Pet foods should avoid ingredients & toxic chemicals which might harm pet cats & dogs. The different types of pet foods are

All pet owners should be familiar, with the nutritional labels on pet food & Some of the basic ingredients of pet foods are described below.

Ingredients

Pet Food Ingredients contribute to the good or bad health of a Pet. Every Pet owners must have brief knowledge of the ingredients in the foods they use. Below are some of the most common pet food ingredients.

Artificial colors and flavors

Artificial colors and flavors make the food appealing & add more taste. Artificial colors & flavors make no contribution to pet nutrition.

By-Products

The Association of American Feed Control Officials, which sets pet food labeling standards, defines meat byproducts as lungs, blood, bone, intestines -- anything other than actual meat. Chicken byproducts can include chicken heads, feet and undeveloped eggs.

Pet Food byproducts can also contain "cancerous tissue, lungs filled with pneumonia" and parts cut off because they were injection sites for drugs or hormones.

What are Fillers - Fillers consist of wheat, corn, hulls, soybean meal, mill run and flours have little to no nutritional value, however pet food fillers make up the bulk of some foods.

What makes a Pet Meal - Pet meals consist of meat and bone, which comes out from a process called rendering, in which dead animals are put into a vat and cooked at high temperatures. Pet food meats are defined by AAFCO as listed below.

CHICKEN: the clean combination of flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails.

Beef is similarly strictly defined.

BEEF: the clean flesh derived from slaughtered cattle, and is limited to that part of the striate muscle which is skeletal or that which is found in the tongue, in the diaphragm, in the heart, or in the esophagus; with or without the accompanying and overlying fat and the portions of the skin, sinew, nerve and blood vessels which normally accompany the flesh.

Pet food meat & poultry doesn't include hair, hooves & other poorly digestible tissues.

Preservatives - Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), propylene glycol and ethoxyquin are among the most common preservatives in pet foods. Pet food preservatives are linked to certain ailments like anemia to cancer. Most pet foods should avoid preservatives as they are chemicals which are used to keep the food for a longer time.

Common Supplements:

Below is a table which provides some simple definitions to some food supplements.