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Old May 6th, 2009, 05:13 PM
kandy kandy is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Wyoming
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chocomama View Post
Okay, so, let me clear up what all these ingreds are about - I am a vet tech and have some info to clear up.

Fish meal - unspecified, because it is a mix of white fish- "meal" means it is the main part of the fish - the good part (by-product is the left over).

Brewer's rice - it is actual rice that has not been over processed into the pretty little kernels humans eats, so, actually, it is better than what we eat.

Chicken Liver is GREAT for an extra iron boost for dogs especially, who, in the wild eat a raw diet - Chicken liver is essential for good health

Tomato Pomace is a vitamin ingredient. It provided vitamin D and C for the animal. It is actutally really good for them. It is good for solid stool health for a dog and cat.

Menadione sodium bisulfite complex - was tested in 1070 on HUMANS and a very SMALL part of the tested were diagnosed with leukemia.
I would also be curious as to who is providing the nutritional part of your education. But regardless of the instructor, I hope that you will agree that any ingredient list goes in order of weight. So for the food that was being discussed in this very old thread - Fish meal is followed by brewer's rice and then ground barley, chicken fat and soybean meal as the top 5. I hope that you would also agree that dogs are carnivores. This food has 1 actual meat based protein in the first 5 ingredients and 3 grains. That is not a carnivorous diet. While dogs can process plant based proteins - their bodies are not efficient at it - as a vet tech I'm sure you know this. Dogs need meat based proteins.

I have also done tons of research into dog foods - my research has been based more on the actual ingredients, the definitions of those ingredients and their health benefits. I have a few ingredients that I will not accept in a food I will feed to my beloved dogs, and others that I will put up with if the overall list meets with my approval. The following is my opinion on the individual ingredients picked out:

Fish Meal: I would agree that 'meal' is not totally bad - its the fact that it is unspecified meal that would concern me the most. If it's whitefish, then it should say whitefish meal. "Fish Meal" could be anything from anchovies to swordfish - and it tells me that the company making the dog food takes whatever is cheapest for that particular manufacturing run. That way their labels are not inaccurate. The fact that the AAFCO allows 14% undigestible material to be included in meals does bother me.

Brewer's Rice: This is the small rice kernel fragments left over from other milling processes. It's a cheap filler and you would certainly never see it marketed for human consumption.

Chicken Liver: I would agree that liver itself is beneficial. However, Liver digest goes through an additional chemical processing to turn it into the powder.

Tomato Pomace: This is a stool hardner. Yes, it contains vitamins - but it's used in dog food because of its ability to harden the stool. Stool consistency is a good indicator of health, so if something is artificially hardening the stool, then that indicator is lost. Beet pulp is also a stool hardner. If the animal is healthy, they don't need stool hardners and there are other sources of vitamin D and A. This food has both - and they are fairly high up on the ingredient list (8th and 9th).

The synthetic vitamin K - yes, this is a controversial ingredient. If a dog food contains vitamin K, I would prefer it to be a natural form - like the chicken liver for instance.

Personally I stay away from any food with unspecified meat meals/proteins, by-products of any kind, corn, brewer's rice, glutens of any kind, beet pulp, and tomato pumace. I will tolerate either beet pulp or tomato pomace in a food, but not both.

I hope that as you continue your studies, you will keep an open mind, do your own research and not take everything that a dog food industry rep says as gospel. There are good manufacturers out there - but IMO the ones that load their food with corn and by products, and then add vitamins to make it balanced according to the AAFCO guidelines are not it.
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