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Originally Posted by kodimerlyn  Sorry...it's chicken MEAL not by product. Still I would prefer to see JUST chicken. |
FWIW, there's nothing wrong with chicken meal. It's in a lot of the so-called "high quality" pet foods too. It's actually better, IMO, than just listing "chicken" because if it's simply chicken, it would actually be moved farther down the ingredient list due to the removal of water content (which is about 80%) so it ends up only weighing about 20% of it's entire weight. If that makes sense.
My personal feelings have changed a lot over the past 3 1/2 years. When I first got a dog, I was very much of the "I've known tons of dogs who have lived to be 16 or more on foods like purina, kibbles n bits, etc. Why change?!?" but then I slowly began more research, and changed my mind. Then I became ALL about all the foods that are super high in protein, have a ton of different meats, etc, etc.
Now I think I am somewhere in the middle. I think "thriving" can mean a lot of different things to different people. I've seen ppl say their dog is "really healthy" while eating such food as Kibbles n Bits but I look and see an over-weight dog, who has a dull coat, awful teeth/breath, smelly ears, and smell in general. Sure maybe they live to be 16, but at what kind of quality of life?
On the other hand, there are WAY too many factors to say "Well this dog lived to be 17 on x food, and this dog died while eating y food at 8". Genetics, environment, exercise... so many things play in.
I don't like a ton of chemicals to be in a food - I look out for BHT, BHA, ethoxyquin, menadione, etc (All of which Purina has, I believe). I'd prefer no by-products, but am honestly unsure now how I feel about them in general. I don't think they are as bad as they've been made to sound, but I still don't believe it to be ideal. I can't personally look at a food and see an ingredient list w/ corn, byproduct meal, unnamed meat sources, powdered cellulose and think "YEAH!!! This Diet is MADE for my dog!!" LOL... but I also don't think it's going to KILL a dog and sure, many dogs live happily ever after eating it.
I think you can look at the ingredient lists of some foods and they look fantastic yet I'd never feed them because I don't trust their company and their quality control (ex: Merrick, TOTW, Evangers).
I do not believe kibble to be natural in any way for dogs - I think canned is the best choice. However I feed kibble because hey, it works, and it's the easiest and it costs too much to feed solely canned. But doesn't mean I believe it to be most ideal. Honeslty the whole idea of kibble was based upon marketing and how they can sell it to the public. In the late 1850s, a young electrician from Cincinnati named James Spratt went to London to sell lightning rods. When his ship arrived, crew members threw the leftover “ships biscuits” onto the dock, where they were devoured by hordes of waiting dogs. So he then had the idea to make cheap, easy to serve biscuits and sell them and BOOM the pet food industry was born. By 1964 the Pet Food Institute, a lobbying group for the now-gigantic pet food industry, began a campaign to get people to stop feeding their dogs anything but packaged dog food. They funded “reports” that appeared in magazines, detailing the benefits of processed dog food and even produced a radio spot about “the dangers of table scraps" and by that point... were spending $50 million in advertising.
In other words, there is a LOT of money going behind pushing the public to believe that x kibble is the BEST and y kibble is superior, and premium for ALL brands... and every company is guilty of it. Yes, I love Fromm, but look at their "you wouldn't eat Italian for dinner every night!" slogan, and Champion and their "Fresh regional sourced ingreidents" and Royal Canin and "Each breed needs to eat something different!!" In the end, it's all marketing.
And I have a few companies that I really do respect and like and feed their food, but it doesn't mean I am so gullible to believe that it's all fine and dandy and everything going into my pet food is like a gourmet meal...
So basically my *current* companies I like (and this can always change) is Champion, Fromm, Earthborn, Canine Caviar, Precise, Petcurean... and there may be another, can't remember. But now I mainly look for food produced in their OWN manufacturing plant for starters. And yes I do prefer no recalls but a recall that was handled properly doesn't bother me as much as it used to.... Hey, it happens, and human food is recalled all the time... so I think it's all about how a business chooses to handle it.
Overall, Jackson has done best on grain-free (or low grains) in terms of hair/skin, breath, teeth, poop, energy, muscle definition, etc. I experimented with lower protein and wasnt happy with the results. So back on Acana he went and the changes were incredible... his energy was back, his coat was no longer lackluster, no more itchies, etc. So anyways for my personal dog, I know what works. For a dog who does awful on high protein/or whatever, but does fantastic on RC... well then RC is a superior food to THAT dog. Jackson is a picture of health at the moment, and had fantastic bloodwork while eating Acana, and vet always comments on how great in shape he is...
ANYWAYS that was long..... but those are my thoughts.