I have learnes by reading The Whole Dog Journal which rates dog foods based on research of food ingredients listed.
To determine how they rate certain dog foods they look for foods that
contain high quality animal proteins. They say they would love it if
manufacturers disclosed the % of meat,poultry or fish in their food,
but rarely do, so they look for foods that appear to have lots of
animal protein.
Ingredients are listed by weight, so ideally a food will have one or two animal proteins in the first few ingredients. THIS IS SIGNIFICANT TO LOOK FOR WHEN DOING YOUR OWN RESEARCH!!!
Understand that whole meat (chicken, beef, lamb, etc.) contains a
lot of water weight. If a food list starts out with chicken (rather
than chicken meal) and there is no other animal protein listed until
5th or 6th on the list, the food does not actually contain a lot of
animal protein. If it starts out with chicken, and chicken meal (or
another another named animal meal, such as lamb meal) is number 2 or 3
on the list, chances are the product contains a greater amt. of animal
protein. Animal proteins tend to be more palatable than plant proteins
and offer more essential and non essential amino acids.
They do not like foods containing meat-by-products or poultry by-products. Its just about impossible to ascertain the quality of by-products used by a food manufacturer.
They reject foods containing fat or protein NOT identified by
species. "Animal fat" is a another word for low quality low priced mix
of fats of uncertain origin. "meat meal" could be practically anything.
They look for whole grains and veggies.
They eliminate ALL foods with Artificial Colors, Flavors, or Preservatives.
Good quality natural preservatives such as rosemary extract and vitamins E and C can be used.
They eliminate All foods with added sweeteners. Dogs , like people,
enjoy sweet foods. like people, they can develop a taste for these
nutritionally empty calories...
They look for products containing organic ingredients.
This can help you decide if you think you are feeding your dogs are
good source of nutrition by reading the labels and comparing.
I have done this at "pet co" and "pet- smart" and did not find any
foods with meat as the first or second listed, even if the package
stated organic...even the suposedly organics had a veggie or oat as
their 1st ingred. RICE & CORN & BARLEY & OATS were among
the first listed on all of thier pet foods.
This was 1 year ago. So we found a Holistic pet Food store that contains many wonderful varieties.
If I remember correctly I do believe that "Science Diet" contains "Corn" as their first ingredient.
Hope this helps any of you trying to find a good source of food for your dogs and cats.
_________________