An analysis of the Dog and Cat Food Ingredient Center focused on the use of lamb and lamb meal in pet food and the labeling of those products.

Today, many of the novel protein diets have moved to other protein sources, noted the author of the analysis, but lamb and lamb meal are still widely used in dry dog food. Cats prefer other meats over lamb, so it has almost no use in cat food.

Lamb's usage in pet food

In dry dog food, lamb meal is included in 255, or 12 percent of the recipes listed in the database, with lamb listed in 129, or 6 percent of the recipes.

Lamb meal in more dog food recipes

For further analysis of the 255 companies with lamb meal, the author excluded lamb, deboned lamb and boneless lamb. That yielded 161 products, or 7 percent of the sample.

To look the labeling of these pet food formulas with lamb meal but no lamb, the author examined the list of 161 products for the wording used.

Dog and Cat Food Ingredient Center

The Dog and Cat Food Ingredient Center is a database of nutritional information and full ingredient lists for pet foods currently available in the US market. The Dog and Cat Food Ingredient Center contains data on which pet food companies are using these novel pet food ingredients, along with the nutritional information about these products.

The database is organized by brand, product line and formula. As an example, Diamond Naturals Lamb Meal and Rice has “Diamond” as the brand, “Naturals” as the product line and “Lamb Meal and Rice” as the formula name. When the analysis’ author refers to formula in this analysis, it is part of the branding of the label or bag.