Pet food formulator Steve Brown gives pet owners an easy way to know how much pet food to feed to meet minimum protein requirements.
What if you don’t/can’t eat the recommended amount to meet the minimum protein requirement?
In many cases, a pet will gain weight if you feed the recommended amount of pet food needed to meet minimum protein requirements. If you are eating less food (less kcal than the result above), Steve Brown offers us these suggestions to meet the minimum protein requirements:
- Switch to pet food with a higher percentage of protein. Such as – using dry food as an example – if your current pet food is 30% Protein (listed in the Test Guarantee) – switch to a pet food that is 35% Protein.
- Or, increase the protein your pet receives each day by adding fresh meat to your pet’s diet. For every gram of protein neededyou can add 5 grams of raw lean beef or raw chicken (about a teaspoon) – or 4 grams of cooked beef or chicken to your pet’s daily diet (about a heaping teaspoon).
To calculate how many grams of meat to add to your pet’s diet daily:
Grams of protein needed per day (from the chart above) divided by the number of kcals this pet’s food needs (the result from above), times the amount of kcals you are currently feeding = the grams of protein you are currently feeding.
For example, if you are currently feeding 15 grams of protein and your cat needs 17.1 grams – add about two teaspoons of raw or cooked lean meat daily to their food (one heaping teaspoon per gram deficiency).
