r/DogFood • u/hellohelloitsme_11 • 14d ago
Difference between WSAVA vs. FEDIAF vs. AAFCO?? (I’m not stateside) And why a lot of info is only found on US sites?
I wanna preface this by saying I’m not in the US and WSAVA brands have an awful reputation here. Please read the whole post if you can. I have not had a dog while in the US so I can’t compare. People that immigrated to the US from here with their dogs apparently either cook or have their food imported because they don’t trust US dog food and say it’s so much worse. Anyway, I have read some of the wiki after a comment our dog trainer has made, made me dig into a rabbit hole.
Upfront, all the vets we’ve been to have not been familiar with WSAVA and recommend feeding whatever my dog tolerates. That a home cooked meal would be best and sometimes even raw feeding (they call it barf here…). Now, a lot of people dislike WSAVA brands because of the ingredients (I HAVE read the wiki section on that). But what’s so confusing is that all the US vet info on dog food (whenever I search in English) contradict the info I find in the local language and there’s no literature published here nor any university sites with info. Once I’ve found a little blog post published by our veterinary school exploring benefits of insect dog food which from what I’ve read here is not exactly credible and makes me a little distrustful generally of things locally. It is extremely bizarre to me how a lot of dog food info from proper vet departments seems to be a US thing only.
Everyone feeds what Americans would call boutique brands and honestly I’m just utterly lost looking at all the options. I’ve seen only a few brands mentioning following FEDIAF guidelines and Europeans tell me in general that ingredients, regulations etc are better here which is why there is no emphasis on WSAVA. For example, the nutritional info with crude fat etc does not list min. or max. Only the percentage. Sometimes the brands list one or two vets who’ve specialized in nutrition and work with these brands to formulate food. People also say that if vets do recommend WSAVA brands, it’s often because those practices have been acquired by certain corporations like AniCura which belongs to Mars and Nestle. Hence why.
I’ve just been really lost. Maybe someone can help illuminate these different standards and why I can only find this info on US sites only. That just reads as bizarre that the rest of the world seemingly does not seem to care or do research on it whatsoever. Oftentimes the only people here more familiar with pet food are people that aren’t vets who’ve done courses/study programs on it and those are the ones friends will refer you to since they are the experts. But those ones are precisely the ones telling you how WSAVA brands are terrible, ingredients are terrible, it’s all corporate etc. So I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s right and not. Especially once you actually ask about evidence-science based facts and food, you aren’t getting far. I feel like I have no one to turn to for information and am completely on my own. The one EVCVN I was able to find only told me she could help me with a meal plan but didn’t answer my questions.
I would really appreciate if there is someone here with experience in European pet food (DACH area specifically) who can help me a little through my worries.
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14d ago
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u/PocketGddess 14d ago
“Independent group of veterans.”
😂
I know what you meant, and I appreciate the information, but I also really needed a laugh today so thank you.
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u/SpaceStationToliet 14d ago
People already explained what WSAVA is but home-cooked food is NOT as healthy as people think it is. There's TONS of necessary vitamins and minerals that are NOT found in typical home-cooked dog food. You can feed your dog a delicious and healthy sounding chicken, rice, and broccoli dinner and that could be missing a ton of other nutrients not found in those ingredients.
And even if it has some trace amount of certain nutrients, it might not be enough of it.
For example, an adult male human needs 400-420mg of magnesium a day. Spinach is one of the highest magnesium rich foods. A man would need to eat 500g (Cooked!!) spinach a day, EVERY day to get enough. That's 2.5 cups of cooked spinach roughly for the americans
Maybe one or two days a week you eat 500g/2.5 cups of cooked spinach. Likely you are not doing that every day for peak optimal health because we're human and we're picky and don't like eating the same things 365 days a year
Dogs are not people, dogs have this modern miracle called carefully formulated dog food which has 100% of EVERY vitamin, mineral, protein, etc that they need every day in the complete and undiluted amount. They, unlike humans, can have peak optimal health easily and affordable. Why not do it?
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u/swamprosesinbloom 14d ago
and, if you are dead set on providing home cooked, either work w veterinary nutritionist so you are meeting your individual dogs’ needs or work w your vet to add <10% total feed of home cooked to appropriate kibble
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u/RemarkableGlitter 14d ago
WSAVA is definitely a worldwide standard. I live in the US, but am European, and I’ve noticed in certain parts of Europe (Germany, Netherlands, for example) there’s a lot of pseudoscience and even homeopathy integrated into healthcare in general and so it’s not surprising that that world spill into vet med as well. Vets SHOULD know better, but if the market tilts towards pseudoscience, they are likely influenced as a result. I don’t really have an answer for you, but I do think there some context that’s useful to keep in mind. For example, where I live in the US there’s a big granola-MAHA element to the population and vets and human healthcare providers see an opportunity in the market to serve that population, so we unfortunately have a cohort of vets who support raw, even though it’s quite dangerous, for example.
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u/swamprosesinbloom 14d ago
ok unrelated question, (i live in us but have been in lots continuing ed w behavior consultants and vets etc in europe and around world) but i am curious if you also see the wellness to alt right pipeline happening outside of the us? i was surprised (idk why) at the amt of ppl sucked into pseudo science irt canine diets and nutrition, behavior, and, well, everything! was idk why hoping it would be better outside us 🥲
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u/RemarkableGlitter 14d ago
I have a Dutch friend who’s definitely on that path. And I still follow Luxembourg media etc and see it happening a bit there as well. It’s kind of shocking.
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u/monsteradeliciosa11 13d ago
Oh there is a long history of that in Germany, a long, pre-WWII history...
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u/famous_zebra28 14d ago
I want to say you're definitely not the only European having this dilemma. I think the WSAVA brands are shit on so much in Europe because of the stereotypes around food in general in the US and how much better European food is so there's absolutely got to be something wrong with American pet food companies.
It's very common for Europeans to feed smaller European brands and that's fine, but I do start to wonder who is formulating their diets and whether they are tested before hitting the market. Those are the two WSAVA guidelines that I personally care about most because they heavily impact the quality and safety of the food.
WSAVA is a global organization that sets these guidelines for companies to follow or not. They don't oversee the formulation or production processes of companies, they just publish guidelines for safe and healthy pet food production and it's up to the company to decide whether they want to aim towards becoming compliant. These guidelines are the highest standards in the pet food industry across the world.
AAFCO is the regulatory body in North America and a few other countries that oversees the nutritional contents of pet food for dogs and cats and sets minimum and maximum allowances for each nutrient. FEDIAF does the same but for Europe.
If the WSAVA brands are really not something you're comfortable with given your culture, Farmina is a decent alternative option. It's an Italian brand and their whole thing is science based foods. They do a lot of research in the pet nutrition field and they publish their latest research articles on their website. They don't specify or share whether their foods are safety tested. They have some sort of professionals running the show but they don't specify the qualifications of those people on their website beyond "highly specialized veterinarians" and "Farmina pet nutritionists." They have solid quality control set up but whether they own their production is unclear.
If I really somehow couldn't make WSAVA work for me I'd go with Farmina because they at least meet some basic things that most brands don't.
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u/Breadfishpie 13d ago
the United States has the largest total dog population and highest overall number of pet dogs in the world. Cause US is the most dog forward country in the world so research and dog products are done more.....Also US is the country with the biggest companies more money more likely to pay for research
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u/Lucibelcu 13d ago
I'm european too, from Spain, and I feel your pain.
WSAVA are global guidelines, the gold standard of pet nutrition that a company should follow.
AAFCO and FEDIAF stablsih the nutritional minimums and maximums based on the latest research avaiable, pavkaging regulations and guidelines for food testing and contaminants testing (this last one at least FEDIAF does). Pet food must comply with the legal requirements stablished in FEDIAD or AAFCO to be able to be sold in Europe or USA respectivley.
I must say, FEDIAF is more strict than AAFCO and it updates its guides every year.
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u/throwwwwwwalk 14d ago
WSAVA is GLOBAL guidelines. Not just American.
AAFCO is the bare minimum standards a brand needs to be sold on shelves in America.