Time To Repost Dog Food Ingredients

[JulesP]

LP I googled Natural Balance and got a totally different company from the Dick P stuff. There you go - http://www.naturalbalance.net.au/

[anthony mazzeri]

Yep, that's an Australian brand made in Western Australia if I recall correctly. Totally distinct from the American Dick Van Patten's brand. I'll add it to the list.

EDIT: It beats PAL Pedigree and Hill's. It's seems to be about on par with Supercoat and Eukanuba. The rice is good, but listed as its main ingredient rather than meat, and the corn gluten meal loses points compared to the rest on the list.

Edited December 4, 2008 by anthony mazzeri

[BigBen]

I still haven't heard back from the Great Barko People.., and I got Advance Giant breed today, when I got food for Ben... Ben actually loves this stuff, because the biscuits are so large.

[anthony mazzeri]

Someone posted in another thread they called them up and they confirmed the ingredients are by-products. And the grain is wheat I think. But I can't find the post or the thread or remember who posted it to confirm it. So many threads and pages on dry kibble over the last week! If I can find it, I'll update the list.

[JulesP]

I called. I asked mainly about the cereals, which were wheat. They described the by-products as meat meal. I didn't ask about the or bit.

[dead sheep]

Thanks for your hard work Anthony

re: by products vs meat meal

On my orijen packet it contains meal in the ingredients and on the front says no by-products

what is the difference between meal and by-products?

I don't want my dogs eating diseased chicken tumours but I'm happy with them eating bones, feet, innards etc

I also got my sample of Artemix Maximal yesterday. The dogs love it, it is as dark as orijen but not much smell and seems a little dry but we will be giving that a go and see what happens.

[anthony mazzeri]

Thanks for that Jules, I'll adjust it on the list.

Kosti, it seems that when Great Barko says their meat by-product is actually meat meal then I assume there's very little difference. Technically though, by-product is whatever's left over after processing for human consumption and would otherwise be thrown away. I'm only guessing, but now that most of the chicken can be mashed/mealed into paste for human consumption (into chicken rolls etc), there's probably very little by-product, likely just things like the heads and feet.

[dead sheep]

so could be safe to say meat meal is carcass? then what is by product?

this shit is so confusing...no wonder so many go to barf

try to do the right thing by our mates and we get shafted along the way

i know human grade meat is missing the "good" bits the wild ancestors ate, bone, gibblets, cartliage

but i cant find an inbetween

i want meat and good shit...why so hard to find????

might start forumlating my own kibble

[JulesP]

I phoned Natures Gift too. Had a nice chat, very friendly helpful people. Their first ingredient is real meat, she said that accounted for 70% of the kibble. Then there is meal (10%). Then wheat, the wheat is there to bind the kibble together. The sucrose is there for shelf life.

This is the ingredients for 'tasty beef and rice':

Fresh Beef, Beef Liver, Australian Meat Meals, Whole Grain Wheat, Sucrose, Rice, Food Acid (338), Glycerine, Sea Salt, Canola Oil, Calcium, Chicory root (inulin), Flax Seed, Potassium Sorbate, Natural Colours, Natural Antioxidants (307), Beta Glucans, TGOS (oligosaccharide from corn starch), MOS (oligosaccharide from yeast), herbs, Added Vitamins & Minerals incl. Copper 10mg/kg, Vitamin A 10300iu/kg, Vitamin D 441iu/kg, Vitamin E 114iu/kg.

I feed the dogs one of their kibbles this week. It got gobbled up. It would work out pretty much the same price as a premium food. Is not cheap.

With your grains remember that your dog needs to have an allergy to them for them to cause problems.

I think we are all going a bit nuts and as therapy we should all go and buy a bag of Pedigree Pal and feed that for a week!!!

[anthony mazzeri]

Now that's an interesting ingredient list too. The Australian ingredient rules must be more lax. It's an exception to the general rule where the minor ingredients come after the first fat/oil. Nature's Gift lists 5 minor ingredients before the canola oil. Knowing the meat and meat meal makes up 70%, then everything else is a minor ingredient so I'll drop them and just leave the oil. Royal Canin and Great Barko use wheat for the same purpose.

Added to the list - Nature's Gift = 2nd.

Here's another interesting bit (for two reasons) from their website:

Barley is very high in calcium and magnesium. It is alkaline and excellent for cleansing and cooling the blood. It cultivates nerves and muscles and helps keep the body limber.

1. Barley isn't listed as one of their ingredients, so why are they talking about it?

2. I've heard of alkalinity being good to reduce blood acidity and hence free radicals and therefore less chance of cancer etc. I've even seen advice to drink a glass of water a day with sodium bicarbonate in it.

[JulesP]

Think they have barley in their tinned food.

[luvsdogs]

Think they have barley in their tinned food.

I've been feeding their tinned food for a number of years & the one with barley in it, is whole & comes out the other end the same way.

I've just bought my 2nd bag of Nature's Gift kibble & of all the supermarket brands it seems I will now make it my dog's main food. So far I've only been adding it as a supplement.

This has been very informative, thanks for all the info. It makes my job a little easier. I have been feeding Tilba Innova & will not buy it again after hearing about it on here. Even though she has been thriving on it. The only thing with it is, it has been hard to get. Pp doesn't always have it in, or if they do its nearly or out of date.