Nutrition
Guaranteed analysis
The small table of minimum and maximum percentages on a pet food label — crude protein, fat, fibre and moisture — and the most misread panel on the bag.
The numbers are guarantees, not measurements: protein and fat are stated as minimums, fibre and moisture as maximums, so the actual food sits somewhere on one side of each figure. Crude means the value came from a chemical estimate of nitrogen rather than from anything about how digestible the protein is.
The trap is comparing a wet food to a dry one straight off the panel. Wet food is mostly water, so its protein percentage looks tiny next to kibble until you convert both to a dry-matter basis by taking the moisture out. Do that and the ranking often reverses.
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AAFCOThe US body whose nutrient profiles decide what a pet food may call itself complete — it writes the model rules, it does not test or approve foods.FEDIAFThe European pet food industry federation whose nutritional guidelines play the role AAFCO's profiles play in the United States.Complete and balancedA regulated claim that a food supplies every nutrient a pet needs, in the right proportions, as its only diet — the one label phrase that carries real weight.KibbleDry pet food shaped by extrusion — dough cooked under pressure, forced through a die, cut, dried and sprayed with fat and flavour.TaurineAn amino acid cats cannot make in useful amounts and must eat — the reason a cat cannot live on dog food.By-product mealRendered animal parts other than skeletal muscle — organs, mostly — cooked down and dried into a concentrated protein powder.