A little rant about Dog Food

Found this link regarding Beneful Dog Food. I personally have serious ethical problems with the quality of the food, the ingredients, and especially the advertising. Beautiful plump ears of corn and freshly harvested stalks of wheat rain from the sky amidst other vegetables. Umm... wait a minute. Corn and wheat are among the top allergy causing ingredients in dog food, yet Beneful's advertising touts them as healthy ingredients? The corn and wheat they use are most likely fillers so they don't have to add as much protein and other good stuff (read: expensive stuff).

I mean, look at the first 28 ingredients:
Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of Vitamin E), rice flour, beef, soy flour, sugar, sorbitol, tricalcium phosphate, water, animal digest, salt, phosphoric acid, potassium chloride, dicalcium phosphate, sorbic acid (a preservative), L-Lysine monohydrochloride, dried peas, dried carrots, calcium carbonate, calcium propionate (a preservative), choline chloride, vitamin supplements (E, A, B-12, D-3), added color (Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 2), DL-Methionine, zinc sulfate, glyceryl monostearate, ferrous sulfate

Is there anything in there YOU would want to eat? The #1 ingredient is corn! Coming in at #2 is chicken by-product meal (which AAFCO defines as: Consists of the dry, ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines -- exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.

This does not mean that feathers are not present in Chicken By-product Meal, just that they cannot be only added to the mix. And the definition says"...such as..." not "only" so use your imagination as to what else is in there.

Chicken byproducts are much less expensive and less digestible than the chicken muscle meat. The ingredients of each batch can vary drastically in ingredients (heads, feet, bones etc.) as well as quality, thus the nutritional value is also not consistent. Don't forget that byproducts consist of any parts of the animal OTHER than meat. If there is any use for any part of the animal that brings more profit than selling it as "by product", rest assured it will appear in such a product rather than in the "byproduct" dumpster.)

Yum-o. Thanks to this site for much of the above info.

Furthermore, I had a foster dog who would "only eat Beneful." I grabbed a handful of it from the bag to look at it and my hand was instantly coated with a disgusting sheen of oils or fats or who knows what. Ick. There was NO WAY in the world I was going to feed that to anyone so I tossed the whole bag and gave them what we were feeding at the time. Check out the first 28 ingredients of Timberwolf Organics Wilderness Elk:

Fresh Elk, Salmon Meal, Millet, Sweet Potatoes, Oats, Flaxseed, Carrot, Watercress, Spinach, Celery, Parsley, Fennel Seed, Wild Salmon Oil, Atlantic Kelp, Hydrated Alfalfa Leaf, Potassium Chloride, Currants, Cranberries, Pears, Figs, Thyme, Anise Seed, Ground Cinnamon Bark, Fenugreek, Garlic Pieces, Sunflower Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Apples, Chicory Root, Spirulina,

To be honest, I really don't care if the Beneful story is fact or fiction - in my opinion it's bad, unhealthy dog food with sub-standard ingredients topped with misleading and offensive advertising.

Josie was eating Diamond Brand Dog Food, and we quickly weaned her off of that stuff.

How do you know what to buy? My reference is the Whole Dog Journal. They do a review of dog foods every year and I like how they explain why they choose what they choose. You know, it only make sense: if you feed your dog a GOOD dog food with good ingredients, they'll be healthier (meaning less trips to the vet and a longer life), you'll have to feed less because the ingredients are better (less "input"), they'll digest more of the food (less "output" if you know what I mean) and because you are feeding smaller amounts, even though the food might cost more than a grocery store brand, it will probably cost less per meal in the long run.

And don't rely 100% on AAFCO Standards either (AAFCO stands for the Association of American Feed Control Officials). The AAFCO develops guidelines for the production, labeling, and sale of animal foods. If the label reads 'formulated to meet AAFCO's nutrient requirement.' This means the food was tested in the laboratory and was found to have the recommended amounts of protein, fat, etc. However, I've heard that the combination of shoe leather, used motor oil, and coal could meet this standard as well. So, AAFCO Standards are a start to finding a good food but there's a whole lot more you need to know to be able to tell if the food you're choosing is a good one.

So do your homework when it comes to dog food. Your dog will thank you!

OK, my little rant is over. Thanks for listening.