"Bioavailability" is an important but often misunderstood concept. The ingredients in a diet may be very digestible but lack the proper concentration or balance of essential nutrients to maintain the dog's metabolic processes. For example an "all meat" diet may be very digestible but contains an improper balance of calcium to phosphorous to maintain proper bone growth in the puppy. An extreme example is feather meal, a product produced by chemically treating feathers to make them digestible. If the treated product is fed to a dog the digestibility may be acceptable but the dog will suffer the essential amino acids, cystine and methionine are inadequate to support normal protein metabolism.
At N-R-G our research is focused on gathering information on pet foods made of whole fresh ingredients. These ingredients are ones we would eat at our table. Individually these ingredients are highly digestible and the bioavailability is also very high, both ranging from 85 to 100%. Minerals and vitamins contained in these ingredients are more available to your pet than the inorganic sources used to supplement the commercial pet foods. The objective at N-R-G is to formulate our diets so the primary ingredients supply all the nutrients for life in the correct ratios to ensure maximum bioavailability. We prepare them with methods that preserve all the nutrition and maintain the bioavailability required for superior cellular function.
As we know in human medicine, "you are what you eat"; but how it is prepared is of equal importance.
