Hi Jenn H,
Food choice is often an emotional issue. It is easy to be swayed by an ingredient list and a human grade designation. But to reinforce what Pitlove said, the best ingredients can make the worst food.
My concern with THK goes beyond their posted nutrient analysis not meeting AAFCO, that is only a symptom of a much larger problem. The problem is that the company doesn’t understand basic nutritional principles: They don’t understand how processing affects nutrient bioavailibility, nor how to do basic nutrient calculations. These basic things are vital to producing a food that is complete and balanced as they claim their food is.
I don’t feel the food is unsafe but I do feel it is highly overpriced and should only be used intermittently and not relied upon as a main source of nutrition JMO.
C4D You wrote: “THK only came in slightly low from those guidelines you mentioned, and from the AAFCO guidelines, they were in compliance and exceeded the minimum standards. I did not check every formula.”
When you checked formulas did you correct for energy density? I’ll give you an example I went to their site and pulled up the first NA listed, Embark and started scanning from the top down. The first nutrient that stands out as suspect is methionine-cystine. THK reports a DM of .59% AAFCO requires 0.53%. So that looks adequate but AAFCO requires a energy density calculation for any diet over 3500 kcals.kg and this diet is 4617 kcals/kg. After factoring in the correction factor of 1.32 the min methionine-cystine to meet AAFCO should be .7%. THK’s reported value falls short of AAFCO min. NRC min for gestation lactation is .62% for a 4000kcal/kg diet so it falls short of NRC as well. Other nutrients are obviously way too low. The Vit E level in Keen is reported as 23.45 IU/kg. AAFCO min is 50 IU/kg. After correcting for energy density the min AAFCO requirement is 66 IU/kg. THK is about 1/3 of AAFCO min requirement.
If you use the food intermittently there shouldn’t be a problem. I just choose not to support companies that don’t understand such basic concepts. If they can’t get something as basic as grade school math right it makes me concerned that they can’t get the complicated stuff right either.
