FDA’s practical approach to pet nutritional nutrition

As the owner of a longtime dog, I assumed that each bag of commercial food of my dogs was closely monitored by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It turns out that I was wrong.

More than 102 million American households have a dog or a cat, and thousands of others have fish, birds or reptiles. The resulting pet food industry is massive – the Americans spent $ 65 billion for pet food and treats only in 2023.

But the regulation of pet food in the United States is uneven. If it is true that the FDA regulates the ingredients found in commercial animal food, the agency does not approve of individual products or brands. In addition, monitoring the sprawling industry FDA is shrinking through federal mass dismissals, including in its veterinary medicine center, which regulates pet food.

Only the FDA and the States have regulatory authority on business food for pets in the United States, the agency has regulated business food for pets since 1938 and requires that it be safe for animals to consume, produces under sanitary conditions, free from harmful and honestly labeled substances. Each state also undertakes its own label examination for each product and requires that the products be recorded.

The FDA inspects pet food for pet food and initiates reminders. There were 17 animal food reminders in 2024, mainly due to the contamination of Salmonella and / or Listeria. And although the FDA does not approve of brands or products, it approves the individual ingredients used in these products.

The basic idea is as follows: if a bag of dog food is honestly labeled, without harmful substances, produced in a health, and contains specific ingredients approved by the FDA, this bag can be sold in the United States, but a product does not need to be particularly nutritious to meet these requirements and go to sale. The FDA has no role in the guarantee that the products that go on the market are sufficient in terms of nutritional or high quality.

Instead, two non -governmental organizations intervened to establish the standard: the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA).

Although neither AAFCO nor WSAVA have a regulatory authority, they both produce directives that pet manufacturers try to meet, and consumers can use to distinguish a ostensibly “good” food from a “bad” food.

The AAFCO is made up of state officials and federal federal foods – farming experts and pet foods that have established standards to define pet food as “complete and balanced”. To win this designation, products simply have to meet one of the Dogs or Aafco cat nutrient profiles and / or take a food test.

WSAVA directives go much further, demanding that brands use a nutritionist or scientist certified by the board of directors to formulate food. In addition, brands should supervise quality control and have manufacturing facilities where food is manufactured. WSAVA requires that the food tests go beyond those of the AAFCO.

Unlike AAFCO, WSAVA members include the main pet food conglomerates, including Nestlé, Mars Petcare and Colgate-Palmolive. Representatives of Purina de Nestlé sit on the WSAVA nutrition committee and also make an annual donation of $ 100,000 + to WSAVA. Some smaller brands have decried the participation of businesses in the definition of these directives, arguing that it unfairly tips the scales.

All this is opaque for consumers.

With many voices of authority on pet food and confusion as to trust, animal owners often turn to a source where the imprisonment: Internet.

There, the fashionable diets settle down. Two recent examples are cereal and raw regimes.

Cereal-free regimes exploded in popularity in the 2010s, while chair experts seized rare research on their anti-allergies advantages. Cereal -free food sales climbed nearly $ 5.5 billion in 2019.

But from 2018 to 2022, the FDA began to investigate nearly 1,400 complaints of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs (and a small number of cats). The canine DCM reduces the ability of the heart to pump blood throughout the body and can cause serious illness and sudden death. Most affected pets had eaten cereal -free diets.

Although the FDA survey has failed without final conclusion, many studies have since suggested that high levels of pulses (as in the seeds of a legume plant) can be to blame instead.

Raw regimes have also taken root, stimulated by online supporters of a “natural” diet. The raw diets consist of raw meat, eggs and bones, as well as vegetables or unwanted fruits. These diets include the risk of food of food origin, including bird flu, considered recently only January 2025 in California. Officials have confirmed that interior cats were exposed to virus living in raw foods and milk.

The rigorous inspection and monitoring services carried out by FDA veterinary regulators were essential to expose the dangers of these two fashionable regimes. With important cuts on their workforce, we could expect this surveillance in the field to suffer.

However, we have local support.

Americans trust their local veterinarians who serve as a first line of expertise and monitor models such as fashionable diets. But veterinarians are faced with two challenges in the provision of nutritional advice to customers: a shortage of labor and training gaps.

Almost all American states have a veterinary shortage. There are not enough veterinarians to reach the 60% increase in the ownership of domestic animals since 1991.