Dry Food.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Dry Food.

    After reading some of the post on here awhile before, I was going to switch my dogs gradually and put them on Nutro Natural Choice because I've realized the food they are eating has by-products in it and it isn't healthy. I recieved in the mail today though, a sample 12 oz sample of Purina Pro Plan Selects and the paper that came with it says it has no by-products in it and it's #1 ingredient is real turkey. It also says on the bag it's formulated without ground corn, artificial flavors or colors. I was just wondering if this is a good food to buy? 
    • Gold Top Dog
    After going to their website and read all the ingredients, I think its fine. However,,there are many on this forum that will tell you not to buy it and that Purina is not good, or worth the money or that they would never buy it.. etc etc etc.
    For me,,,,I would look at those ingredients and then compare them to some other good food with similar ingredients..and then compare prices and see if its the food for you.  Dog food prices differ so much from one place to the other,,that you need to do a cost comparisin with the same kind on ingredients. 
     
    • Gold Top Dog
    Here is my take on it.  I've seen worse, but I wouldn't consider this a premium quality food.  That said, I'd rather see it fed than something like 'Ole Roy or Beneful.  I'm not a nutriton expert by any means, I've learned alot, but still have a lot to learn.  Most of what I've learned, I've learned from Mordanna at the dog food project ([linkhttp://www.dogfoodproject.com]www.dogfoodproject.com[/link]) I've bolded and reddned and given an explanation in parentheses the ingredients that worry me.
     
    Ingredients (Taken from the Purina website [linkhttp://www.purina.com]www.purina.com[/link]):
    Turkey, [color=#990000]brewers rice (brown rice or whole grain rice are much more nutricious)
    , pearled barley, chicken meal (natural source of glucosamine), corn gluten meal (very little nutritional value), oat meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E) (What kind of animal???), dried egg product, fish meal (natural source of glucosamine), pea fiber, dried beet pulp (These are just cheap fillers), fish oil, natural flavor, calcium phosphate, potassium chloride, salt (added for flavor, unnecessarily raises the sodium levels), L-Lysine monohydrochloride, calcium carbonate, dried tomatoes, blueberry pomace, dried sweet potatoes, Vitamin E supplement, zinc proteinate, manganese proteinate, choline chloride, ferrous sulfate, L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (source of Vitamin C), niacin, copper proteinate, Vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, garlic oil, folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (Very unnecessary ingredient, see [linkhttp://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=menadione]http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=menadione[/link], for details) (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite.
    B-4402 [/color]

    Over all, the food looks to be grain heavy and only has one main animal protein source.  I'd rather see a food with more animal protein than grain protein in it.  You can get a better food for you money.  Just my [sm=2cents.gif]
    • Gold Top Dog
    Feeding is a very personal preference, try it and see if your dog likes it, if so try feeding it for an extended period of time and see what results you get, it is really the only way to tell.
    • Gold Top Dog
    Ok, regardless of what I think of Purina, this food is  extremely overpriced - 14.99 for 6 lbs online at ;Petco, I am sorry but that is an outrageous amount of money to pay for a food that contains some cheap fillers.  For that amount of $$ I don't want to see things like brewers rice which they pay barely nothing for.
     
    Just for price comparison - Nutro Natural Choice - 7.99 for 5 lbs
    Nutro Ultra 8.99 for 4.5 lbs
    Nature's Recipe 6.99 for 5 lbs
    Natural balance 6.99 for 5 lbs
    Eagele Pack Holistic 10.99 for 6.6 lbs
     
    I am sure someone will chime in with a "feed it if it works" post but with sooo many choices of decent foods to feed there is no reason to shell out that kind of $$ IMO
    • Gold Top Dog
    Thanks to all of you who replied.
    I think I'm going to go get a bag of the Nutro Natural Choice . If the Purina Pro Plan Selects is more expensive than the Nurto Natural Choice and it isn't even healthier, than I'm not doing any good when that's what I'm going for.
    Plus, I tried giving both of my dogs a couple pieces to see what they thought and they both prefered their regular Kibbles N Bits over the Purina, so they wouldn't have liked it anyway.
    Picky dogs, lol.
    • Gold Top Dog
    Give Natural Balance a shot if you want to feed your dog a really good food with top notch ingredients
    [linkhttp://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/dogformulas/home.html]http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/dogformulas/home.html [/link]






    • Gold Top Dog
    ORIGINAL: redlegos

    Thanks to all of you who replied.
    I think I'm going to go get a bag of the Nutro Natural Choice . If the Purina Pro Plan Selects is more expensive than the Nurto Natural Choice and it isn't even healthier, than I'm not doing any good when that's what I'm going for.
    Plus, I tried giving both of my dogs a couple pieces to see what they thought and they both prefered their regular Kibbles N Bits over the Purina, so they wouldn't have liked it anyway.
    Picky dogs, lol.


    Better choice, IMO. Selects are extremely overpriced considering the ingredients and the fact that the main meat source is water inclusive, so it'll lose up to 70% of it's weight in cooking.
    • Gold Top Dog
    But I don't think some of those ingredients  are  so very unnecessary or bad. 
    Brewers Rice....broken pieces of human grade rice, the dog doesn't care if its long grain.
    Beet pulp...is a prebiotic,,,which aid in the growth of probiotics.  Beet pulp aids in gently cleaning the intestinal wall so more nutients can be absorbed.
    We all need fiber,,,what is wrong with pea fiber?
    Vit. K is an ongoing argument, so I am not sure on that.
    According to Eagle pack brochure,,, salt is added to meet government requirements. Sounds like they are required to add salt.
    As far as protein, there is meat in the first four ingredients....with turkey being the first ingredient. They have turkey, chicken meal and fish meal in it.
    Now,,,to me if that is a lot more expensive then other food with the same ingredients,,then it is for sure over priced. But it seems that prices on dog food in stores are really different in some states or cities.
    • Gold Top Dog
    ORIGINAL: dyan

    But I don't think some of those ingredients  are  so very unnecessary or bad. 
    Brewers Rice....broken pieces of human grade rice, the dog doesn't care if its long grain.
    Beet pulp...is a prebiotic,,,which aid in the growth of probiotics.  Beet pulp aids in gently cleaning the intestinal wall so more nutients can be absorbed.
    We all need fiber,,,what is wrong with pea fiber?
    Vit. K is an ongoing argument, so I am not sure on that.
    According to Eagle pack brochure,,, salt is added to meet government requirements. Sounds like they are required to add salt.
    As far as protein, there is meat in the first four ingredients....with turkey being the first ingredient. They have turkey, chicken meal and fish meal in it.
    Now,,,to me if that is a lot more expensive then other food with the same ingredients,,then it is for sure over priced. But it seems that prices on dog food in stores are really different in some states or cities.


    we can debate all day about beet pulp, menadione and pea fiber, but one thing that is fact is that the one and only reason to include brewers rice in a food versus whole rice is because it is cheap.  Nice that Purina gets to reap the benefits of cost savings while charging the customer some astronomical price.
    • Gold Top Dog
    ORIGINAL: jenns

    we can debate all day about beet pulp, menadione and pea fiber, but one thing that is fact is that the one and only reason to include brewers rice in a food versus whole rice is because it is cheap. Nice that Purina gets to reap the benefits of cost savings while charging the customer some outrageous price.


    True that brewer's rice is cheap, but the only comparable thing that it is inferior to is brown rice. Brewer's rice is just like having white rice in a food. Whole white rice doesn't have any more nutritional value than the broken pieces. I personally don't have a problem with brewer's rice in a food - it's one of those neutral things, not good but certainly not bad.
    • Gold Top Dog
    ORIGINAL: sooner

    ORIGINAL: jenns

    we can debate all day about beet pulp, menadione and pea fiber, but one thing that is fact is that the one and only reason to include brewers rice in a food versus whole rice is because it is cheap. Nice that Purina gets to reap the benefits of cost savings while charging the customer some outrageous price.


    True that brewer's rice is cheap, but the only comparable thing that it is inferior to is brown rice. Brewer's rice is just like having white rice in a food. Whole white rice doesn't have any more nutritional value than the broken pieces. I personally don't have a problem with brewer's rice in a food - it's one of those neutral things, not good but certainly not bad.

     
    Oh I agree completly, I never said it was a bad ingredient. In this case, it is the most plentiful ingredientt in the food after the turkey which is mostly water anyway and isn't contributing much nutritional value whether it's whole or broken.  Nutro Natural Choice has white rice and fragments, yet notice it's half the price.
    • Gold Top Dog
    I wouldn't feed Pro Plan Selects or Nutro Natural Choice. I don't like Selects because of the ingredients that shelterdog mentioned. Natural Choice doesn't have by-products but it's what most consider to be a midgrade food. I think there are just a lot better foods out there to choose from. Not all of them will work for every dog, but these are the brands I would look into:

    Innova
    Nature's Variety
    Natural Balance
    Canidae
    Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul
    Eagle Pack
    California Natural