AAFCO, FEDIAF and NRC: which standard should a homemade recipe meet?

Published 2 October 2026. Not yet reviewed by a board certified veterinary nutritionist. Numbers marked as engine output come from the Petcare engine on the date shown.

A homemade recipe for a healthy adult dog should meet the NRC 2006 recommended allowance for every nutrient, scaled to the dog's metabolic weight, and stay under the AAFCO and FEDIAF adult maxima. Petcare takes the higher of NRC 2006 and FEDIAF 2025 for each minimum. All three standards describe the same science in different units.

NRC 2006: the science base

The National Research Council of the US National Academies published Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats in 2006. It is a review of the experimental evidence, not a regulation. For each nutrient it sets up to four levels: a minimal requirement, an adequate intake where no requirement could be measured, a recommended allowance that adds a margin for bioavailability, and a safe upper limit where the data allow one Grade A. Its values are given per 1000 kcal, per kg of dry matter and per kg of metabolic body weight (kg^0.75) a day. The metabolic weight column assumes an intake of about 130 kcal per kg^0.75, the level seen in kennel dogs and active pet dogs, as FEDIAF 2025 explains on page 59. The companion owner booklet uses a 33 lb (15 kg) adult eating 1,000 kcal a day as its reference dog. The full report is sold by the National Academies; the per kg^0.75 allowances are reproduced in the open access paper by German et al. 2015.

AAFCO: the United States label rule

The Association of American Feed Control Officials is a membership body of state and federal feed regulators. It publishes the Dog Food Nutrient Profiles that a US pet food must meet, by formulation or by a feeding trial, before its label may say "complete and balanced" Grade A. AAFCO itself does not enforce anything; each state adopts its model rules. The profiles give minimums per 1000 kcal of metabolisable energy and per kg of dry matter at an assumed 4,000 kcal per kg, for two life stages, growth and reproduction and adult maintenance, with maxima for a handful of nutrients. They mostly follow the NRC recommended allowance, with pantothenic acid, niacin, folate, vitamin B12 and choline set at the NRC adequate intake, as the 2014 revision records Grade A. The current Official Publication is paid, and AAFCO's consumer pages state plainly that homemade pet foods are not regulated.

FEDIAF: the European industry guideline

FEDIAF, the European pet food industry federation, publishes free Nutritional Guidelines for complete and complementary pet food, most recently in September 2025. The document describes itself as a comprehensive review of the NRC data, peer reviewed by independent veterinary nutritionists. It sets minimum levels for commercial foods, which it stresses are neither minimum requirements nor optimal intakes, plus nutritional maxima and the EU legal maxima that apply to feed additives Grade A. The adult values for amino acids, trace elements and vitamins are the NRC 2006 recommendations raised by 20 percent, to allow for the lower energy intake of household dogs (page 22). Because of that, FEDIAF gives adult dog tables at two energy levels, 110 and 95 kcal per kg^0.75, and per kg^0.75 tables in the same units as NRC (page 58). It also publishes the energy equations and activity factors that Petcare's energy page relies on.

The three unit systems, converted

The standards look different mainly because they count in different units. Converting between them needs two numbers: the dog's metabolic weight and the recipe's energy.

A FEDIAF per kg^0.75 value at the 110 kcal basis becomes a per 1000 kcal value when multiplied by 9.09; an NRC value at the 130 kcal basis, by 7.69. Dry matter figures depend on the assumed energy density, so a wet, lean homemade recipe at 1.4 kcal per g can look adequate per kg dry matter and still fall short per day. That is why a homemade recipe should be checked per 1000 kcal or per kg^0.75, never on a dry matter percentage copied from a bag.

How they differ for adult maintenance

For a 20 kg neutered adult eating 1,059 kcal a day (metabolic weight 9.46 kg^0.75), the three standards convert to the daily amounts below. The inputs are the published values: NRC per kg^0.75 from German et al. 2015, FEDIAF from page 58 of the 2025 guidelines, AAFCO adult maintenance per 1000 kcal from the 2014 profiles (Grade A for each source; the conversion is arithmetic).

Protein is the clearest split. NRC's allowance assumes highly digestible protein; FEDIAF and AAFCO sit about 50 percent higher to cover ordinary ingredients and lower energy intake. Selenium runs the other way, with NRC almost double FEDIAF. Calcium barely differs, and both AAFCO and FEDIAF cap it at 6.25 g per 1000 kcal for adults, which is 6,620 mg a day for this dog. AAFCO and FEDIAF set the adult calcium to phosphorus ratio at 1:1 to 2:1; NRC sets no adult ratio Grade A. None of the three sets a vitamin K minimum for a normal dog food, and FEDIAF says it need not be added unless the diet contains compounds that interfere with it Grade A.

Which standard Petcare uses

Petcare does not pick one document. For every nutrient the minimum is the higher of the NRC 2006 recommended allowance and the FEDIAF 2025 value on the 110 kcal basis, both per kg^0.75, multiplied by the dog's metabolic weight. In practice NRC wins for selenium (11.8 ug), thiamin (0.074 mg), niacin (0.56 mg), pantothenic acid (0.49 mg), vitamin B6 (0.049 mg) and fat (1.81 g), and FEDIAF wins for protein (4.95 g), calcium (140 mg), phosphorus (110 mg), sodium (30 mg) and arginine (0.14 g). The per kg^0.75 basis is deliberate: FEDIAF explains on page 60 that when a dog eats less energy than NRC assumed, nutrient density per 1000 kcal must rise to keep the daily intake adequate, and metabolic weight scaling does that automatically Grade A.

Upper limits and ratios

Upper limits keep their native units: NRC safe upper limits per kg^0.75 for fat, linoleic acid, EPA plus DHA, vitamin A and vitamin D; AAFCO and FEDIAF adult maxima per 1000 kcal for calcium (6.25 g), phosphorus (4.0 g), iodine (2.75 mg) and selenium (0.5 mg), scaled by the recipe's actual kcal; EU legal maxima as caps for iron and zinc; and conservative engine caps for copper and manganese. The calcium to phosphorus ratio must sit between 1.0 and 2.0, the adult range AAFCO and FEDIAF share. Two rows were removed on purpose: a zinc to copper ratio, which was only the ratio of two NRC allowances and not a standard, and a vitamin K minimum, which no standard sets for dogs. The methodology page lists the source of every remaining row.

Published recipes rarely pass

Recipes found in books and online rarely meet any of the three standards. When Stockman et al. 2013 evaluated 200 home prepared maintenance recipes for dogs, 129 of them written by vets, only 9 met the AAFCO profile and 5 met the NRC allowances, and 95 percent were below the AAFCO minimum for at least one nutrient Grade C. An AI generated recipe tested by Guelph OVC supplied 375 to 500 kcal a day for a 40 lb dog against 750 to 800 needed, with calcium at half the requirement Grade C. Neither failure is about the standard chosen; those recipes fell short of all three.

Five steps to check your own recipe

Checking a recipe against any of the standards takes five steps. One, compute the dog's daily kcal (70 x kg^0.75, times the life stage factor) and its metabolic weight. Two, look up every ingredient's nutrients per 100 g in USDA FoodData Central and multiply by the cooked grams you use. Three, add each nutrient across ingredients to get a daily total. Four, compare each total with the standard converted to your dog using the table above, including the upper limits and the calcium to phosphorus ratio. Five, fix the shortfalls with a supplement whose label states the amount per dose, then check again. A spreadsheet can do this; the Petcare engine does it in a second and shows every row.

Check it with Petcare

The Petcare calculator builds the recipe, lists each nutrient against the higher of NRC 2006 and FEDIAF 2025 with its upper limit, and names the standard behind every row.

Petcare is software, not veterinary advice. It builds recipes for healthy adult dogs. For puppies, pregnant or nursing dogs, dogs with a condition or food allergy a vet has diagnosed, dogs on medication, and dogs that need to lose weight, the diet should come from your vet.