What brand/types of dog food are best for your dogs?
In the previous entry titled "Do you really know what is going into your dog's stomach Part IV", I wrote that if you feed kibble for your dogs, it is very important to read the label before purchasing them.
Also, I wrote that most accurate way to compare the dry dog food is to read the list with your eyes and know the definition of each ingredients, and also wrote that it is important to recognize that there is a system called "splitting" to make food label for kibble.
If you have not read the entry yet, splitting is the way to make one ingredient into smaller category. Ingredients are listed in order by weights. With this method, even if rice was main ingredients (more weights than protein source), by splitting, it can make lamb look like most weight ingredients.
This means, if the lamb weighed more than split ingredients in the list, "lamb" will be listed as very first ingredients in the list.
Therefore, although many people know that protein source listed as first ingredients is good one, it is not always the case.
If you look around, you will find varied nutrient level in the form of kibble but each claims to be "Balanced and complete". That would make you think why there are so many "balanced and complete" with varied nutrient level.Whatever formulas each company use to make the kibble do not necessary means the special formulas fit to all sort of furry friends.
And, there are so many variety of ingredients used for kibbles..
On and off, I see people asking fellow dog lovers what brand of kibbles is good one to feed.
There are so many kinds of dog food on the market;dry dog food, wet canned food, dehydrated dog food, pre-made raw diet patties, freeze dried dog food...
Even if you know that reading the food label is important thing to do before the purchase, I think too many kinds of food can confuse people enough to wonder what brand, what types of food are best suited for your dogs.
As you already know, our dog "Palette" is on fresh food diet a.k.a. "Raw diet", and she eats most simple form of menu every day.
Ohhhhhh! Mackerel! Can I have one now??
If I were to feed kibble, I would look for the one made with simple ingredients list with protein source listed as top in the ingredients list although I have to look the label very carefully for the method "Splitting".
Now, I recently noticed that fresh food movement power celebrity for human "Rachael Ray" has started offering shorter ingredients list of kibble called "Just 6" along with her original "Nutrish" dog food line.
The ingredients goes ..
"Rice flour,Rice bran,Lamb, Oat fiber,Olive oil, and salt."
With brief look, the ingredients list are much shorter than general kibble so, that is the improvement but take a look at the ingredients in the list.
As mentioned above, company can use "Splitting" method for ingredients list and as you see, 3 ingredients out of 6 ingredients are grain. First ingredient is flour, so it is not whole form of grain,but processed form of grain.
I know what "Oat" is, but I was not familiar with "Oat fiber", so I have looked it up. According to the Grain millers Inc, Oat fiber is made from Oat hulls,and ground them into powder.
Rice bran is,according to wikipedia, by products from milling process;conversion process from brown rice to white rice.Bran is hard outer layer of the grain.
Rice flour is basically ground raw rice.
If I were to buy their kibble,I would like to see "Lamb" is used as top ingredients and even with split method, I would like to see them weigh more than combined grain weights. Then,I would like to see the switch from "Oat fiber" to "whole Oat", and "Rice flour" to "whole brown rice".
It just that I believe that whole form of products contains more nutrient than processed form of ingredients.
It is nice though that it has no artificial preservatives,sweeteners, artificial colors.
However, as you can see, lamb comes 3rd in the ingredients list and if you weigh grain vs lamb, since 3 of the ingredients are grain, actual meat in the kibble is much much less as you might get the impression of from the slogan "Made with real lamb".
If I were to feed the same type of food for Palette, all she would get is simply "Lamb" portioned cut from leg of lamb,for example . With her type of diet, you can give fresh form of food, and very simple menu without being processed with heat, and you know what they are getting. Since no heat is applied before the serving, there will be no nutrient loss with the meat.
Hmm... Good as always!
Rachael Ray is really big on cooking with fresh ingredient for human, and she does all kinds of things to help families/communities,schools to provide healthy meals made with fresh ingredients,but then she is selling the processed food for furry friends.. I am getting discrepancy in the message she carries "Cook with fresh food".. I am a little disappointed..
If she truly sticks to her message, she could have done "freeze dried dog food". Only one ingredient and, no preservatives etc..
Whether human or dogs, I believe that feeding the fresh food is much better than processed food since they are generally without complex long list of ingredients list, and you can pick the menu for your dogs,so you know what your dogs are eating and, the food are not enhanced with any ways.
Good thing is that you get to have full control over your dogs' meal every single time.
That being said, not all dogs do best on the exactly the same type of food/diet. Therefore, homemade diet or raw diet are not only better with fresh ingredient but also with these types of feeding, you can tweak the diet and feed the tweaked menu tailor to your dogs' need.
As you already know, I have switched Palette's diet to raw diet back in 2007. At that time, I read all sorts of dog diet books and learned many ways to feed dogs.
I have ended up not feeding homemade diet, but if you were interested in homemade diet, here is what I learned.
With homemade diet, people use the required nutrient number from NRC (National Research Council), and carb are not considered required food for diet for dogs but many homemade diet people do feed carb.
At that time, Palette was 2 years old, weighed 35 lb (currently 31 lb) with moderate activity level, and her recommended daily kcal for her was 1036 kcal.
When I noticed that this little dog who weigh about 3rd of me need almost half of average human's recommended daily kcal; for human, recommended kcal for women is 2,000 kcal and for men, 2,500 kcal, I was shocked.
Recommended % each to start with to come up with recipe for protein,carb,and fat were 28% for protein, 30% for fat, 36% for carb.
Of course, they would consider age energy level, and types of proteins.carbs,fat etc..
With the recommended % of nutrient in mind, example recipes can look like this.
1 can sardine in oil
5 oz Dark meat from Turkey with skin on
20 oz cooked sweet potatoes
2 Egg yorks raw
Then, they are about 1,034 kcal food. These nutrient file will be 29% protein,32% fat, and 39% carb.Then.they usually give supplements that are deficient in nutrient level.
Last time, when I made pull apart sweet potato pie cinnamon roll, I cooked a whole sweet potato that yield 11 oz, so if you follow the recipe above, you will be feeding 2 sweet potatoes per day.
With homemade diet, they will look the kcal rather than how much weight of food you would feed. So, with this homemade diet, volume is large.
Lets say you have 1 C of Turkey 309 kcal (dark meat diced,chopped,roasted with skin.140 grams.) and 1C of Green beans 44 kcal (cooked,boiled,drained without salt. 125 grams) on hand. Volume are equally same, but kcal is different. Even with the same weight of food, 1 oz (wt) green beans provide only 10 kcal while 1 oz (wt) Turkey provides 62 kcal.
I noticed that many of homemade diet recipes use cooked grains or starch as base and feed small amount of vegetables,small amount of protein source.For homemade food feeders, lentils seem to be the popular type of beans (legumes).
Often times, brassica family vegetables such as broccoli is recommended to feed a couple of times per week and dark leafy green a couple of times.
For me, for Palette, there is no brand of kibble/wet canned dog food that I would be happier than wide variety of fresh meat with bone, organ, egg, fish, tripe that I feed.
No matter how premium dog kibbles the dog food companies would say, they are still processed food.
For Palette, those menu on the raw diet are what she does best and, I am very happy with the result. Plus she loves her food enough to be talkative,twirl,twirl,twirl with her eyes on her food. Watching how excited she becomes always makes me smile.
It was nice to learn about nutrient from food through homemade diet books but, I personally feel comfortable feeding the way I do, and she does best on the menu that I feed.
Good diet is the base of good health. What works best for your dog is the best one for your dogs.
If you are not ready to totally step out from kibbles, why not sharing the food you buy and cook for your family?
You can take out 25% -50% of kibble and add fresh meat,fresh egg,fresh organ such as liver,or maybe canned or cooked/raw fish etc to them.
If your dogs had digestive upset with the process food and fresh food fed together, you can always feed fresh food separately,and adjust as you go.
What are your dog's menu today?
Also, I wrote that most accurate way to compare the dry dog food is to read the list with your eyes and know the definition of each ingredients, and also wrote that it is important to recognize that there is a system called "splitting" to make food label for kibble.
If you have not read the entry yet, splitting is the way to make one ingredient into smaller category. Ingredients are listed in order by weights. With this method, even if rice was main ingredients (more weights than protein source), by splitting, it can make lamb look like most weight ingredients.
This means, if the lamb weighed more than split ingredients in the list, "lamb" will be listed as very first ingredients in the list.
Therefore, although many people know that protein source listed as first ingredients is good one, it is not always the case.
If you look around, you will find varied nutrient level in the form of kibble but each claims to be "Balanced and complete". That would make you think why there are so many "balanced and complete" with varied nutrient level.Whatever formulas each company use to make the kibble do not necessary means the special formulas fit to all sort of furry friends.
And, there are so many variety of ingredients used for kibbles..
On and off, I see people asking fellow dog lovers what brand of kibbles is good one to feed.
There are so many kinds of dog food on the market;dry dog food, wet canned food, dehydrated dog food, pre-made raw diet patties, freeze dried dog food...
Even if you know that reading the food label is important thing to do before the purchase, I think too many kinds of food can confuse people enough to wonder what brand, what types of food are best suited for your dogs.
As you already know, our dog "Palette" is on fresh food diet a.k.a. "Raw diet", and she eats most simple form of menu every day.
Ohhhhhh! Mackerel! Can I have one now??
If I were to feed kibble, I would look for the one made with simple ingredients list with protein source listed as top in the ingredients list although I have to look the label very carefully for the method "Splitting".
Now, I recently noticed that fresh food movement power celebrity for human "Rachael Ray" has started offering shorter ingredients list of kibble called "Just 6" along with her original "Nutrish" dog food line.
The ingredients goes ..
"Rice flour,Rice bran,Lamb, Oat fiber,Olive oil, and salt."
With brief look, the ingredients list are much shorter than general kibble so, that is the improvement but take a look at the ingredients in the list.
As mentioned above, company can use "Splitting" method for ingredients list and as you see, 3 ingredients out of 6 ingredients are grain. First ingredient is flour, so it is not whole form of grain,but processed form of grain.
I know what "Oat" is, but I was not familiar with "Oat fiber", so I have looked it up. According to the Grain millers Inc, Oat fiber is made from Oat hulls,and ground them into powder.
Rice bran is,according to wikipedia, by products from milling process;conversion process from brown rice to white rice.Bran is hard outer layer of the grain.
Rice flour is basically ground raw rice.
If I were to buy their kibble,I would like to see "Lamb" is used as top ingredients and even with split method, I would like to see them weigh more than combined grain weights. Then,I would like to see the switch from "Oat fiber" to "whole Oat", and "Rice flour" to "whole brown rice".
It just that I believe that whole form of products contains more nutrient than processed form of ingredients.
It is nice though that it has no artificial preservatives,sweeteners, artificial colors.
However, as you can see, lamb comes 3rd in the ingredients list and if you weigh grain vs lamb, since 3 of the ingredients are grain, actual meat in the kibble is much much less as you might get the impression of from the slogan "Made with real lamb".
If I were to feed the same type of food for Palette, all she would get is simply "Lamb" portioned cut from leg of lamb,for example . With her type of diet, you can give fresh form of food, and very simple menu without being processed with heat, and you know what they are getting. Since no heat is applied before the serving, there will be no nutrient loss with the meat.
Hmm... Good as always!
Rachael Ray is really big on cooking with fresh ingredient for human, and she does all kinds of things to help families/communities,schools to provide healthy meals made with fresh ingredients,but then she is selling the processed food for furry friends.. I am getting discrepancy in the message she carries "Cook with fresh food".. I am a little disappointed..
If she truly sticks to her message, she could have done "freeze dried dog food". Only one ingredient and, no preservatives etc..
Whether human or dogs, I believe that feeding the fresh food is much better than processed food since they are generally without complex long list of ingredients list, and you can pick the menu for your dogs,so you know what your dogs are eating and, the food are not enhanced with any ways.
Good thing is that you get to have full control over your dogs' meal every single time.
That being said, not all dogs do best on the exactly the same type of food/diet. Therefore, homemade diet or raw diet are not only better with fresh ingredient but also with these types of feeding, you can tweak the diet and feed the tweaked menu tailor to your dogs' need.
As you already know, I have switched Palette's diet to raw diet back in 2007. At that time, I read all sorts of dog diet books and learned many ways to feed dogs.
I have ended up not feeding homemade diet, but if you were interested in homemade diet, here is what I learned.
With homemade diet, people use the required nutrient number from NRC (National Research Council), and carb are not considered required food for diet for dogs but many homemade diet people do feed carb.
At that time, Palette was 2 years old, weighed 35 lb (currently 31 lb) with moderate activity level, and her recommended daily kcal for her was 1036 kcal.
When I noticed that this little dog who weigh about 3rd of me need almost half of average human's recommended daily kcal; for human, recommended kcal for women is 2,000 kcal and for men, 2,500 kcal, I was shocked.
Recommended % each to start with to come up with recipe for protein,carb,and fat were 28% for protein, 30% for fat, 36% for carb.
Of course, they would consider age energy level, and types of proteins.carbs,fat etc..
With the recommended % of nutrient in mind, example recipes can look like this.
1 can sardine in oil
5 oz Dark meat from Turkey with skin on
20 oz cooked sweet potatoes
2 Egg yorks raw
Then, they are about 1,034 kcal food. These nutrient file will be 29% protein,32% fat, and 39% carb.Then.they usually give supplements that are deficient in nutrient level.
Last time, when I made pull apart sweet potato pie cinnamon roll, I cooked a whole sweet potato that yield 11 oz, so if you follow the recipe above, you will be feeding 2 sweet potatoes per day.
With homemade diet, they will look the kcal rather than how much weight of food you would feed. So, with this homemade diet, volume is large.
Lets say you have 1 C of Turkey 309 kcal (dark meat diced,chopped,roasted with skin.140 grams.) and 1C of Green beans 44 kcal (cooked,boiled,drained without salt. 125 grams) on hand. Volume are equally same, but kcal is different. Even with the same weight of food, 1 oz (wt) green beans provide only 10 kcal while 1 oz (wt) Turkey provides 62 kcal.
I noticed that many of homemade diet recipes use cooked grains or starch as base and feed small amount of vegetables,small amount of protein source.For homemade food feeders, lentils seem to be the popular type of beans (legumes).
Often times, brassica family vegetables such as broccoli is recommended to feed a couple of times per week and dark leafy green a couple of times.
For me, for Palette, there is no brand of kibble/wet canned dog food that I would be happier than wide variety of fresh meat with bone, organ, egg, fish, tripe that I feed.
No matter how premium dog kibbles the dog food companies would say, they are still processed food.
For Palette, those menu on the raw diet are what she does best and, I am very happy with the result. Plus she loves her food enough to be talkative,twirl,twirl,twirl with her eyes on her food. Watching how excited she becomes always makes me smile.
It was nice to learn about nutrient from food through homemade diet books but, I personally feel comfortable feeding the way I do, and she does best on the menu that I feed.
Good diet is the base of good health. What works best for your dog is the best one for your dogs.
If you are not ready to totally step out from kibbles, why not sharing the food you buy and cook for your family?
You can take out 25% -50% of kibble and add fresh meat,fresh egg,fresh organ such as liver,or maybe canned or cooked/raw fish etc to them.
If your dogs had digestive upset with the process food and fresh food fed together, you can always feed fresh food separately,and adjust as you go.
What are your dog's menu today?
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