Choosing Affordable and Nutritious Pet Food

Ed Carlson, CVT, VTS (Nutrition), technician learning and development manager at Ethos Veterinary Health, explains how to create a complete and balanced pet diet within an owner’s price range.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“Either a technician or a veterinarian should be able to help advise [owners] on a complete and balanced diet that they can buy, that kind of is within their price bracket. There are many complete and balanced pet foods out there on the market today. Read any bag and see if it has an AAFCO statement on the bag [that] will tell you if it’s complete and balanced.

When we go to the more premium diets and the higher quality diets, again there are some that have more science behind them and use different types of ingredients, but they are still complete and balanced. Maybe you can’t afford the Cadillac, but maybe you can afford something a little bit less expensive.

The other thing people need to remember, and again they can look to their professional veterinary health team member[s] to help them, is how much they’re going to need to feed [their pet from a particular] diet. So, a diet that is very high in protein and carbohydrates and fat, they will probably need to feed a considerab[le] amount less, sometimes half as much as they would of a pet food that is not using as high quality ingredients.

Sometimes when you think you’re buying something that’s less expensive but you’re going to need the pet to consume considerably more to get the proper nutrition, then in the long run sometimes a diet that is actually more expensive to buy [and] ends up lasting longer, is probably a better option.”