That 'Meat First' label at the supermarket might be a legal trick. Here is how they hide the truth in plain sight.
You're told to look for meat as the first ingredient. But savvy manufacturers use a loophole to push meat to the top, even when the bag is mostly grain.
In the UK, ingredients are listed by weight. To hide a bulky filler like maize, brands split it into three: maize flour, maize gluten, and maize meal.
Individually, each maize part weighs less than the meat. But if you added them back together? The grain would dwarf the chicken by a mile.
When you shop at Argos or Pets at Home, mentally group 'families' together. If you see rice, brown rice, and rice flour, that bag is mostly rice.
Fresh chicken is 70% water. It's heavy on the scales at the factory, so it goes first on the label. But once it's cooked into dry kibble? Most of it is just steam.
Don't fear 'Chicken Meal'. It has already been dried. 1kg of meat meal provides far more actual protein than 1kg of 'Fresh Chicken' ever could.
Think your grain-free choice is safer? Look for potato starch, potato protein, and dried potato. It's the same splitting trick, just with a different plant.
In the UK, check the 'Crude Protein' section. If meat is first but protein is under 22%, those split fillers are doing all the heavy lifting.
This vague term lets brands use whatever is cheapest that week. Pair this with ingredient splitting, and your pet's diet becomes a total mystery.
Honest brands list exact percentages, like '60% Dehydrated Duck'. If they won't tell you the percentage of maize, they're probably hiding it.
Ingredient splitting is a marketing shield designed to appeal to you, not feed your dog. When you learn to recombine the grains, the myth disappears.
Get the exact list of sneaky ingredients to watch for and our guide to calculating real meat content.