First, the Balance It formulator uses a different standard to calculate nutrient requirements. They use the AAFCO standard, a commercial standard based on the NRC.

PDD uses NRC because it is the gold standard.

AAFCO sets standards for commercial pet food, and the components of these foods are often not human-food quality. So, the AAFCO takes the NRC standard and incorporates a “fudge” factor into the recommended amounts of some nutrients, accounting for bioavailability and other factors to better reflect the decreased nutrient availability of ingredients commonly used in pet foods.

The NRC standard was designed for purer feeds, where nutrient availability is higher than that of the ingredients used in pet foods. So, whole food ingredients used by humans are better suited to the NRC standard.

AAFCO also doesn’t include important fatty acids and fatty acid ratios in its standard.

AAFCO also uses modified Atwater factors to calculate the available energy of foods, whereas PDD (NRC) uses standard Atwater factors.

Further, AAFCO formulates diets for 2 life stages (maintenance and growth). So diets are not individualized.

PDD formulates diets precisely for each pet using the NRC standard, so PDD is far more accurate, and the numbers will differ. According to the NRC, dogs have 5 life stages, and cats have 4.

Balance your diet according to PDD.

Here is what to look for:

1) Nutrient Summary and Ratios are all in the green
2) The Remaining Calorie Targets (on the ribbon) should be as close to zero as possible
3) Make sure your nutrients do not exceed safe upper limits (see blog links below)