Only you, the dog owner, has your dog’s health and well being in mind.  The benefits of making a wholesome well balanced dog food will promote a healthier skin and coat, strong well developed bones, defined muscle tone, bright clear eyes, healthier teeth and gums,firmer stools, and hopefully fewer trips to your Vet.

To be able to determine what is the best food to feed your dog when making dog food recipes it is a good idea to first learn how to read dog food labels properly.  In this way you can compare the ingredients in the food you make your dog to what is in the manufactured dog food brands.

Most commercial dog foods are very generalized in their labeling procedures because they are targeting a wide customer base. Not all commercial dog foods are bad, but it is important to understand that most of these products fall short in key nutrients needed for the vitality and health of the dog. Many are loaded with fillers that provide no nutritional benefit whatsoever.
So lets read through a dog food label  and see what ingredients are being used and how we can improve on them when we  make our own dog food recipes.

A dog food label consists of ingredients, an analysis and feeding instructions.  We will only concerm ourselves with the ingredients for the purpose of this exercise.

The List of ingredients
Ingredients are listed in weight order.  However pet food manufacturers can disguise the less desirable ingredients by breaking them down into several ingredient catagories.  Read all the ingredients carefully especially the preservatives and food colorings.  To develop a good dog food recipe here is a list of the most common ingredients used.

Meat:
This is the clean flesh of a slaughtered animal. However, the flesh can include striated skeletal muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart and esophagus, For our purpose we would want to use chicken or fish which contain the highest percentages of protein.

Meat By-products:
These are the clean parts of slaughtered animals such as lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, and stomach and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth, or hooves.  We have no need for meat by-products in our dog food recipes but it is good to be aware of what this term truly implies implies.

Poultry By-products:
As in meat by-products these are the clean parts of slaughtered poultry such as heads, feet, and internal organs.  It does not contain feathers.  Again not for us to be concerned.

Chicken or Fish Meal:
This is the clean ground tissue of undecomposed whole chicken or fish or their cuttings, with or without the oil extracted.

Beef Tallow:
This is fat derived from beef.

Ground Corn:
This is the entire corn kernel ground or chopped.

Corn Gluten Meal:
This is the by-product of corn syrup or starch, and is the dried residue after the removal of the bran, germ, and starch.  Pet food manufacturers use this as a filler.  We cab use this in our recipes but in small amounts.

Brewers Rice:
This is the small fragments of rice kernels that have been separated from larger kernels of milled rice and also used as a filler ingredient.

Brown Rice:
This is the unpolished rice left over after the kernels have been removed.  This we can use for our recipes because it provides nutrional value to our dog food preparations.

Soybean Meal:
This is a by-product of the production of soybean oil.

BHA:
This is butylated hydroxyanisole, a fat preservative.

Ethoxyquin:
This is a chemical preservative that is used to prevent spoilage in dog food.

Tocopherols:
These are naturally occurring compounds used as natural preservatives.

As you can see there are very few ingredients listed on any dog food labels that are useful for our purpose.  All we really need to make a good meal for our dogs is chicken or fish, certain vegetables and maybe a small amount of corn gluten to help in digestion.  To learn more about dog food nutrition and dog food ingredients read the appropriately named articles on this site.