Wet Food Additives

[AstraNine]

To get an idea about dry food carbohydrate level just take the sum of protein plus fat plus fibre plus ash plus moisture and deduct from 100. This gives an approx level of carbohydrate or NFE (nitrogen free extract).

[vivann]

This is very confusing.  I have just done the Walker and Drake chicken version in the instant food review and got 87%.  I included the nutritional additives and removed the dots and replaced with a comma.

The Aflora Cold Pressed chicken looks good too.

[Dottie]

The Instant Review Generator returned a nutritional rating of 88% when I tried it. The list only includes a percentage only for the first ingredient which is chicken. No mention of the percentages for the second, third or fourth ingredients, sweet potato, beet pulp and peas.

[David]

I can see that the instant review generator is causing a bit of confusion, for which I apologise. I'm afraid it's still a bit temperamental and if everything isn't entered exactly as it expects, it can give incorrect readings.

First, you should only enter the ingredients list (sometimes called composition) so not the nutritional additives or anything else. And then all the ingredients need to be separated by a comma.

So for Walter & Drake Ocean Fish, the ingredients list should read:
Dried Ocean Fish 42%, Sweet Potato, Beet Pulp, Chicken Oil, Peas, Fish Oil, FOS Inulin, Yeast Bio-Mos, Psyllium Husk Powder, Apple, Carrot, Tomato, Seaweed, Cranberry, Flavour Bioflavex, Glucosamine, Fenugreek, Green Tea Extract, Fennel Seed, Blueberry, Yucca Schidigera, Chondroitin, Marigold Powder, Devils Claw Root.
Which provides a nutritional rating of 86%

And for Aflora Beef and Whitefish:
Dried Ground Beef 32%, Sweet Potato 30%, Dried Ground White Fish 10%, Peas 5%, Tapioca 6.5%, Beet Pulp 5%, Rapeseed Oil 3.5%, Linseed Oil 3.5%, Vitamins & Minerals 1.25%, Dried Vegetables (Carrot, Celery Root), Dried Apple, Dried Herbs (Sage, Thyme, Oregano), Seaweed, Yucca, Fennel, Nettle, Chondroitin, Glucosamine, Turmeric, Dandelion Root.
Which provides a nutritional rating of 87%

I hope that helps.

[vivann]

Yes, very helpful thank you David.  Just tried the Walker and Drake Chicken menu and it comes out at 87%, Ocean Fish menu 86%, Duck menu 88%.  The Alflora Chicken is 78%.

One thing puzzles me, with the W&D menus they only give the meat or fish percentage of the ingredients so how can the calculator work it out accurately?  I notice Alflora give more information regarding percentages of ingredients.

[David]

One thing puzzles me, with the W&D menus they only give the meat or fish percentage of the ingredients so how can the calculator work it out accurately?  I notice Alflora give more information regarding percentages of ingredients.

Great question Vivann. The rating algorithm essentially takes whatever percentage information is available and uses it to fill in any blanks by calculating the possible range of percentages for each ingredient in the food.

Wherever information is not provided, it always assumes the worst. So when the percentage of a desirable ingredient like meat is missing, the algorithm will assume it it the lowest percent possible and for undesirable ingredients like fillers etc, it will assume it is the highest possible percentage.

In this way, even when few or even no percentages are provided, we are still able to get a fairly good estimate of how much of each ingredient a food is likely to contain.

Of course, this could result in a score that is lower than it would be if all of the percentages were provided but as a general rule, companies only withhold information if they believe it is in their interest to do so, so by assuming the worst you usually get quite close to the truth.

We're also huge advocates of clear labelling so are keen to reward those companies that have open, transparent ingredients lists and downgrade those that do not.

I hope that all makes sense.