filler components is one other good thing about high-quality limited-ingredient pet food.
Formulating our recipes this fashion has allowed our meals to not solely assist wholesome canine keep wholesome, however many canine with extreme meals sensitivities rely upon our meals as the one meals they’re capable of eat and we take this duty extraordinarily significantly.
