Protein and amino acid bioavailability estimates for canine foods

Abstract

Estimates used by the Association of American Feed Control Officials and the European Pet Food Industry Federation were closer to calculated values, although the majority were too low, with the exception of CP, Arg, and Lys. Bioavailability estimates for Lys, Met, and Cys as calculated here require further veracity as the chemical form in which these AA are present in commercial pet foods may significantly reduce their bioavailability.

Letter to the Editor and Rebuttal: Protein and amino acid bioavailability estimates for canine foods

“…Dear Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Animal Science, With great interest, we, the members of the Nutrition and Analytical Sciences working group of the European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF), have read the article Protein and Amino Acid Bioavailability Estimates for Canine Foods (Hendriks et al, 2015). We agree with the authors that the bioavailability of dietary AA is an important aspect for the determination of the nutritional quality of animal diets.…”

“…The aFO N for the 2 diets are 0.269 and 0.305 g/(kg BW 0.75 •d) with a corresponding sIO N of 0.315 and 0.601 g/(kg BW 0.75 •d). These values cannot be considered outliers (see Figure 1 in Hendriks et al, 2015). The second relationship between sID AA or sID of the sum of nonessential AA and sID N used in the model does not contain any diets that can be considered to have "extremely high" CP levels.…”

“…The study published by Hendriks et al (2015) and the methodology applied in this work are of a high interest as they can provide valuable insights toward setting the recommended standards for the formulation of complete and balanced pet food, practically, as animal experimentations are very scarce for ethical reasons. The authors conclude the study with deriving bioavailability estimates for CP and AA, to convert minimum physiological requirements to practical allowance estimates of these nutrients in maintenance dog foods, and compared them with estimates currently used in the authoritative publications.…”

Plasma amino acid profiles in dogs with closed extrahepatic portosystemic shunts are only partially improved 3 months after successful gradual attenuation

“…The digestibility of amino acids in food is dependent not only on the protein source, but also on the way the food is processed and on the presence of other components in the food. It remains to be investigated how the composition of diets can influence blood amino acid profiles in dogs with impaired hepatic function 37‐39 …”

Evaluation of raw meat diets on macronutrient digestibility, fecal output, microbial presence, and general health status in domestic dogs.

“…Additionally, diet composition of formulated mixtures should be compatible with processing methodology. Extrusion requires starch and limits fat concentrations; therefore, careful consideration is required during formulation (Hendriks et al, 2015). Starch plays an important functional role in extruded foods.…”