lies and deceptions of canned food

So I've had an opportunity to give a class on pet nutrition today at a local pet food boutique, it went pretty well but it got me to research various aspects of pet food industry that I havent brushed up on in a while. One of those was canned food labeling.

If you are not familiar, pet food companies can get away with using crap in their food by carefully choosing certain key words. There are 4 examples of that:

1) 95% rule- this states that the can of food must be composed of at least 95% of listed ingredients. For example, "chicken and rice" dog food, has to be at least 95% of chicken and rice combined. This is generally what you want to strive for when you purchase canned food

2) 25% rule- this is probably the most frequently observed labeling on canned food, it usually goes by appetizing named like "dinner", "feast" "platter" "entree", this rule states that it must contain 25-95% of named meat protein. My guess is that a lot of low end brands only contain that minimal amount of 25% and the rest if either wheat gluten or textured soy protein which is shaped to resemble morsels of meat.

3) "with" rule- this one states that the food must contain at least 3% of the named meat. One of the examples is the following Alpo top sirloin flavored with angus beef. So you have something thats beef flavored and it has a fraction of beef in it. The wording and the pretty picture makes it sound like you're feeding $50 steak to your dog.

4) Last but not least- flavored rule, this is pretty much self explanatory. When it says beef or chicken flavored it does not have to contain any meat. Gross right?

With that said, don't rely just on those rules when purchasing your pets food, always read the ingredient label, stay away from byproducts, glutens, soy, carageenan, etc.