You might be impressed if someone told you that they had a dog food that was 30% protein, 30% fat and 30% fiber. Until you found out the 30% protein was ground up shoe leather, 30% fat was motor oil and the 30% fiber was sawdust!
So it goes with many of the claims on the bags in the pet food industry. Just as important as the nutrient profile in a dog food is the food's BIO-AVAILABILITY.
Bio-Availability is a measure of not only the ingredients but (by percentage) how much of those ingredients can actually be absorbed and metabolized by your pet.
Like they say in the financial field "It's not what you make, it's what you take" You might make a million dollars but if you're overhead is $999,999.00 you'd only have a dollar to use.
Eggs are the most bio-available at 100%. Chicken is 79% and beef is 75% bio-available, but when we leave the meat aisle things fall off rapidly. The nutrients in brown rice are only 57% available to your animal and peas are 55%. Corn is 36% and the nutrients in potatoes are only 34% available. This is, in great part due to the carnivorous nature of your dogs and cats, which do not possess many of enzymes needed to absorb and metabolize these foods. Here at Marlin's we see to it that not only are there high quality nutrients in the foods that we suggest, but that they are able to be absorbed and metabolized by your pet. Stay tuned to future posts when we'll talk about the further loss of nutrients by processing methods such as heating, pressurizing, and drying it into a kibble form, none of which occurs with our fresh raw food, making kibble that much worse and our raw foods that much better.