Pet owners definitely want to give their pets good food and good food. Nowadays, freeze-drying has become a big trend in the pet industry. Many owners also want to try it for their pets, but they may not be able to avoid the confusion when choosing freeze-drying. Lei, in order to prevent pet owners from stepping into the trap, the editor specifically reviewed some information, consulted a partner of a high-quality freeze-dried manufacturer, compared the various freeze-dried products he had bought, and summarized some daily routines for you. feasible method of judgment.

1. Observe the surface

During this incident, many friends sent out freeze-dried photos like the one above with spots on them that were suspected of being "mouldy". A friend who does freeze-drying told me that some of the pictures were not really "mouldy" but were produced during production. The quality of the raw materials is poor and there are process problems.

Because during the trial production of their first batch of freeze-dried quail, such a situation occurred due to insufficient control of the raw materials.

So they destroyed the batch of quail and found a new supplier of raw materials.

Babies, you can go back and check the freeze-dried food you bought. Are there any such "spots"?

2. Observe the color

The production principle of freeze-drying is: after the meat is quickly frozen at ultra-low temperature, it is put into a vacuum chamber, so that the water in the meat that turns into ice crystals directly sublimates, and then the water vapor is removed.

Image source: Dog food expert

Of course, if there is no heating system, the freeze-drying chamber will take a long time to complete drying, so there will still be appropriate heating to speed up the sublimation speed. (But the temperature must be strictly controlled.)

In order to save costs and speed up the sublimation, some manufacturers may adjust the temperature too high, causing the color and properties of the meat to be closer to that of dried snacks, or even burnt.

Therefore, normal freeze-dried meat is slightly lighter in color than fresh raw meat; inferior freeze-dried or "pseudo-freeze-dried" appearance is darker.

Of course, the color of the meat of different animals is different. It is best to compare the meat of the same kind.

Quiz: Which of the following do you think is truly freeze-dried?

Picture source: Moubao

3. Hardness when pinched by hand

Similarly, "pseudo freeze-dried" products that have been processed at too high a temperature will be harder when broken by hand (cats are more likely to develop problems if they eat them for a long time); real freeze-dried products are easier to break apart.

4. Rehydration observation

Because after the ice crystals in the meat are sublimated, gaps will be formed where the ice crystals originally existed, so good freeze-dried products rehydrate very quickly.

The following is a 10-second rehydration test I conducted on freeze-dried duck breast given to me by a friend.

Put the duck breast with irregular thickness, about 2-3mm, into the water and start timing.

After 3 seconds, it felt itchy and turned over.

Pick it up at 10.5 seconds.

Observing the cross section, the rehydration rate can be seen by the naked eye to be 70%. (The thicker areas in the middle will take more time, but it’s already pretty quick.)

If you buy several freeze-dried snacks from different brands and manufacturers at the same time, you might as well do this interesting little test~

5. Compare weight and volume

With the same weight, same meat quality and the same cutting, the volume of high-quality freeze-dried meat is larger when viewed with the naked eye. (This is easy to understand. If the water does not sublimate enough and remains in the meat, it will of course increase the weight.)

In the picture above, the two freeze-dried packages have the same weight but obviously different volumes.

6. Observe the crushing status of the whole piece of meat

In the absence of abnormal and unequal external forces, freeze-drying products made from inferior ingredients will produce more fragments, while freeze-drying packages made from high-quality ingredients will have much fewer fragments. (Enlarge the previous picture to see it.)

Anyone who has bought meat knows that the texture of fresh, good meat is firm and elastic. Even if it is dehydrated, the structure between cells is more stable.

However, due to the possibility of violent logistics, this article is difficult to use as an intuitive and accurate reference after transportation.

(This article cannot be used as a basis for judgment alone. It needs to be combined with the above content to make a comprehensive judgment!)

7. The palatability of inferior freeze-dried products may be better than that of high-quality freeze-dried products

Some owners will directly judge the quality of the product based on whether the cat or dog eats it.

However, the palatability of inferior freeze-dried products may be better than that of high-quality freeze-dried products.

For example, inferior freeze-drying may leave more oil and water, and the taste and aroma will naturally be different if there is more oil and water.

Therefore, it is recommended that you do not judge a product purely based on its palatability, but rather take the above six points as a reference.

In the end, all the products we get are the final results. It is difficult to deduce the reasons from the results.

So all the above referencesAll points need to be judged based on the actual situation.

If a product can disclose its raw material traceability, production process, and test reports, it can also be used as a reference for us.