I presume you would be happy if it was formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.
Seeing as we are going around in circles i'm going to streamline the process and make it easier for you by providing a checkpoint system.
I'll be happy when it ticks both of these boxes.
1 : [ ] Independent
2 : [ ] Has provided long term, reproducible, studies with reasonable sample sizes and empirical data based results.
On this occasion your reference gets a 1 out of 2 :
[ X ] Independent
[ ] Has provided long term, reproducible, studies with reasonable sample sizes and empirical data based results.
they seem independent enough.
See above
Hardly tree hugging hippies.
You're the only person using this phrasing, but you are correct in that they don't match a phrasing nobody has claimed so far.
Hardly magical thinking.
I suspect the irony of claiming a lack of magical thinking by providing no actual evidence and just saying it a second time is lost on you.
Already answered, Here and Here
If you are asking for an example of a specific methodology, I've no idea, I'm neither an animal behaviour nor nutrition researcher.
In the same way i wouldn't be able to provide a specific methodology for measuring orbital decay or the long term effects of language drift on emotional responses, because I'm not a physicist , linguist or psychologist either.
That's one of the reasons for peer reviewed research by specialists.