Below are the definitions of most dog food ingredients as defined by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO).
The list can be used when reading a dog food label to better understand exactly what your dog is eating.
Also see the following pages related to dog food ingredients…
- My Online Vet for help from our veterinarians to develop a specific diet for your dog…below are the diet-related questions from other visitors
- 10 Best Dog Food Options
- How to Read a Dog Food Label
- Raw Natural Dog Food
- Homemade Dog Food Recipes
You can also review related questions from other visitors here: Ask a Vet Online Library – Dog Food Diet – Dog Food, Dog Treats & Homemade Dog Food Recipes Section
Click one of the following letters to jump down to your ingredient…
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Feeding Oatmeal | Obtained in the manufacture of rolled oat groats or rolled oats and consists of broken oat groats, oat groat chips, and floury portions of the oat groats, with only such quantity of finely ground oat hulls as is unavoidable in the usual process of commercial milling. It must not contain more than 4 percent crude fiber. |
Fish Meal | The clean, dried, ground tissue of undecomposed whole fish or fish cuttings, either or both, with or without the extraction of part of the oil. |
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Ground Corn (ground ear corn) | The entire ear of corn ground, without husks, with no greater portion of cob than occurs in the ear corn in its natural state. |
Ground Dehulled Oats | No AAFCO definition. Ground cleaned oats with hulls removed. |
Ground Wheat | No AAFCO definition. A courser grind of wheat flour. |
Ground Whole Brown Rice (Ground Brown Rice) | The entire product obtained by grinding the rice kernels after the hulls have been removed. |
Ground Whole Wheat | Ground whole kernel, presumably equivalent to AAFCO’s Wheat Mill Run, Wheat Middlings, Wheat Shorts or Wheat Red Dog, whose principal differences are in the percentage of crude fiber. |
Ground Yellow Corn | Same as ground corn, except that the corn used is yellow in color. |
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Kibbled Corn | Obtained by cooking cracked corn under steam pressure and extruding from an expeller or other mechanical pressure device. |
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Lamb Bone Meal | (Steamed) dried and ground product sterilized by cooking undecomposed bones with steam under pressure. Grease, gelatin and meat fiber may or may not be removed. |
Lamb Digest | Material resulting from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed lamb. The tissue used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed. |
Lamb Fat | Obtained from the tissues of lamb in the commercial processes of rendering or extracting. It consists predominantly of glyceride esters of fatty acids and contains no additions of free fatty acids. If an antioxidant is used, the common name or names must be indicated, followed by the words “used as a preservative”. |
Lamb Meal | The rendered product from lamb tissues, exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. |
Linseed Meal | The product obtained by grinding the cake or chips which remain after removal of most of the oil from flaxseed by a mechanical extraction process. It must contain no more than 10 percent fiber. The words “mechanical extracted” are not required when listing as an ingredient in the manufactured food. |
Liver | The hepatic gland (of whatever species is listed). |
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Wheat Bran | The coarse outer covering of the wheat kernel as separated from cleaned and scoured wheat in the usual process of commercial milling. |
Wheat Flour | Wheat flour together with fine particles of wheat bran, wheat germ and the offal from the “tail of the mill”. This product must be obtained in the usual process of commercial milling and must not contain more than 1.5 percent crude fiber. |
Wheat Germ Meal | Consists chiefly of wheat germ together with some bran and middlings or short. It must contain not less than 25 percent crude protein and 7 percent crude fat. |
Wheat Mill Run | Coarse wheat bran, fine particles of wheat bran, wheat shorts, wheat germ, wheat flour and the offal from the “tail of the mill”. This product must be obtained in the usual process of commercial milling and must contain not more than 9.5 percent crude fiber. |
Whey | The product obtained as a fluid by separating the coagulum from milk, cream or skimmed milk and from which a portion of the milk fat may have been removed. |
Back to top of Dog Food Ingredients
Do you believe in holistic pet care? If so, please tell your friends about us, and visit our Organic Pet Digest social media accounts. Thank you for supporting our efforts!