Let's Talk About the Standards That Shape Pet Food

If you’ve ever flipped a bag of dog food over and seen “meets AAFCO standards for complete and balanced nutrition,” you might have wondered: what exactly is AAFCO, and should I care?

At Healthy Dogma, we believe you should care, but not in the way most big pet food brands want you to.

Let’s dig into the story behind AAFCO, how it came to dominate labels in the pet food aisle, and how we approach nutrition with your dog’s real-life needs in mind, not a feedlot philosophy.

AAFCO: Built for Livestock, Not Loved Ones

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) started as a trade organization designed to help standardize feed for livestock. The idea? Create guidelines so that animals raised for meat, milk, or eggs reached their market weight efficiently.

That’s right. The roots of AAFCO aren’t in helping your Golden Retriever thrive into their senior years. They’re in helping cows, pigs, and chickens gain weight quickly so they can enter the human food supply.

That doesn’t make AAFCO bad. In fact, it makes sense for what it was created to do. But here’s the thing: your dog is not livestock. Your dog is family.

“Complete and Balanced”... But for Who?

AAFCO developed a framework for nutrients needed for growth or maintenance, and many brands took that idea and ran with it. So much so that today, pet food is often advertised as “complete and balanced” in every bite.

Sounds good, right?

But imagine if you ate a diet where every single bite had to meet all your daily vitamin and mineral requirements. You’d be eating a heavily fortified, pre-processed meal bar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every day. Forever.

That’s not real food. That’s ultra-processed food.

The problem isn’t with balance. It’s with how that concept is applied. Because real nutrition comes from variety, quality, and time, not from processing everything into one crunchy cube.

The Truth About AAFCO “Certification”

Here’s another secret: AAFCO doesn’t certify anything.

You’ll never find a truly “AAFCO Certified” product. That phrase doesn’t exist. What brands can say (and should say accurately) is that their food meets AAFCO nutritional guidelines for a specific life stage like “adult maintenance.”

That’s it.

AAFCO itself doesn’t inspect, regulate, or test. It simply publishes nutrient profiles and feeding trial protocols. Brands follow (or don’t) those voluntarily.

Interestingly, the FDA used to have a Memorandum of Understanding with AAFCO, treating its guidelines as the standard for animal feed. But that agreement lapsed and wasn’t renewed. Which means, for now, those standards are somewhere between suggested and assumed.

What Healthy Dogma Believes

At Healthy Dogma, we honor the idea of nutritional guidance, but we reject the idea that pet food needs to be built like factory feed.

Here’s what we do believe:

• Real food wins. Dogs benefit from whole ingredients, variety, and meals that mimic the best parts of homemade.

• Clean, kitchen-quality recipes should be the baseline, not the exception.

• Transparency matters. We include a Guaranteed Analysis on all our PetMix meals so you can compare values like protein, fat, and fiber across options.

• Guided by standards, not boxed in by them. While we don't claim AAFCO “certification,” our staff nutritionist and formulation tools take AAFCO profiles into consideration when we develop every PetMix recipe.

• Formulated for daily feeding. Every PetMix variety is designed to support healthy adult dogs of all breeds and sizes. We aren’t here to be vague. We’re here to serve your companion well.

Real Meals for Real Dogs

If you’re looking for a company that treats your dog like a data point, there are plenty of options.

But if you want meals that reflect care, quality, and the kind of standards you’d want in your kitchen, you’re in the right place.

Healthy Dogma is where clean ingredients meet common sense. Where “complete and balanced” doesn’t mean ultra-processed, but thoughtfully crafted.

We don’t just feed dogs. We feed relationships. One bowl at a time.

Want to Learn More?

Explore our PetMix recipes, or reach out to us with your questions. Our team is always happy to talk shop or share a tail-wagging success story.

Because feeding your best friend shouldn’t feel like a science project. It should feel like home.