Beneful Problems

Well, my Mom always said "waste not, want not", so why not try to find a way to use every bit of the chicken...or any other animal..  The world population is growing, more land is being developed, less land for farms, ranches, etc. and one way to prevent starvation in the future for us and our animals is to learn to use every part of anything we kill and harvest.  At one time tomatoes were thought to be poison.  Folks missed out on good eating for hundreds of years.
 
Not long ago folks were talking about  chicken feet being including as by product.  In China and other countries they are considered a delicacy and are sold over there.  And just recently the Wlmart in Aransas Pass has been selling them YUK.  My son said he has also seen chicken heads there YUK.  I have not read about chicken heads being popular in any country. 
 
I asked the lady at Purina about by products and she told me it was the intestants of the chicken and did not include feathers or beaks or feet.  And the same goes with meat by products.  It is the meat parts that most humans do not eat, not hide, hooves, etc.
 
 

if only that was their motivation.... But it's not. They just want a way to increase their profits. People are only willing to pay so much for pet foods, so the only way to increase profits is to make the stuff more cheaply. There are plenty of excellent uses for feathers, and eating them isn't one.

ORIGINAL: papillon806

ORIGINAL: mudpuppy

why a manufacturer with such an excellent R&D would sell something so loaded with sugar, dye and grain is just beyond me ...

you're kidding me, right? Purina has many truly awful roducts out there, Beneful is just the worst of the worst.  If you read their studies they are highly concerned about poop consistency (owners don't like soft poops), palatability (owners don't like foods dogs won't eat), and how to turn things like feathers into dog food. Very little concern for actual dog health.
Besides, who said it was an economical food? it costs $1 a pound, which is what you'd pay for Iams or Nutro, both of which are much healthier than this garbage.

Yeah, you must be right.  They just spend millions of dollars on research to see how they can make a food have horrible effects on a dog's health.  Yes, they do have low-end formulas (and yes I think Beneful is crap), but I think that is so even people who don't have a lot of money can afford to feed their dogs instead of starving them.  Sometimes I think we don't take into account the amount of dogs that are lucky to be getting fed period.  They do have some good formulas as well...Purina ONE, ONE natural blends, Pro Plan and Pro Plan selects are not horrible foods....certainly better than many of their competitors. 

I believe that they spend millions of dollars to find a way to make the food as cheaply as they can. If they can sell the crap, then obviously they don't they don't have any integrity, and would do anything to make a buck.  I don't buy anything that Purina makes..

I do not know of a single company that makes any product that is not out to make as much as they can off the product. Not for one minute do i think ford or Cheverole make cars out of the goodness of their hearts so everyone can have transportation, that Del monte and Green Giant cans food out of the goodness of their hearts so people will have veggies to eat, that Eathan Allen makes furniture out of the goodness of it's heart so people will have furniture, that Reader's Digest prints books out of the goodness of their hearts so people will have sutff to read, that Pfizer& Merck, make drugs out of the goodness of their hearts so people can get cured, nor that purina nor Timber Wolf or Eagle Pack, etc make dog food out the goodness of their hearts so dogs want starve.  They all have every intention of making a profit...and as a big a profit as they can--stock holders demand it.
 
I gotta add that when someone on this forums hates Purian, they HATE  it.  We used Purina Hen Scratch for our chickens, Purina Pig Shorts for our hogs, Purina dog food for our dogs, and i do think the range cubes we bought for our cow was Purina.  Never had a problem with any of the animals.  All this goes back 60 years and we always have had/ have healthy animals.

Your Purina livestock feeds are a different company than your Purina dog food. I wish Purina dog foods were as high quality and gave as good results as their lamb creep feed, for instance. Purina feeds are the Innova of the livestock feed world. I'm not a Purina basher but I thought I'd point out that the two companies have very different philosophies and missions. Purina Show Chow, for instance, is known throughout the industry as being the best of the best, very species oriented, and practically a guarantee of glowing good health when used correctly. A Purina Show Dog Chow made in the same philosophy would be a granulated feed, mostly meat meal, and would cost about $100 for 40 pounds.

Purina just completed a 10 year multi-million dollar study, which showed that the best thing you can do to keep your dog healthy is to feed 25 percent less food, that doesn't sound like a company whose singular focus is on squeezing every last penny out of pet owners. Most Purina products such as Beneful use by-product meals which by AAFCO definition is exclusive of feathers (and which in many ways are superior to other types of meals).  If they used a product with feathers and beaks there would need to be a new AAFCO definition for that particular ingredient.

ORIGINAL: abbysdad

Purina just completed a 10 year multi-million dollar study, which showed that the best thing you can do to keep your dog healthy is to feed 25 percent less food, that doesn't sound like a company whose singular focus is on squeezing every last penny out of pet owners.

 
 They needed to spend millions of dollars to determine that overfeeding your dog is unhealthy?

ORIGINAL: Bobsk8

I believe that they spend millions of dollars to find a way to make the food as cheaply as they can. If they can sell the crap, then obviously they don't they don't have any integrity, and would do anything to make a buck.  I don't buy anything that Purina makes..

Exactly.  The research they do is to determine how they can get the best results from cheap ingredients while increasing profit margins and then charge the consumer for advertising and more "research".

ORIGINAL: jenns

ORIGINAL: abbysdad

Purina just completed a 10 year multi-million dollar study, which showed that the best thing you can do to keep your dog healthy is to feed 25 percent less food, that doesn't sound like a company whose singular focus is on squeezing every last penny out of pet owners.

They needed to spend millions of dollars to determine that overfeeding your dog is unhealthy?

 
No, they  needed to spend that much money to make sure that valid studies were done to confirm it so they can say so with certainty.  Their main goal was to find ways to extend a dogs life and improve their overall health.  This was the result of their study.  I also want to mention that it costs LOTS of money to perform studies that follow all  IACUC/AWA guidelines to assure the safety of the test subjects and to make sure that the study was done w/ precision.  They also have to perform many consecutive studies to validate the results. 

I found this on the Purina website.  The food is called Purina Healthy Morsels.  This may even be worse than Beneful. What a joke!

Whole grain corn, corn gluten meal, whole grain wheat, chicken by-product meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), soybean meal, brewers rice, meat and bone meal, beef, pearled barley, sugar, sorbitol, fish oil, calcium phosphate, animal digest, salt, phosphoric acid, potassium chloride, sorbic acid (a preservative), dried peas, dried carrots, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, calcium propionate (a preservative), added color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 2), Vitamin E supplement, choline chloride, brewers dried yeast, zinc sulfate, zinc proteinate, ferrous sulfate, niacin, manganese sulfate, manganese proteinate, Vitamin A supplement, calcium carbonate, DL-Methionine, Vitamin B-12 supplement, calcium pantothenate, copper sulfate, copper proteinate, thiamine mononitrate, garlic oil, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin D-3 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), calcium iodate, folic acid, biotin, sodium selenite.
G-4037

ORIGINAL: jenns

ORIGINAL: abbysdad

Purina just completed a 10 year multi-million dollar study, which showed that the best thing you can do to keep your dog healthy is to feed 25 percent less food, that doesn't sound like a company whose singular focus is on squeezing every last penny out of pet owners.

They needed to spend millions of dollars to determine that overfeeding your dog is unhealthy?

Actually, the original reason they had the study was to determine the effects of body weight and activity levels on hip displasia. 16 years ago, nobody knew anything about the environmental effects of hip displasia. About 4 years into the study, they started seeing marked differences in the health of the animals between the two groups, and so while they still did all the x-rays and such for the hip displasia study, what they REALLY learned was much more valuable. The yearly blood tests, and their committment to treat every medical problem in its entirety (with very complete and accurate records) led to discoveries that were not expected at all. The dogs that were fed 25% less food (and not necessarily kept lean) lived longer and had far fewer health problems overall. Purina changed its caloric intake recommendations AND its body condition score chart as a result of this study. Tell me thats not a job well done? Tell me who else would keep 80 some dogs for 16 years?? There were people who postponed their retirement by 3-4 years for this study...

And seriously people... do you think Innova, Timberwolf and others aren't making a profit too? They make up the fastest growing section of the dog food market, and they're making billions too. Why do you think hills, purina and others are changing their formulas and adding organic formulas? They ALL want to make money.

As a vet student, you all accuse Hills and Purina of giving away too much, of buying my loyalty. Well chew on this and see who's buying loyalty. I pay for hills, I get 20 pounds of Iams free a month, and I get up to 40 pounds of Natura products free. I can get their 95% certified organic food for free if I wanted... and last time I checked it was one of the most expensive foods on the market today. I have had fabulous luck with Natura products, and plan to carry them in my practice someday, right alongside the Hills and Eukaneuba. Who's buying who now??

If you think the "Big 4" are the only companies out there trying to make money, you're blind and naieve.

Oh, and Natura has a brand spanking new, state of the art research facility too. They're planning on being number 5 in the big 4. Smart move in my opinion...

The dogs that were fed 25% less food (and not necessarily kept lean)

 
Hmm...
 

by feeding to ideal body condition through diet restriction,

 
From [linkhttp://www.purina.com/company/press/2002/LifePlan.aspx]http://www.purina.com/company/press/2002/LifePlan.aspx[/link]
 
Doesn't "feeding to ideal body condition" translate to "kept lean"?

ORIGINAL: chelsea_b

The dogs that were fed 25% less food (and not necessarily kept lean)

Hmm...

by feeding to ideal body condition through diet restriction,

From [linkhttp://www.purina.com/company/press/2002/LifePlan.aspx]http://www.purina.com/company/press/2002/LifePlan.aspx[/link]

Doesn't "feeding to ideal body condition" translate to "kept lean"?

Yes, but the study wasn't about body condition. Studies in mice have shown that near starvation is the best way to live a long life. There is no need to repeat that sort of study in dogs. Here is what they did:

They had 10 litters (something like that, I don't remember exact numbers) of labrador puppies born at their lab. They were matched to a same sex sibling by body weight. The biggest male was matched to the biggest brother, smallest female was matched to the smallest sister, etc. They were all fed the exact same food BUT, one group was allowed to eat as much as they wanted in 15 minutes. Their portion was then weighed, and their matched pair was fed 25% less food. Thats it... pretty simple, right? They took yearly x-rays, blood tests, and any health problems were treated to the current standard of care.

The dogs that were allowed to eat whatever they wanted varied quite a bit. Some were ridiculously overweight, and therefore their matched pair was also allowed (not forced) to eat large amounts of food. Some self-regulated, but as you can imagine, the majority over-ate. The ones that self-regulated and further restricted their matched pair had very lean cohorts. The dogs were compared to their matched pair, and the leaner the dog, the longer they lived, the fewer health problems they had, and the more active they were. Its not rocket science... but its proof for the millions of overweight pets that diet management is more important than anyone would guess. 2 years is a LONG time for a dog!!

Remember, the original idea was to see how portions affected hip displasia, and at that point in time, there was no such thing as large breed foods. They were probably hoping to learn weather or not portion controls prevented bone disease. Before large breed foods, the theory was that puppies should be fed adult food because it had less calories... you have to remember this study is THE longest study done with companion animals. No other company has ever endevored to follow pets from birth until death to see how environment affects them. It was nothing short of spectacular that they even attempted such a thing, and the results (not just about weight, but about bone disease, cognitive function, activity levels, and MANY other diseases) were spectacular.

We had a presentation from the company about the study, and they had completed the study 2 years prior to the presentation (my freshman year, 2 years ago) and at that point in time, they were still having specialists compound the data and go back over the lifetime medical records of these dogs. Those dogs may yet provide a wealth of valuable information, who knows...

Misskiwi-- I am just curious, but do you happen to know what food they were fed?  Also, do you know how long they lived (I suppose I am referring to the shortest lived and the longest).  I am comparing it to something I have found so I am curious.  

They were fed a purina puppy food for a while, not sure of specifics and I'm not sure how long. They were originally going to keep them on the same food for the entire study, but the dogs got too fat, so they had to switch them to an adult food.

I do not remember how long the first dog to die lived, but the longest lived 14 years. The guy who gave the presentation knew the dog, and it was really obvious they loved him a lot... it was crazy because I didn't know they got that attached to research dogs. Then again, when you've put 15 years of your life into a study, and the one dog is all thats left, I guess it would be normal to get all choked up about it...