Does Dry Dog Food Expire

Is Expired Dog Food Safe

You might not need to look at the expiration date to know that a pet food is past its prime. Expired pet foods often smell off, leading your dog to turn up his nose at the food bowlbut he might be too food motivated to notice, so its important for the humans to pay attention.

Just like our food, fresh food smells like food and bad food smells off, Chavez says. Dogs may notice before we do because they are more sensitive, so if your dog rejects his favorite meal, it might be bad.

Expired foods are not only unappetizing, they could cause health issues, according to Chavez.

Just like us, can get sick , he explains. In more severe cases, they can have vomiting, diarrhea and stop eating altogether.

If you accidentally fed your hungry hound expired food, McCarthy suggests contacting your veterinarian

If your pet recently consumed , your veterinarian may induce vomiting to prevent any issues with the expired food, she says. You can also monitor your dog for any signs of illness or stomach upset like vomiting and diarrhea, and contact your veterinarian if any concerns arise.

Video Answer: Is Dry Pet Food Bad For Our Pets Advice From The Ultimate Pet Vet

A dog is not considered to be vaccinated until 28 days after the initial inoculation.

Rabies vaccinations are considered outdated 1 day beyond the 1-year or 3-year anniversary of the vaccination.

Ice Cream Expiration Date.

Of course, ice cream lasts for a shorter period of time if it is not stored properly.

Because of this distinction, you may safely use it to satisfy your taste buds even after the best before date has lapsed.

Many wonder does ice cream go bad, it might seem unlikely, but it actually does.

What Can You Do With Leftover Dry Dog Food

Store your dogs food appropriately.

Dry kibble should be stored in an air-tight pet food storage container with a lid and kept in a cool, dry environment. Many dog owners simply scoop food from the bag and roll the bag over resulting in food that can go stale, collect moisture, grow mold, or become contaminated.

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Note The Expiration Date

Your dogs food has an expiration date just like your food does. Thats why we always make the Best Before dates on our packages easy to find and understand. For dry dog food and pouches of wet food, its on the back. For canned food, its on the bottom of the can and the date is clearly visible theres no secret code you have to crack. After that date has passed, though, swap out old food for new, because we cant guarantee its nutritional integrity anymore.

Loss Of Nutritional Value

Depending on the specific formula used, dog food will begin to lose it’s nutritional value once it’s surpassed it’s shelf life. Vitamins and nutrients will begin to fade and the food’s promised benefits will diminish.

The kibble will still retain some nutritional value, but it will be far inferior to when it was freshly made. In fact, if the food has a natural preservative, the nutritional value will decrease the moment it leaves the factory. But what does this mean for your dog?

Dogs rely on their food to get all the nutrition they need. Many owners choose food based on the benefits it can bring to their dog. When you feed your dog expired food, you’re depriving them of all the essentials they need to thrive. While you may be feeding the same amount, it’s just empty calories. Owners will have to offset this deficit with supplements.

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If The Dog Food Doesnt Smell Right

If a food looks fine but smells bad when you open it and, especially, if your dog seems reluctant or slow to dig into it its likely that the foods preservative and antioxidant agents have not performed as well as they should. The fats in the food may be rancid, making it unappealing, but not necessarily unhealthful. Oxidation of the fats in a food can result in a chemical chain reaction that leads to a rapid spreading of free radicals . The absorption of essential fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins is significantly reduced in oxidized foods defeating the purpose of buying that costly nutritious diet!

If a food is giving off a strong, chemical or rancid odor, its probably not dangerous to feed to your dog, but its certainly not what the manufacturer intended. If it doesnt smell right, you shouldnt feed it, advises Armstrong. My experience is, if a food is rancid, a dog wont eat it, even if hes a real chow hound.

Armstrong and several other pet food company executives admit that all makers of naturally preserved foods struggle with the task of preventing rancidity and oxidation in their products. The one downside of natural preservation systems is that sometimes shelf life is shortened, says Dr. Brown. Still, its better than putting chemicals and artificial preservatives into our animals tissues.

How Long Does A 40 Lb Bag Of Dog Food Last

Theres approximately 4 cups of kibble per pound. The 4 pound bag will have close to 16 cups of food, 60 cups of food in the 15 pound bag, 120 cups of food in the 30 pound bag, and 160 cups of food in the 40 pound bag. With a pet eating around 3 cups per day the 40 pound bag will last close to 53 damore.

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Understanding The Package Dates

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not illegal for stores to sell expired food. While this may not seem right, it’s perfectly legal. This is because of how the manufacturer labels their food.

Dog foods are accompanied by a “best by” date rather than a hard expired date that human food has. This doesn’t necessarily mean the food is bad. It simply means that the food doesn’t exhibit the same nutritional value that the packaging says.

It’s a strange loophole that stores can get away with. Because it’s technically not bad, stores can sell food that’s years past its prime. Furthermore, manufacturers don’t really inform customers about when the food was made. This packaged date is simply its shelf life. It’s a date that the manufacturer has determined the food will lose nutritional value after leaving the factory.

Dry food has usually a “best by” date that ranges from 4 months to 3 years while canned food has a shelf life of up to 5 years. Unfortunately, this date doesn’t tell you when the food was made or how old it is.

Senior Dog Health: Preventive Health

At this stage, Murray recommends taking your dog to the vet twice a year. “So much can happen to an elderly dog,” she says. Your veterinarian can take blood annually to test liver and kidney functions. “Discovering problems early is extremely important,” she says. Your vet can be on the lookout for conditions that often affect older dogs, such as anemia and arthritis.

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The Trouble With Rancid Fats

Worryingly, a number of animal studies have indicated that vitamins in food are destroyed when oils and fats go rancid :351-5, 1942). This means that when your dog consumes old kibble, they may not be absorbing all of the nutrients, vitamins and fats they need for a healthy, well-balanced diet.

To make matters worse, the consumption of oxidized fats has also been linked with a range of health concerns, including decreased immune function .

While this all may sound concerning, don’t despair! There are a number of steps you can take to help your chosen kibble product stay fresh and nutritious for as long as possible.

What Are The Best Ways To Store Dry Dog Food

Even the best dry dog food will spoil quickly when exposed to air, moisture or extreme heat conditions. So you would need to ensure opened bags are sealed securely with a clip in their original packaging and placed in an airtight container.

Try to avoid pouring kibble directly into a plastic container as you cant limit the amount of air inside that food will get exposed to. Plus its always good to hold on to the labels for expiry dates or the product number.

Kibble can also be stored in the freezer to keep fresh, but ideally should be used within a month of opening it. Once opened though, its advisable to consume kibble within two weeks, before air and moisture gets into the bag.

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How To Keep Dog Food Fresh

Since kibble, wet food, fresh ultra-processed and fresh frozen dog foods all go bad quickly once the packaging is open, its important to take steps to extend the shelf life and preserve the quality.

Shop more often: Almost one-quarter of pet parents purchased two packages of pet food at a time even though 64 percent of pets took at least four weeks to consume one bag of food, according to research . Buying several packages might save on extra trips to the store but could increase the odds that your dog food expires before your pooch polishes off the entire bag.

Make space in the freezer:Storing fresh, frozen foods in the freezer can extend their shelf lifebut Chavez offers one caveat.

If its been exposed to heat or previously frozen and thawed above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, freezing is not recommended, he says.

Practice safe storage: Leaving dry dog food unsealed, pouring kibble into plastic containers or leaving food out too long are among the most common dog food storage mistakes to avoid. Instead, Chavez suggests leaving dog food in its original packaging and storing it in a cool, dry spot with limited exposure to heat and light.

Paying attention to the expiration on your dogs food ensures that your furry friend is benefiting from all of the flavor and nutrients her dog food should provide and protecting her from potential illness.

Related

Does Homemade Dog Food Expire

Just like canned food, the homemade dog recipes have also chances of getting outdated. There is always an expiration date for everything in this universe. Relatively, the homemade dog biscuits have a shorter life as compared to commercial dog foods.

Soft homemade meat food may expire earlier than the hard biscuits. Further, treats in the container are not prone to humidity and air as compared to uncanned food.

Homemade dog foods can get expired rapidly as compared to commercially packed dog foods. Homemade dogs have always proved to be vital for the dogs health, you can make dog food to prevent any type of health problem.

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Is It Ok To Feed My Dog Expired Dog Food Is Expired Dog Food Safe

Lets be honest, dog food never smells great. But if its past its expiry date, can we still feed it to Fido? In short, yes, you can feed expired dog food to Fido, but it doesnt mean that you should. And there is one crucial caveat if smells rancid, it probably is, so feed it to the trash can not the dog.

Dry food doesnt really have an odor, gone off or otherwise, so how do you know if its gone bad? If it doesnt smell bad, do we really have to throw it out when it goes past that date, or can we still feed it to Fido?

We all know hes eaten worse on trips to the garbage can and when he finds discarded food in the park. So will a week-old tin of food or a month-old cup of kibble really do him any harm?

In this article, we will talk you through the factors to consider when deciding whether food is still safe for Fido to eat.

How Long Will Unopened Dry Dog Food Last

Now that you know how to make dog food last as long as possible, youre probably wondering how long it will last if you do everything right.

Lets start with an unopened bag. As long as you keep the bag in a cold room, the food should last for well over a year. Check the expiration date on the bag. These expiration dates are for bags that remain unopened. Most bags will show an expiration date of about two years from the time of purchase.

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Other Factors That Causes Their Spoilage

Dog foods generally contain fats that are present in raw meat like saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and PUFAs. These fats can go rancid because of the oxidation caused by exposure to air. Rancid fat can destroy vitamins which cause a nutritional deficiency in dogs. Additionally, it is linked to issues like malnutrition, diarrhea, kidney disease, and the like.

What To Do With Expired Dog Food Expiration Dates

If youre not sure when your dogs food expires, write the date of purchase on the bag and mark the date that it does pass.

You can then track how long after that date you need to discard it based on this schedule:

• Beef/poultry/fish two to five days
• Dry food one month
• Canned food seven days after the expiration date of the canned food or three months from purchase, whichever is first.

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How Long Is Dog Food Good For After Expiration Date

For dog food, and most human foods for that matter, expiration or best buy date is used to indicate maximum taste and freshness and not necessarily safety. Dog food, be it canned wet food or dry kibble, is already designed to endure a long shelf life.

This long shelf life is promoted by the use of preservatives in the dog food, some of these are totally healthy for your dog, and others, like sodium, are typically measured at just the right amount to promote the preservation and still meet healthy guidelines for dogs.

A manufacturer of dog food will frequently put out guidelines for how much preservatives to add to the food to keep it from spoiling, while also still maintaining an attractive taste for dogs.

In addition to this process, the best buy label is applied to a can or a bag to indicate a cut-off time for how long the food will preserve its taste before the preservatives start to become more pronounced in the aroma and taste.

The matter of when dog food becomes unsafe for your dog is a different matter. The best before date on dog food indicates that the essential nutrients that are most beneficial for your pet will be at peak freshness on or before that date. After the best before date has come and passed, the nutrients will begin to degrade but the food will still be edible to your dog-just not as healthy.

Therefore, the essential nutrients begin to lose freshness and potency, but just how long can expired dog food last before it becomes unsafe for dogs?

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The ingredients in IAMS dog food prove to be about average as compared to other dog food recipes on the market Chicken by-product meal and chicken fat/meat as well as other ingredients like beet pulp and other animal fats are found to be beneficial for the health of large breeds and small breeds alike.

On Dog Food review sites, IAMS is classified as an average or slightly above average dog food, and it has received a rating of 3.5/5. This means that it is currently not the best dry dog food, but it is a good option for dog owners on a budget, as it rates higher than many other grocery store brands.

While chicken is the main source of protein for Iams, it also contains chicken by-product meal.

It also includes corn meal and whole grain sorghum.

Another potentially dangerous ingredient used in the formula is dried beat pulp.

Judging by its ingredients alone, Iams Naturals Dog Food looks like an above-average dry product.

Iams Naturals is a plant-based dry Dog Food using a moderate amount of named meat meals as its main sources of animal protein, thus earning the brand 3 stars.

Iams Healthy Naturals with Lamb and Rice Adult.

The first ingredient in this dog food is chicken.

Although it is a quality item, raw chicken contains up to 73% water.

Since it is gluten-free and boasts a smoother blood sugar behavior than other grains, sorghum may be considered an acceptable non-meat ingredient.

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What About Those Expiration Dates

Expiration dates are included on canned or packaged foods because they must be rotated in order to maintain freshness and quality. The date usually refers to how long after packaging will have the best taste and texture. The expiration date does NOT mean that your dog’s food has gone bad or that it cannot be consumed past this date. Dog food should last at least as long as canned foods from your cupboard–usually, six months to one year past their “Best By” date before needing replacement .

What Causes Dog Food To Spoil

The most common causes of food spoilage are:

• Exposure to air, which feeds harmful bacteria
• Excess moisture in the environment, which causes to mold
• High temperatures, which lead to rancidity

In general, its best to store dog kibble in a cool, dry place. A climate-controlled environment is best, i.e. the kitchen pantry or a closet indoors. Keeping dog food away from temperature fluctuations and moisture will keep it fresh!

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