When deciding what diet to feed a dog or cat, pet owners often wonder if one option is better than the other. According to Dr David Morgan, Chief Scientific Communication Advisor for Kraftia, the most important factor is ensuring the diet provides complete and balanced nutrition.
“Firstly, when choosing any diet, it must provide all the nutrients required and in the right amounts, to be complete. Nutrients are delivered by the ingredients, and then all the nutrients must be balanced against each other in the right proportions. High quality complete and balanced nutrition can be achieved in both a grain-free and grain-inclusive recipe”, he explains.
Pet owners may choose between grain-free or grain-inclusive recipes based on personal preference or their pets’ reactions to some of the ingredients, but both grain-free or grain-inclusive food will meet their pet’s nutritional needs and provide starch, needed for energy.
“Very occasionally, there is a need to feed a grain-free recipe, due to a confirmed reaction against a grain, but the chances of this happening are in fact very low. Therefore, for the majority of owners they can simply choose between a grain-free or grain-inclusive recipe, knowing that both will provide all the nutrition their pet needs”, says Dr Morgan.
At Kraftia, we’ve crafted a variety of recipes to ensure your pet gets optimal nutrition, featuring diverse flavors and ingredients. Kraftia harnesses the most advanced cooking processes, including an oven baking step, that ensures all its recipes are highly digestible, and this is very important when it comes to the starch found in grains or grain-free ingredients. Having highly digestible starch means that every pet’s optimal health can be supported by feeding a grain-inclusive or grain-free recipe.
Pet food companies adhere to strict guidelines and regulations to ensure their products provide the necessary nutrients.
“Each pet food company is responsible for formulating their products against clear and concise formulation guidelines. This means that for all products placed in the market for sale, these strict regulations govern and assess them all for their nutritional composition and completeness, no matter if they are grain-free or grain-inclusive”, Dr Morgan notes.
The overall nutritional profile of the food, and how all the healthy nutrients interact, is ultimately more important than any single ingredient.
“These principles of formulation and assessment are exactly the same for all recipes. Pet owners can feel very confident that making a choice to feed a grain-free or grain-inclusive recipe will provide high-quality nutrition for their pets”, concludes Dr Morgan.
