Premium foods from not so premium companies
 

Has anyone tried Eukanuba Naturally Wild or Science Diet Nature's Best? I looked at the ingredients online and it seems they have only premium foods in them. No byproducts or corn or fillers. I wonder if the product is good even though it is from companies that make low quality foods?

Both of these brands are more widly known so I'd be interested in knowing if these products are high quality. My husband fed his yorkie Science Diet when he was a child and he really wants me to feed it to ours. I do NOT like regular SD so if anyone has any experience with this new line, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks!!

When a friend of mine adopted his cat, it was being fed science diet's nature's best. When we talked about cat food and what makes a good food, you can bet my suprise when he said "yeah his food has a lot of that!" and brought out science diet. The ingredients in their "nature's best" line isn't half bad - especially compared to some other companies and their normal line. I believe most of their line gets around... 104 on the grading scale. The only ingredients on their list that you can shake your finger at is the wheat (which is a toin coss) and the salt. With science diet's normal quality of ingredients though, I do have to question how good the quality of those ingredients actually are.

If you have to feed science diet, its certainly a lot better then the normal lines! When you look at them compared to other brands, I think the one defining point (beyond questionable quality if you believe that about them) is price. Is the price for this "premium" dog food less then another company that may have scored higher with less questionable quality? The last time I scoped out comparison a year or so ago... SD was still a bit more cost wise then the other more premium brands.

My friend's cat really wasn't fond of the food (and ate less then 1/8 of a cup of it a day because of that) so I can't really tell you if its a good food or not from personal experience or from anyone I've been in contact with - but if you have to feed SD it wouldn't be a horrible food to feed ingredient wise!

Everyone needs to do their own homework when it comes to feeding their pets. Here is a website that will help you through everything and there is thread after thread on YT about quality dog food.

The Dog Food Project - How does your Dog Food Brand compare?

SD Nature's Best does contain pork which some people refuse to feed.
IMO, it's one of the better kibbles available.

All ingredients from all companies have the potential to be of less quality than what a human would eat unless it is fit for human consumption. Take vegetables for example. If the pictures that these companies put on the bag are really true (freshly picked), then they would go to humans. It's all about marketing anyway.

A lot of ingredients are coming from China though, and each company would have to be asked individually about that. But even with the "holistic" companies, some of their vitamins come from there.

I feed Life's Abundance and it is a premium food with premium products. I did an ingredient score on it and was a very high score. I cant remember what it was but it was over 100 I do remember that! I believe I got the scoreing test off here somewhere...basically you just add and deduct points for certain ingredients and your end result is the grade that food gets! Very helpful!!

I did feed SD but I've since switched Sophie to Orijen. It's completely grain free. It does have a lot of protien, but that's not bad unless she happens to develop a kidney or pancreas problem which I hope she doesn't develop. Many people worry about Yorkies gaining weight on a higher protein food, but actually Sophie has stayed pretty much the same. Since starting to feed her that, she's gained normally and hoovers between 4.9 lbs and 4.8 lbs according to our scale. Also, her coat looks soooo much better (I feed the 6 fish formula) and her eye boogies are better too (as long as I keep the hair out of her eyes!).:D So while the SD nature's best isn't probably a bad food, there are others out there that are better and the price is not much different.

science diet is full of by products and corn and yucky fillers, look for a food with no corn, soy by products, bha, bht. The foods that you buy at regular stores are all nasty stuff, pedigree, iams. sd is a huge company that makes money and could care less about good food, by products are dead animals, udders, hooves and all sorts of nasty stuff. Some good foods are innova, solid gold, merrick, natural balance, wellness are just a few. I have fed solid gold to chester and has done very well

This is the ingredients for Science Diet Nature's Best Chicken & Brown Rice Adult Small Bites:

Chicken, Brown Rice, Whole Grain Wheat, Cracked Pearled Barley, Soybean Meal, Chicken Meal, Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Dried Egg Product, Natural Flavor, Whole Grain Oats, Apples, Cranberries, Soybean Oil, Peas, Carrots, Dried Beet Pulp, Iodized Salt, Flaxseed, Broccoli, vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Taurine, Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Calcium Carbonate, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract.

I found this from this link Natural Dog Food Ingredients - Nature's Best Label just in case anyone is interested. I don't see any by-product except it says 'egg product' I don't know if that is similar to a by-product or not. Also there is no corn, either. Only thing bad I really see is the grains and soy products.

Nature's Best
 

Wheat and soy are both cheaper quality ingredients and many dogs are prone to have allergies to them. Beat Pulp is considered a filler. Once the water is removed from he chicken, it is no longer the main ingredient. Seems to have many grains. In my opinion, I would not feed this food and there are MANY kibbles out there with more meat and far less grains. Again, this is just MY opinion:)

Snick & Viv

I agree, and I didn't know that about beet pulp, but it makes sense; a cheap by product that at a glance, might sound healthy.

What jumped out at me is "Natural Flavor" as an ingredient. If it has good healthy ingredients, don't they have flavor? So what exactly is added to give it the flavor the ingredients should?

Sounds too much like "Animal digest". :eek: