What a sweet show. The episode tonight was about Oliver, a sweet shy little Pom Poodle mix, and a little girl who was afraid of dogs. Of course it all worked out in the end, and everyone was happy.

Except the family walked into the kitchen to find a “years supply” of Purina One waiting for them. Yuck. I hope hope hope it was just for the show, and they really aren’t going to feed that garbage to that wonderful dog. ugh.

But it was a nice story and a happy ending!

Purina One has a new dog food called Purina One Natural Blends. They are hyping it to be natural and sooo good for your dog.

Let’s take a closer look. They try to compare it to other dog kibble:

http://www.naturalblends.com/nat_dog_chick_compare.asp

An untrained eye might think the Purina One Natural Blend food was much better than all of the others (including the Nutro Ultra) because “chicken” is the first ingredient. That sounds good, right? Unfortunately no, it isn’t.

Whole chicken contains approx 70% water. So that means, once they process the chicken into kibble, the actual amount of real chicken is insignificant, and actually would be relocated toward the bottom of the ingredient list.

Chicken meal has already been processed, so a pet food containing a specific type of meal as the top ingredient would have much more meat protein than a food with whole chicken. I am not advocating that Nutro Ultra is a high quality pet food, but compared to the other three brands (including the sub par Purina One Natural Blend food), it is absolutely much better!

Corn Gluten Protein

The second ingredient in Purina One Natural Blends food is corn gluten protein and that is really the true first ingredient. Purina would like you to think otherwise, but all you are buying is “pretend” protein from corn, not real meat protein from chicken.

Notice the amount of crude protein is 26%, comparable to the Nutro Ultra. The big difference is the Nutro Ultra is real meat protein, not vegetable protein from corn. Why do pet food manufacturers do this? To save lots of money. Meat costs much more than corn. And the corn they use isn’t even premium human quality corn.

Again, I am not recommending any of these four pet foods, but if you have to choose one of the four on that list, it would have to be the Nutro Ultra.

Recommended Dog Food (kibble)

• Innova
• Innova EVO (we feed Mindy EVO Reduced Fat)
• Wellness Pet Food

Further Web Resources

• Meat vs Meal
• Dog Food Project

So, choose your pet food wisely. Be informed about the ingredients on the bag!

By coincidence, the same time I was researching new food choices for Mindy (and her weight loss challenge), the Menu Foods pet food recall was just hitting the news. So my online research into pet foods had an even greater importance.

What my research has taught me:

• I had already known that any pet food sold in grocery stores is sub quality, but I also learned that there are no true premium pet foods sold in any “big box pet stores” like Petco or Petsmart. I love my veterinarian dearly, but I do not trust her pet food recommendations. Regrettably, a lot of vets push the foods that can be sold at higher profit margins.

• Sadly there are many pet lovers that purchase sub-quality brands like Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Alpo, Beneful, Pro Plan, etc. Product ingredients include questionable protein amounts, lower quality meats, meat by-products, corn, wheat, soy, unhealthy preservatives (BHA, ethoxyquin), hormones, Menadione (a vitamin K supplement), antibiotics, sweeteners, and dyes (just to name a few.) Family and friends rave about Purina and Iams, stating their pets are thriving and healthy. Yes, of course it is possible for a pet to live a long and happy life eating food of a lesser quality. Some humans smoke and live to be 90, and on the other hand, some strict vegetarians can develop cancer and other illnesses. There are no guarantees.

• Think about human vs pet grade ingredients. I watched the TV news story of an Ottawa woman who became sick after eating some of the recalled food. She was trying to coax her little dog to eat. In the TV news report, she said when she later spoke to Iams, they recommended that she never eat dog food. But why? If the pet food companies are asking us to trust them to create quality foods for our pets, shouldn’t that quality be high enough for human consumption? It doesn’t make sense.

• Pet food production is self regulated in the US. The FDA (in my opinion) does a deplorable job keeping humans safe, so even if pet foods were regulated, how trustworthy would they be anyhow? This is why pet owners must do the research on their own.

  It is up to the pet owner to carefully scrutinize all pet food companies and the products they sell. Even though Nutro Ultra dry food was not included in the recall, I started to doubt Nutro’s business ethics and practices. In the back of my mind, I never fully trusted that Nutro Ultra was the best brand of pet food to be feeding my Mindy, but just as many other pet owners thought, why fix what ain’t broke when she was thriving and healthy.

• When deciding on a pet food company, broaden your research. Don’t exclusively rely on the reviews from Amazon, Petco, or Petsmith. There is no way of knowing who added the reviews and if there was an ulterior motive or bias. Take time to read discussions on pet specific forums where real pet owners post about their experiences concerning not only pet foods but also the companies that manufacture and sell the products.

• It is not true that premium food is always a lot more expensive than non-premium food. In some instances, it is slightly more expensive to purchase a much higher quality food, but because the feeding guidelines are less, the net cost is actually less or equal.

I am sure the Menu Foods recall will eventually fade from our minds, just like the last Diamond Foods recall was forgotten. People will continue to feed their pets products from Nutro, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Alpo, Purina and other brands. But make no mistake, there will be future recalls and more pet deaths and illnesses. I am taking steps now because I am unwilling to take the chance that the next recall could affect my precious Mindy. By then it will be too late.

Interesting web resources:

• Dog Food Analysis – Is your pet’s food a 6 star food, or a 1 star food? Interesting, as the quality gets lower, the quantity of reviews gains. From 11 reviews in the 6 star category to 265 poor choices in the 1 star category.
• The Dog Food Project – Excellent advice, along with a terrific and informative discussion forum.
• All Dogs Gym
• FDA is MIA…