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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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1
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20257
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Sun January 20, 2008
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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No recommendations
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None indicated
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None indicated
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supersize
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Description:
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INGREDIENTS:
Chicken, chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, corn gluten meal, oatmeal, chicken fat preserved with mixed tocopherols (a form of Vitamin E), beet pulp, egg product, flaxseed, fish meal, natural chicken flavor, potassium chloride, salt, choline chloride, glucosamine hydrochloride, L-carnitine, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
GUARANTEED ANALYSIS:
Crude Protein (min.) 25.0%
Crude Fat (min.) 13.0%
Crude Fiber (max.) 4.0%
Moisture (max.) 10.0%
Calcium (min.) 1.0%
Phosphorus (min.) 0.8%
Zinc (min.) 150 ppm
Selenium (min.) 0.3 ppm
Vitamin E (min.) 150 IU/kg
L-Carnitine (min.) 40 ppm*
Omega-6 Fatty Acids (min.) 2.2%*
Omega-3 Fatty Acids (min.) 0.3%*
Glucosamine Hydrochloride (min.) 600 ppm*
Chondroitin Sulfate (min.) 200 ppm*
* Not recognized as an essential nutrient by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profile.
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Editors
Registered: October 2005
Posts: 3953
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Review Date: Sun January 20, 2008
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Would you recommend the product? No |
Price you paid?: Not Indicated
| Rating: 0
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Pros:
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First two ingredients are named meat products
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Cons:
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Insufficient meat content, some mixed quality grain, controversial filler
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The first ingredient is a named meat product. This is not in meal form. Fresh ingredients are inclusive of water content (about 80%). Once that is removed, as it must be to create a dehydrated product, the ingredient will weigh around 20% of its wet weight. Ingredients are listed in order of weight, and the dehydrated ingredient would probably be more accurately placed much further down the ingredient list. It is followed by a meat ingredient in meal form, which is the primary meat product in the food. Whilst the ingredient list is thus headed by a meat product, it also contains 4 grain products ahead of the fat content, which decreases our confidence in the meat content of the food and starts to indicate a grain heavy product. There is a fish meal ingredient 11th on the ingredient list, but this is far too far down to make any significant contribution to the overall meat content of the food. We find no sign of a guarantee on the manufacturer's site that they use only ethoxyquin-free protein sources in the product (ethoxyquin is a chemical preservative, commonly added to fish ingredients and which is banned or heavily regulated in human food production due to the belief that it is carcinogenic).
The main grains are barley, rice, corn and oatmeal. Barley, rice and oatmeal are decent quality grains, but corn is a difficult to digest grain that is of limited value in dog food. It is commonly associated with food allergies, and in gluten meal form is a grain fragment we consider primarily filler. Corn gluten meal is "the dried residue from corn after the removal of the larger part of the starch and germ, and separation of the bran by the process employed in the wet milling manufacture of corn starch or syrup, or by enzymatic treatment of the endosperm". In plain English: the remains of rice after most of the nutritious bits have been removed.
Beet pulp (fibre) is filler, and a controversial ingredient. It is a by-product, being dried residue from sugar beets which has been cleaned and extracted in the process of manufacturing sugar. It is a controversial ingredient in dog food, claimed by some manufacturers to be a good source of fibre, and derided by others as an ingredient added to slow down the transition of rancid animal fats and causing stress to kidney and liver in the process. We note that beet pulp is an ingredient that commonly causes problems for dogs, including allergies and ear infections, and prefer not to see it used in dog food. There are less controversial products around if additional fibre is required. We would prefer to see the use of whole eggs rather than egg product in the food.
Overall, this product contains ingredients of mixed quality, but the decent quality ones exceed the low quality ones. It suffers primarily through its very limited meat content and users might consider supplementing this diet with meat.
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