The Rapid Preparation of Pet Food for Taurine Content

Introduction

Pets are often thought of as furry (scaled, feathered, etc) members of our immediate family and play a large part in modern life. Pet amenities have ranged from heated beds to specialized grooming, so it is no surprise that their diets have come under greater scrutiny. Dog foods come in a variety of forms and there are many health benefits and risks from different recipes. Recently, grain-free or legume-rich diets have come under fire because of their link to the canine heart disease dilated cardiomyopathy (DM), which can lead to congestive heart failure and ultimately death. DM is caused by a deficiency of taurine, and thus dog’s diets must have sufficient taurine.

In this work, the Discover Prep^TM system was used to hydrolyze dog food samples to free the amino acids from their bound proteins. Compared to traditional hydrolysis techniques, the Discover Prep uses microwaves to hydrolyze samples, accelerating the timetable of the technique from 24 hours to less than an hour. After hydrolysis, the samples were neutralized and the amino acid content was measured using the Waters AccQ-Tag®kit. The results indicate that, compared to traditional methods, the Discover Prep rapidly hydrolyzed taurine from the proteins in pet food with good accuracy and precision. Samples of grain-free dog food and grain-containing dog food were compared for their taurine content. Discover Prep is an ideal choice for laboratories quantifying taurine and other amino acids in dog food.