Alright, so, what are nutrient profiles?
Nutrient Profiles were created by “expert committees” for Canine and Feline Nutrition. A standard chemical analysis is done to make sure a food meets the profiles for “adult, growth, or all life stages, meaning it meets the growth standards and can be fed to all ages.
While this is great to determine if a food has the right balance of nutrients, it doesn’t address palatability, or digestibility which feeding trial did so, AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials)added a “safety factor” which was to exceed the minimum amount of nutrients required to meet the complete and balanced requirements. In my opinion this still leaves out “palatability” but, feeding trials are no longer required.
In 2006 the NRC published new standards but, it will still take several years to impact AAFCO.
See you soon,
Kami
Published on February 4, 2008
in About Us.
Hi again. I guess part of finding my voice, is identifying who I am so, I’ll share a little history today. As I said, my name is Kami. I’ve been a banker for the last 10 years and as you can probably guess, Banking and Pet Food don’t have a lot in common. It’s only since I met my business partner Natasha, that I’ve started educating myself on the pet food industry (and my dog Murphy definitely appreciates it!! Smile.) It’s funny, the more I’ve learned, the less it seems I know. Every day, I find that customers are educating me. For example,
1. Did you know?
That the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) created the Nutrient Profiles used today because the pet food industry found the National Research Council’s (the NRC) feeding trials too expensive and restrictive?
The NRC’s guidelines were the standard until the late 80’s. However, the NRC’s standards were based on purified diets and required extensive feeding trials to determine if a pet food was “complete” and/or “balanced.” The pet food industry found this too expensive and restrictive so AAFCO created an alternate method of determining the nutritional adequacy of pet food by testing for compliance with “Nutrient Profiles.”
hmmmm… this post is getting a bit long so, I’ll explain “Nutrient Profiles” in my next post.
Bye for now,
Kami
