Nutrition Through the Life Cycle
Nutrition Through the Life Cycle
The Association of American Feed Control Officials Dog and Cat Food Nutrient Profiles: Substantiation of Nutritional Adequacy of Complete and Balanced Pet Foods in the united States12 DAVID A. DZANIS3 Division of Animal Feeds, Center for Veterinary Medicine, Rockuille, MD 20855
U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
Means of substantiation
INDEXING KEY WORDS:
•symposium requirements
dogs •cats •nutritional nutrient profiles
The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) is an advisory body comprised of represen tatives from the individual states of the United States. A primary function of AAFCO is the publication of model laws, animal feed regulations and ingredient definitions, all of which a state may adopt as a part of its own feed laws and regulations. Included in the model regulations are means for substantiation of nu tritional adequacy for "complete and balanced" dog and cat foods. 0022-3166/94
There are two means of substantiating the nutri tional adequacy of a pet food. The first method re quires the product to be formulated so that essential nutrient levels fall with the ranges as set in the AAFCO Nutrient Profiles. The second method requires a pet food manufacturer to conduct animal feeding trials in accordance with AAFCO protocols. Pet foods that successfully pass the feeding trials are exempt from the requirement to meet the profiles. Historically, AAFCO has relied on the publications of the National Research Council (NRC) as its "rec ognized authority on animal nutrition" with respect to the levels of nutrients that constituted a complete and balanced dog or cat food (NRC 1974, 1978, 1985, 1986). This reliance became problematic with the most recent of the NRC publications. The 1985 and 1986 editions reflected more recent knowledge of canine and feline nutrition, but their recommendations were not in a format readily usable by AAFCO or the pet food industry. As a result, AAFCO elected to continue to use the outdated 1974 and 1978 recommendations. In 1990, the AAFCO Canine Nutrition Expert (CNE) Subcommittee was established to address this problem. The report of the CNE Subcommittee be came the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles (Table
- (AAFCO 1992). Compared with the 1974 NRC ree1 Presented as part of the Waltham Symposium on the Nutrition
of Companion Animals in association with the 15th International Congress of Nutrition, at Adelaide, SA, Australia, on September 23-25, 1993. Guest editors for this symposium were Kay Earle, John Mercer and D'Ann Finley. 2 Presented as "Substantiation of Nutritional Adequacy of Com plete and Balanced Pet Foods" at the Petfood Forum, May 4, 1993, Chicago, IL. 3 To whom correspondence should be addressed: FDA/CVM, HFV-222, 7500 Standish Place, Rockville, MD 20855.
$3.00 ©1994 American Institute of Nutrition.
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ABSTRACT The Association of American Feed Con trol Official (AAFCO) f