Pet food recalls hit an all-time high last year, making it crucial for pet owners to be mindful of the ingredients they choose for their furry friends' meals. While no one can guarantee that their pet food won't be recalled, there are certain red flags to look out for when selecting the right food for your cat or dog. Avoiding some common pet food ingredients can significantly increase your chances of purchasing a healthy and safe pet food.Determining the safety and nutritional value of pet food starts by ignoring marketing tactics, prices, and the front of the bag or can. The real indicators of safety lie in the "Ingredient Listing" on the back or side of the packaging. Regardless of marketing terms, a pet owner cannot determine the quality or safety of pet food without looking at the ingredients. While dry foods can contain up to 90 different ingredients, canned foods can contain 50 or more. However, pet owners need not fret over hundreds of ingredients. They need to be aware of a few key ingredients that they do not want to see in their pet's food or treats."Wheat Gluten," "Corn Gluten," or "Rice Gluten" were infamous pet food ingredients in 2007. Thousands of dogs and cats became ill and died due to tainted glutens. While these ingredients are not toxic to pets, imported glutens from countries with lower quality standards than the US caused problems. These imported glutens contained added chemicals that formed crystals in the kidneys of dogs and cats.It is vital to avoid pet food and treats containing glutens, not only because of the possibility of dangerous added chemicals, but also because they do not provide real quality nutrition to pets. Glutens are used as a thickener and protein source in pet food. Adult maintenance dog foods require a minimum of 18% protein, and adult maintenance cat foods require a minimum of 26% protein. If the meat source of the pet food does not provide enough protein, glutens are often added to boost the protein level of the pet food. However, meat protein is the best nutrition for pets, not gluten protein. Pet owners should steer clear of dog and cat foods (and treats) containing "corn gluten," "wheat gluten," or "soy gluten.""By-Products" have never caused a pet food recall, but they are still ingredients to avoid when feeding pets. To help you understand by-products, let's compare them to pies. How many different types of pies can you think of? Apple pies, cherry pies, chocolate pies, meringue pies, meat pies, mud pies, pie in math, cow pies, and more. Now imagine if you bought a prepared ravioli dinner at the grocery store and found "pie" listed as the first ingredient. You wouldn't know what kind of pie it was or if it was even suitable for dinner. Similarly, by-products in pet food could be anything from chicken liver to chicken feet. Therefore, pet owners should steer clear of pet food containing by-products.