A captious Solarian

Misconception #48: Can’t believe everything you read

This is part of a food series.

To start out talking about pet foods I thought it would be good to talk about what different portions of pet food labels stand for.  Certain components of a pet food labels act as legal binding documents between the pet food producer and the consumer. So what components are these?

Designator: States what species the food is designed for (Cat Food, Dog Food)

The Product Name (but not what you think): The percentage rule

If a Product name includes the buzz word  “All, 100%”: it is 95% that meat

           (example: 100% beef diet)

Just the Meat name = 70% that meat

          (Beef diet)

Buzz words of: “Dinner, platter, formula, recipe, entrée.” =25% that meat

            (Potato & Beef formula)

Any diet that includes “with” = 3% that meat

          (Sweet Potatoes with beef)

“Flavor”= ≤ 1% that meat

            (Beef flavored)

Nutrition Statement:

Designates which life stage the diet is targeted for, and if it meets AAFCO standards

Statement like “Complete and Nutritious”, “For all life stages”

Growth

Maintenance

Gestation & Lactation

Complete for all life stages

Additional Statements

Natural: this designation means the diet was derived solely from plant, animal, or mined sources. Many natural diets have added vitamins and minerals which are synthetic.  This is a legally defined term.

Organic: The USDA has not yet established its certification program to pet foods but AAFCO does recognize the use of the word with USDA standards. This is a legally defined term.

Holistic: The claim is that the product is made from pure ingredients that the consumer would eat.  This term is not legally defined and recognized.

In Australia, the relevant industry association is PFIAA. The labelling standard is "AS5812 – Manufacturing and Marketing of Pet Food", but it's not published for free.

The parts of the label are:

"Pet food only", and the species.

Nutrition info (carbs, proteins, fats, etc.), same as people food.

Name. The meat name in a pet food means the food is at least 25% that meat, e.g. "Beef dog food" = 25% beef (or more).

Completeness: Whether the food is a complete balanced diet or only part of the diet (e.g. treats). Life stage goes here too. Australia doesn't have its own standard for this, it uses the AAFCO standard.

Directions, e.g. "5kg cat: 1 cup/day". This is a guide, with no legal requirements.

Ingredients. All ingredients (except water), from most to least, including all additives.

Best-before date, weight/volume, company, etc.

This applies to all pet foods, including treats.

vet-and-wild here.

Us, calling the owner: your pet will be ready to go home at 2pm

Owner: okay!

2 o'clock: *nothing*

3 o'clock: *nada*

4 o'clock: *zilch*

Us, calling at 4:15 : so... we were wondering when you were coming to get your pet?

Every contact (admission, updates by phone) comes with a rough estimate of discharge time, so I always expect to hear one.

I don't really expect a definite time: very often, the clinic calls when the pet is ready to be discharged, rather than in advance.

Proboscis Bat Rhynchonycteris naso

It is found from southern Mexico to Belize, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, as well as in Trinidad. The bats are nocturnal, sleeping during the day in an unusual formation: most of them line up, one after another, on a branch or wooden beam, nose to tail, in a straight row.

In the photo, the two bats on the lower left are carrying young.

[…] je ne puis m'empêcher de dire que la salade n'est point une nourriture naturelle à l'homme, tout omnivore qu'il soit; il n'y a que les ruminants qui soient nés pour brouter l'herbe crue; or, la salade, réduite à sa plus simple expression, n'est que de l'herbe crue. La preuve? c'est que notre estomac ne digère point la salade, attendu que l'estomac ne sécrète que des acides, et que l'herbe crue n'est dissoute que par les alcalins,[…] L'homme, à qui Dieu, dit Ovide, a donné un visage sublime, os sublime, l'homme n'est pas fait pour brouter l'herbe, mais pour regarder le ciel, toujours au dire du même Ovide. […] C’est tout simplement une hérésie culinaire.

which translates more or less to:

It's easy to reschedule a meeting to avoid someone's religious holiday, or a team lunch to avoid someone's fast day. It gets difficult if you also have to work around every sports match and club meeting.

Church bells 24 times a day and adhan 5 times a day are no bother. Everyone broadcasting their club activities constantly would get really noisy.

But yeah spontaneously posting stuff like

Oxford comma fans: I feel bad for you Me: I don't think about you at all