Have you ever thought about how strange it is that dogs eat these dry, weird smelling
bits of food for their entire lives and never get sick of them?
How torturous would it be to be forced to eat the same, boring cheese sandwich for every
meal of the day for a decade on end?
Are we torturing our dogs?
As it turns out, no, dog food kibble is a chemically custom tailored product that meets
every mark when it comes to nutrition, diet, and the interesting eating preferences of
dogs.
Once you see what dog food kibble is actually made of, you’ll come to find that the real
wonder science behind it is the chemistry used to tickle Sparky’s fancy into thinking
this stuff is to die for, when really it’s not.
Making the perfect dog food kibble is a scientific puzzle, because each bite needs to balance
a lifetime of nutritional requirements, with affordability, and of course, with palatability.
Though some dogs seem to eat about just anything.
To optimize nutrition and cost, some added ingredients aren’t exactly what dogs would
want to call food, so scientists had to create a solution to trick their senses into thinking
it’s something that it’s not.
Before we get into that, let’s take a look at what’s inside a pellet of kibble.
An organization called the Association of American Feed Control Officials provide nutritional
standards for dog food manufacturers.
There’s a whole bunch of different dog food formulas on the market, some are designed
for weight loss and others for richer coats, but the overall ingredients are relatively
standard.
These include grains, meats, fats, a vitamin/mineral pre-mix, and chemical additives for color
and a long shelf life.
Yeah, your dog probably eats a better balanced diet than you.
Grains like wheat, rice, and corn, are added as a source of starchy carbohydrates that
offer an inexpensive source of energy for dogs.
Since raw starch is not easy to digest, the grains are cooked, which makes the starch
in them about 90% more digestible.
This allows dogs to extract more nutrients out of the grains, giving Sparky that energy
boost he needs to play with his friends all day.
Cooking the grains also gives kibble its shape and texture by causing the starches to gelatinize,
giving kibble a stable, bulky quality.
Some types of grain also provide fiber, which makes using these little bags a lot easier
if you know what I mean.
But when it comes to a dog’s choice of what they prefer to eat, dogs will more often than
not, choose meat over carbs.
Meats and meat meals are added as the primary source of protein in kibble.
Meat meals, are made from all the animal parts we typically don’t eat like: scraps, guts,
and bones.
These by-products are cooked and dehydrated and end up contributing more protein to dog
food than added meats.
Dogs will break down proteins in their small intestine, into amino acids, which are crucial
for muscle growth and the synthesis of hormones and neurotransmitters.
There are 10 essential amino acids that dogs need to survive and all of those need to be
included in a healthy dog food diet so little Fido can hog your bed for years to come.
Fats are also an important source of energy and essential fatty acids in a dog’s diet.
Little Scruffy’s skin and coat are greatly affected by fatty acids, and without the right
ones, his hair can become dry, matted and well, scruffy, making him an aptly named dog.
So dog food manufacturers add in several types of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, to make
Sparkles a more apt name.
Fats also add a little extra flavor, which is a big help because a lack of flavor is
kibble’s biggest problem, well, to a dog, anyway.
These crunchy, dry pellets are super bland, odorless, and unattractive to dogs.
Not only are they made largely from grains, a food that they would usually have nothing
to do with, research has shown that dry dog food has far less aroma than the wet stuff.
Dog noses are around 10,000x more powerful than ours, and they heavily rely on their
sense of smell to hunt and scavenge for food in nature.
Keep in mind, flavor doesn’t just describe what’s happening on taste buds, it also
factors in aroma, so a food without a smell, to dogs, is really unappetizing.
This is where flavor chemists come in.
They developed a custom built chemical aroma called palatants that trick dogs into thinking
these bland pellets have big flavor.
Palatants are sprayed onto the outside of dog food similar to how we flavor potato chips
- the big difference is that, Sparky doesn’t care for smoking hot barbeque - he wants wild
rotten corpse or raging roadkill.
Dogs are attracted to flavors that would make us gag, like Putrescine and Cadaverine, two
cleverly named compounds that come from the breakdown of proteins.
These two compounds quite literally smell like a dead body, and for some reason, dogs
absolutely love it.
Yeah, Max will be having the time of her life when that zombie apocalypse finally comes.
Flavor chemists build palatants off this bizarre preference, which helps to give the bland,
dried kibble a desirable disguise to stoke Sparky’s interest.
Keeping your dog happy is keeping your dog healthy.
Flavor chemists use their genius to make these boring bits of food into something spectacular
to your dogs nose, and we thank them for that.
Oh, and believe me they’re on your side.
When making these artificial dog aromas, they factor in our sense of smell too, so you know,
we don’t vomit every time we open the dog food bag.
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Sound Field breaks down our favorite songs and artists from all genres, from Bach to
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The show is hosted by two amazing musicians, Nahre Sol and “LA” Buckner, who even come
up with an original song in every episode.
Check out Sound Field at the link in the doobleydoo below.
We love making videos about pets, and want to know if you have any other pet related
chemistry questions for us to answer.
Let us know down in the comments.
And be sure to like and subscribe on your way out.
Thanks for watching.