# Confused about measuring cups in dog food?



## CaseyL (Nov 15, 2010)

Hi, 

I've been lurking around here for a while, but never posted or joined. I don't have a dog yet, but I am in the process of finding one, and I was just trying to calculate the number of cups in various large bags of dry food. I always thought I should just convert the weight of the bag to ounces then cups. I forgot that Google automatically changes to fluid ounces, though, so I got 59.4 cups for a 29.7 lb bag of Orijen. But, I saw another thread where it a poster said to convert to cups by looking at kcal/kg, kcal/cup, etc. So that would give me about 113 cups. I asked about it on a different forum and was told that the calorie based calculations are wrong, so I'm really confused right now. Am I doing it right?


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## cast71 (Sep 16, 2010)

The other forum is wrong ahahahahaha You'll get around 4 cups per pound of food. That's not accurate though. Every food is different. That's because they have different weights. A cup of kibble 'A' can weigh more than a cup of kibble 'B'. So if you have 30 lbs. of each, you'll have more cups of kibble "B". Since the bags are usually in calories/kg, we used that to figure the amount of cups. 
So first take the amount of pounds on a bag. To convert it to kg, you must divide by 2.2. Than multiply the converted weight of the bag in kilograms by calories/kg. Than divide by calorie/cup to get the amount of cups. 

TOTAL CUPS = ((lbs. of bag/2.2)x(calories/kg))/(calories/cup)

Here's the thread http://dogfoodchat.com/forum/dry-canned-dog-food/5378-all-you-math-whizs.html


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## sassymaxmom (Dec 7, 2008)

You could just figure calories per bag and how many calories per dollar.


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## CaseyL (Nov 15, 2010)

Thanks! How accurate is the calorie method, and how do you guys usually convert it to an amount in fluid ounces? Is density usually listed?


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## DarDog (Sep 6, 2010)

I just calculated with the calorie method - about 112 cups per bag. I have been using the calorie method with Fromm's food and it's pretty accurate.

29.7lbs = 13.47kg*1000= 134700g divide by 460kcal/cup = 112 cups.

This is with their new 80/20 formula which has just been posted online!


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## DarDog (Sep 6, 2010)

sorry, it was also 120 grams per cup.... That's how I did it. lol


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