maryellen1
03-29-2006, 09:36 AM
DRY FOOD DO’S AND DON’TS
The basics for dry food are fairly simple. This article will include ingredients to avoid and what to look for in a decent quality food. This is an adjunct piece to “Food basics”.
The hard and fast rule is avoid foods that are available in the grocery store. They are the lowest grade and offer some of the worst examples of what NOT to feed your pet. Atta Boy comes to mind right off. There is no meat in the food at all. It’s all grain by-product and grease. The “meat” source is beef tallow. It’s cheap though, 50# for about $12 dollars. That 50# will feed a 50# dog for about 3 weeks. They will be eating 4-6 cups a day, and eliminating about 4 cups. It’s a waste of hard earned money and ends up creating a very unhealthy animal. The savings today are spent tomorrow in vet bills. There are grades of “better quality” in the grocery store. Purina is better than Kibbles and Bits, but not by much. And certainly not worth the considerably higher price. Here’s a list of ingredients to avoid.
ANY grain fractions, this includes flours, brans, glutens, proteins, and anything hydrolized. An example of an ingredient list:
Meat and bone meal, wheat, cooked yellow corn, corn gluten meal, wheat mill run, beef tallow(preserved with mixed tocopherols), soybean meal, brewers rice, digest of poultry by-products, brewers dried yeast, salt…………. (thank you Tankers12 for this list). This is a very low grade food.
An example of a “big” name food that is just as bad looks something like this:
Chicken, corn meal, ground grain sorghum, ground wheat, chicken by-product meal, soybean meal, animal fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), corn gluten meal, brewers rice, chicken liver flavor, vegetable oil, dried egg product, flaxseed.
Sure they start with meat but there is also a ton of grain, by-products, unspecified fat and oil, and flavorings. This is another product offered by this company, a “better” formula:
Brewers rice, ground wheat, chicken meal, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, animal fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), chicken, vegetable oil, peas, carrots, chicken liver flavor, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, dried egg product.
It starts off with 2 grain sources, one meat source and two more grains. Again it has unspecified fats, oils and uses flavorings. Both of these ingredient lists are from Science Diet.
Here’s a mid-grade food, again, a big name brand. It’s better than the Science Diet but it still has bad ingredients.
Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Ground Rice, Lamb Meal, Rice Bran, Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols, source of Linoleic Acid), Poultry Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols, source of Linoleic Acid), Salmon Meal (natural source of DHA), Flaxseed (natural source of Alpha-Linolenic Acid), Natural Flavors, Oatmeal, Alfalfa (natural source of Chlorophyll), Beet Pulp, Tomato Pomace (natural source of Lycopene), Cranberry, Fish Oil (natural source of DHA), Dried Egg Product.
It has 3 rice sources, for allergy dogs that is VERY bad, and one is bran. They use an unspecified fat source, poultry yes but what KIND of poultry?? They have specified the oil but Sunflower oil has caused many dogs to have inflamed and irritated skin. Natural flavors(sprayed on flavor enhancers), oatmeal is not a good thing, very refined and heavy in sugar. Beet pulp is a stool “conditioner” and that means tootsie roll poops, not good for the colon. Tomato pomace is ground stalks and leaves of the plant, toxic. This is from Nutro’s Ultra adult formula.
This is another mid-grade food:
Chicken Meal, Ground Brown Rice, Whole Ground Barley, Anchovy & Sardine Meal, Chicken, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Natural Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Pork Meal, Dried Beet Pulp, Amaranth, Oatmeal, Tomato Pomace, Dried Egg Product, Flaxseed, Canola Oil, Dehydrated Apples, Cheese Meal, Ground Carrot Cubes, Air Dried Peas, Sun-cured Alfalfa Meal, Salt.
The ingredients are looking better, but there are still some undesirables. Pork, beet pulp, oatmeal, tomato pomace, dried egg product. This list is from Eagles Holistic formula.
These next two ingredients panels are from two of the best available:
Chicken, Brown Rice, Barley, Oatmeal, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Flaxseed, Chicken Liver, Menhaden Fish, Suncured Alfalfa Meal, Montmorillonite, Flaxseed Oil, Freeze Dried Chicken, Freeze Dried Chicken Liver, Freeze Dried Salmon Oil, Sweet Potatoes, Cottage Cheese, Apples, Carrots, Peas, Whole Eggs, Kelp, Parsley, Artichoke, Inulin, Rosemary, Sage, Clove
I would prefer to see oats as opposed to oatmeal in this one but the freeze dried raw food on the outside of the kibble makes up for that one cut corner. This food is Nature’s Variety.
Fresh Elk, Salmon Meal, Millet, Sweet Potatoes, Oats, Flaxseed, Carrot, Watercress, Spinach, Celery, Parsley, Fennel seed, Wild Salmon Oil, Kelp, Amaranth, Currants, Cranberries, Pears, Figs, Thyme, Anise Seed, Ground Cinnamon Bark, Fenugreek, Garlic Pieces, Lecithin, Sunflower Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Apples, Chicory Root, Taurine, Spirulina.
More meal would be good in this one but it has the most meat per pound of any food available at this time. This food is Timberwolf.
This should help you read an ingredient list and know what is what and whether or not you should buy it.
maryellen1
03-29-2006, 09:37 AM
If you see something advertised in print, on tv, on the radio........it's not worth feeding as a general rule. The big companies spend more in advertising in one year than most of the small pet food companies make in a year. And by big I mean:
Nutro
Science Diet
Iams
Eukanuba
Purina
ProPlan
Kibbles 'n' Bits
They are all owned by corporate America. Mars/M&M, Nestle and the above mentioned companies. Pets aren't their main concern. Unfortunately.
The ruling body in the pet food industry, government run and regulated, is AAFCO. They determine what our pets need to eat. There are percentages of allowed “contaminants” in all forms of dog food. That includes, waste matter, dirt, foreign objects, i.e.: bedding, decomposed matter, and the list goes on. It’s quite scary that some of it would be considered “safe” for any of our pets to ingest. It certainly wouldn’t be allowed in any of our food. My opinion is, they don’t know squat about proper nutrition for any ones dog or cat.
Most dry dog foods are grain based. And the cheap food that can be
purchased in the grocery store is by far the worst. They don’t use any real meat based proteins, they use by-products, tallow(lard), lots of grain fractions(flours, brans, glutens), and all from very questionable sources. They will also list the grain fractions separately so that it looks like MORE meat is used, i.e. ground yellow corn, corn gluten, corn meal. All corn and by weight, a LOT of it. ALL dry food must have some sort of grain or starch in it to hold it together. Some use less than others. The first ingredient on a label is what the food has the most of, by weight. There are two types of meat used in all foods, fresh and meat meal. Meat meal is pre-digested meat protein that is dehydrated and then added to the food formula. It’s a pure form of meat and high in protein. Fresh meat is just that, fresh meat. The draw back to using fresh meat is it losses half its weight in the cooking process. A lot of companies also SAY they use fresh meat because the consumer assumes that it’s better to use fresh than meal and it makes their food “read” better. If it’s true and they use fresh meat, and listing it first on the ingredient label , it is in fact the 6th or 7th ingredient after cooking . It may have started out as the most by weight prior to cooking but……….with meat meal, you are getting a lot more meat-based protein.
When looking for better quality foods, lots of listed protein sources aren’t always a good thing. That doesn’t always mean lots of meat, usually it just means very small amounts of those on the label. I like to see one or two main meat sources, one or two whole grains, some herbs, fruits and perhaps some veggies.
With the use of so much grain in the diets for dogs, intolerance is becoming a big problem. I run into soo many dogs with this or that grain allergy. Protein specific problems are starting to crop up too. And quite often it’s a problem with meat when it’s cooked, not when it’s raw. Rice, wheat, corn, soy, oats, potatoes, millet, amaranth,
quinoa, durham, spelt, sweet potato,……and the one I REALLY love, brown rice, are all starches. They will all hold the food together and they will all be hard for your dog to digest.
Since so many dogs have trouble with food there have been some interesting foods introduced of late. Duck and Potato formulas are very popular, as are venison and BROWN rice, fish and sweet potato, bison and millet, venison and millet etc. etc. etc. Some dogs never have a problem, but many do. And I feel that in time it will be a much bigger problem.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=row1 vAlign=top align=left width="100%"><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width="100%">For dry foods the first at 3 stars would be Timberwolf:
With a very high percentage of meat based protein it is quite expensive. But since the dogs don’t eat as much of it, it really ends up being a good buy. They also, as a general rule, don’t develop a lot of the usual issues they deal with when lower quality foods are fed. Their lowest protein formula starts with 50% meat based protein, their highest has 90% meat based protein. The more meat protein the less grain they use. There is a wide variety of formulas and 3 are true allergy formulas since they don’t use any form of rice, corn, wheat, or soy.
Number two with 2 1/2 stars would be Nature’s Variety:
They use a standard kibble but when it’s cooled from the extrusion process they coat it in dehydrated raw food. They call this “Bio-coating”. It ups the meat percentage quite a bit, though pound for pound it’s still less than the Timberwolf. They have recently added an allergy formula, Venison with pumpkin seed and sweet potato. The dogs do well with it.
Number 3 with 2 1/4 stars would be Merrick:
Merrick also coats the kibble in dehydrated meat. They have added freeze dried vegetables and chunks of dehydrated meat in with the kibble. It has an added component of making gravy when warm water is added with the kibble. It takes a couple of minutes for it to thicken up but the dogs love it.
Number 4 with 1 3/4 stars would be Wellness. The biggest thing with this food that made it stand out is it is baked. It crumbles very easily, and is suppose to be easily digested. They were one of the first to come out with an alternative allergy formula with something other than lamb and rice.
Number 5 with 1 1/2 stars would be Canidae:
This is a decent food, much better than a lot of the big names out there. My main complaint is that they use sunflower oil and, eventually, most dogs will have trouble with it. It’s a good middle of the road food for a lot of people coming off grocery store or big name foods. It shows them the benefits of feeding better quality.
Barbponys
</TD></TR><!-- right top row table end --></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=row1 vAlign=bottom noWrap align=left><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" border=0><!-- right bottom row start --><TBODY><TR><TD width="100%">
_________________
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
mikelia
03-29-2006, 12:19 PM
Authority is a good food, I often use the lamb formula when I don't make my dog her regular raw meal (I get lazy sometimes :P ). The bonus is that it is baked rather than extruded, like wellness, so it does not swell when wet. Great for dogs prone to bloat. Ingredients are good, price is good, I think it is a good food and I am super picky when it comes to dog/cat food.
vBulletin® v3.7.0 Release Candidate 3, Copyright ©2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.