Which Food Is Better?

[Steve]

Some recent studies suggest that most people only take special notice at point of sale of the first 4 ingredients . Just lets look at 2 products . One is about one quarter of the price of the other . Both produce the same amount of stools so the digestibility is equal.Both have added vitamins and minerals which make them complete dog foods and conform to AAFCO profiles.

Neither have any chemical preservatives, added colourants, animal by-products or corn.

1.Would you feel that paying 4 times as much for one over the other is justified and if so which one. ?

2.Would you choose to try the most expensive or the cheapest first ?

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

Product A

Ingredient 1 Lamb meal ,

Ingredient 2 ground rice,

Ingredient 3 rice flour,

Ingredient 4 rice bran

Analysis

Total protein 21 percent

Toatal Fat 12 percent

Total fibre 5 percent

carbo hydrates approx 50 percent

Product B

Ingredient 1 Cereals and Bran ,

Ingredient 2 real kangaroo meat, real chicken meat ,real beef and or lamb meat

Ingredient 3 real chicken meat

Ingredient 4 vegetable protein.

Analysis

Total protein - 26 percent

fat 13 percent

Fibre 3 percent.

carbo hydrates approx 50 percent

[shapeshifter]

going on the info supplied I would pick B to buy for my dogs, is B the more expensive product?

I look at the full content of all products and if they are the same or similar I buy what is cheapest.

[Steve]

Lets wait and see what everyone chooses before we let the cat out of the bag.

[Norskgra]

1.Would you feel that paying 4 times as much for one over the other is justified and if so which one. ?

For my dogs, price is not an issue. Two of mine have always been very fussy on what they ate to the extent that the only way we could get them to eat was to hand feed them. I have tried them on numerous brands from cheap supermarket ones through to expensive ones. If the one my dogs will happily eat is 4 times more expensive than another one, I will at least try the expensive one. If they do well on the expensive one, I will keep buying it for them.

2.Would you choose to try the most expensive or the cheapest first ?

I would try which ever one had the best list of ingredients and Guaranteed Analysis. If you are asking which out of A and B I would try, I would choose A based ofor the previous mentioned reasons. It has Lamb meal listed first and also has less protien, fat and more fibre but I would want to know what are the other ingredients before I made my decision normally.

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

Before I purchase food for my dogs, I read the whole bag. I want to know all the ingredients and also the Guaranteed Analysis. I want a food that does not contain and chemical preservatives, added colourants, animal by-products or corn.

ETA - The food I am feeding my dogs could be classified as expensive but it is the only food that they all happily eat and their condtion has never been better. The 2 that used to be fussy now race to their dinner places to wait for it and eat every last crumb without having to be hand fed or coaxed. That to me is worth paying more if not for any other reason.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Norskgra

[Steve]

Neither have any chemical preservatives, added colourants, animal by-products or corn.

[SkyesongTollrz]

I'd bypass them both and go to the butcher to get my dog some real food!

[aranyoz]

I'd bypass them both and go to the butcher to get my dog some real food!

Me too.....strictly raw only for my adults!!!

[Working_Setters]

I don't have a problem with either Animal by products or corn in my dog food.

Product A - I don't like the listing of "ground rice, rice flour and rice bran" to me that's just a confusing way of saying RICE, break the rice down into its components, then list them individually so that the meat can be listed as the #1 ingredient.

Product B - It's confusing to see real chicken meat listed as the 2nd and the 3rd ingredients? Does this mean the second ingredient could be 'roo, or chicken, or beef or lamb, but the 3rd ingredient is always chicken??

I would choose B, b/c my dogs are very active and need the higher protein and fat.

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

Yes, reputation and past performance. I had a problem with one of my dogs, vet said try Euk. I did it was great, that was 10 years ago and have fed Euk ever since. Recently tried a cheaper brand, dogs lost coat quality and increased stools, so now back to Euk. Past performance and reputation from people I respect as knowledgeable dog people (that doesn't include TV ads etc) but real people I know and trust, are more important to me than price.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Working_Setters

[Georgie-boy]

I would choose product A.

1.Would you feel that paying 4 times as much for one over the other is justified and if so which one. ?

If they are just as good as each other then no.

2.Would you choose to try the most expensive or the cheapest first ?

Price has nothing to do with it for me.

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

I choose based on quality of ingredients and what works for MY dogs and I try to go as natural as you can get with kibble. I also want complete nutrition when buying a food - I don't want to have to add things or supplement.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Georgie-boy

[Trisven13]

I would pick "B" because I think I read somewhere that meat meal should be avoided.... Also too many rices.

With a large number of rescue dogs in our household and a very significant amount of our income committed to it our rescue dogs eat whatever we have the funds for or was donated so for me price is a big issue. That doesn't mean I buy the no name cheap and nasty from the supermarket but a large number of our rescue dogs eat Coprice - it is affordable.

[KitKat]

'Meal' is the meat already dehydrated so is more accurate as to placing on the ingrediant list. 'Meal' is still hold containing it's 75%or what ever of water...so take out the water and it's placing on the ingredient list is likely to change...

I'd probably go with product A...as the lamb is already dehydrated when added to the listing and rice is easily digestable by dogs, but much would depend on what i thought of it and how my dogs did on it.

[articpower sibes]

.Would you feel that paying 4 times as much for one over the other is justified and if so which one. ?

I think I'd go with A, there's something about Kangaroo that in steering me away from B

No if they were equal I wouldn't like to pay 4 times as much.

2.Would you choose to try the most expensive or the cheapest first ?

I would probably try A first ,so if that's the most expensive that's the one I'd go with

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

my boy has an allergy to beef he gets hot spots so I have him on a salmon based kibble that one is expensive but hot spots are awful and if I can do something to make his life more comfortable then that's what I would do.

I've got my dogs on pro plan best salmon based that suits my boy,

I think once you find a product that works for your dogs stick with it, my dogs get vegies and chicken or raw meaty bones as their dietas long as my dogs are healthy in good condition have enough energy that's good enough for me

Cheers

Edited October 28, 2006 by rosepetals

[tramissa]

Edited because first statement was made as a gut reaction, after thinking about it, I go with statement below instead of the one deleted

In A, ingredients 2, 3 & 4 make up ingredient 1 in B anyway, and there is more protein in B than in A while the carbs are the same,

Price WOULD be a factor though i.e., if B was 4 times more expensive than A, I might trial her on A to see how she does and if she and I are happy, then we'd stick with it. To me, there is not 4 times the difference between the products to justify the price.

Edited October 28, 2006 by tramissa

[Crysti_Lei]

i would go with 'a',. coz since when does an animal eat only the meat.

i woild answere the other Qs but i hafta go to work.

[helen]

I would go with B because of the extra protein and fat (may not if it is 4 X more expensive.

[Lozzie]

I would try product b first- my two need the higher fat and protein, plus what tramissa said about the 3 rice ingredients.

1.Would you feel that paying 4 times as much for one over the other is justified and if so which one. ?

No- I like B better than A but would trial A first if it was 1/4 of the price.

2.Would you choose to try the most expensive or the cheapest first ?

It depends- when I first got Coco I trialled Supercoat because I had heard it was decent and she didn't do any good on it. Thats the cheapest it would go for me. If, say, Food A or B was pal or chum I wouldn't even look at it (no set recipe and crap quality ingredients etc)

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

I look at reputation, then ingredients then price. If all are satisfactory then I will trial my dogs on it and see how they both go.

[imy]

Which has less fat????

I'd probably go for B because I feed only a little bit of dry kibble and its mainly for the fibre anyway... which is, the cereals.

Also, I thought meat-meal WAS by-products!

[jesomil]

I would want to look into the brands more.

Its a bit confusing how they are listed. Product A's main ingredient is probably rice followed by lamb meal. The rice has been broken down into 3 things just to be trickey i think. I think lamb meal is a cheap product.

I think both products would have similar digestability as they are both cereal based food which i think would equal volumous stools.

Product B's main ingredient is cereals and bran which means both products probably have the same amount of meat in them. I think the protein would mainly be plant based protein instead of animal based.

I think product B would be cheaper as they are saying "real chick etc", whereas in fact there probably isnt much meat in it at all looking at the ingredients list and they are trying to make it sound good.

I think that both products would be of a similar quality.

I generally go for the more expensive products but they have to be good to support their price. I certainly would not buy either of these foods. I think they would both be of a supermarket grade.

I would be interested in seeing the rest of the ingredients before making a decision on them if i were to buy.

A little bit off topic, I think there is a big company out there that has the same food in different packaging. 1 is marketed as the best with fancy packaging and the other one is their step lower will dull packaging. I wouldnt be surprised if they were the same food. These marketing people are very clever.

I generally tend to look on the label for high meat content and meat based protein. I dont believe the analysis means a great deal in the bigger picture. Eg. I would look at protein quality over ptotein quantity.

Edited October 28, 2006 by jesomil

[RedFox]

Product B

Ingredient 1 Cereals and Bran ,

Ingredient 2 real kangaroo meat, real chicken meat ,real beef and or lamb meat

Ingredient 3 real chicken meat

Ingredient 4 vegetable protein.

Analysis

Total protein - 26 percent

fat 13 percent

Fibre 3 percent.

carbo hydrates approx 50 percent

Vegetable protein has a poor aminoacid profile compared to animal protein (and lower bioavailability I think), so even though this product has more total protein, it's probably inferior in terms of protein quality to product A.

1.Would you feel that paying 4 times as much for one over the other is justified and if so which one. ?

A is better, but doesn't look better enough to justify 4x the price. Too much rice, not enough protein.

2.Would you choose to try the most expensive or the cheapest first ?

More expensive foods are usually better, but I wouldn't base my decision on price.

3. Do you choose your dog food based on something else?

Quality ingredients, high protein, low carbs. The AAFCO standards for macronutrients are based on the minimum protein and maximum carb intakes that a dog needs or can tolerate to stay healthy. Minimum and maximum does not equal optimal.

I choose to home-cook for my dog because there's no way to be sure about the quality of ingredients in kibble or the manufacturing process.

[noisymina]

I think "B" would be preferable if it was going to be a major part of the dog's diet.

In my case, I would still feed meaty bones as well, so I would go for the cheaper one and try it first.

If I was going to go down that path.