Dry Pet Food Quality
If you go through your favorite store or, a specialized pet store, you will find unlimited number of brands, formulas, prices and forms of pet food. But which one is best for your pet and why? For this blog, we are going to limit our discussion to dog food..
Examining each brand or bag, you will notice a variety of ingredients used in processing the pet food some with grains, some with limited amount of grain and some without grain. Regardless what you believe as to which approach to formulation is the best for a pet, the ingredients were selected carefully to meet the requirement of the pet at different stages of its growth, based on its gender and activity.
The majority of dry dog food is in the form of extruded product. Extrusion, as you know, is the process of cooking the complete formula under pressure, heat and moisture to achieve an increased digestibility of the nutrients such as the starch from the grains, sterilize the product, destroy any toxin coming from an ingredient and reduce the moisture to a level that promotes long shelf life during storage.
Because dry dog food is in a form of concentrated nutrients as opposed to wet (canned) dog food that is higher in moisture content and diluted down nutrients, the feeding rate is much lower. There are some concerns about tarter formation and teeth decay due to the consumption of canned food while dry kibble consumption help keep the teeth clean and the gum healthy.
If you are in the pet food business utilizing the extrusion technology, you need to make sure that you have a pet food nutritionist interacting with your ingredients purchasing expert along with the operator to achieve a quality dog food that is highly palatable and have a long shelf life when kept in a dry cool place. If you are new to the business of extrusion, your extruder manufacture can provide you with proper guidelines for optimum extrusion parameters along with the needed tools to produce the shape, capacity and consistency of a quality dry pet food.
For more information on formulations for extruded pet foods, contact Dr. Nabil Said or Dr. Dave Albin.
