The varieties of dog, cat and other pet food available have diversified from conventional kibble to a range of options, including frozen or refrigerated fresh pet foods. This diversification of pet food options may have implications for calculations used to estimate a particular formulation’s energy and nutrient content.

“There are many ways that we can estimate the calories of a dog food,” Jirayu Tanprasertsuk, Ph.D., scientist with pet food company Nom Nom said. “The one that is commonly used, because it's pretty easy to do, is the modified Atwater calculation. That takes into account mostly the macronutrient composition. But we know that the digestibility of calories or macronutrients are not influenced by only the macronutrient composition. They are influenced by a lot of factors like food processing, the fiber content, etc.”

Tanprasertsuk was part of a group of Nom Nom and University of Florida researchers who conducted an experiment to observe differences in digestibility and available calories among several varieties of dog food. The researchers observed differences not only among the actual foods, but in the estimates provided by calculations of digestibility. The journal Translational Animal Science published the results.

Providing accurate calorie estimates helps pet owners avoid feeding their animals more energy than they need in a day. Improving calculations and subsequently calorie labeling could help fight the growing obesity problem in pets.