Why feed your dog anything but the cheapest dog food pellets?
If you check the ownership of dog food brands, you will find that most of the ones on the market are owned by 3 or 4 companies Globally. Mostly these are from acquisitions. Why build something when you can buy our your competitor and keep prices high?
So why are there so many dog food brands and what does it mean for you?
The differences between manufactured dog food can be subtle to the untrained eye. In theory, the brands that you pay up to 5 times per kg more for have more ‘whole’ grains and perhaps slightly better quality meat and maybe 30% meat rather than 20%.
Perhaps they swap vegetables for grains (but they are still VEGETABLES). 20- 30% meat is the ‘goldilocks zone’ of meat that is put into dog food. 20% is the bare minimum to achieve the total protein requirement of dog food (as said by aafco) and 30% is the most that most brands want to put into their dog pellets, to keep their profits high.
You may also find that the dearest dog food has high levels of vitamins and minerals, but all of them have to have the bare requirement of the over inflated aafco tables. Perhaps the more high end organic ones have chelated or more natural minerals, but that is not always the case.
Some of the high end ones will have trace elements of blueberries etc that apparently impart magical abilities to your dog. The problem with this is that these herbs and vegetables are at the very bottom of the ingredients list, meaning that they only occur in minute amounts, which probably do very little for your dog’s health, but a lot for lightening your purse/ wallet.
Why are you willing to pay huge prices for grain and not moderate for meat?
The whole point of the entire dog food industry is perception. Make you think you are Doing good, that you can’t do better, and keep forcing advertising down your throat to back it up.
There are very few independent reviews of dog food to upset the billion dollar grain cart.
You are mostly buying for convenience, not health. And you don’t want to rock the boat. So what do you do if you REALLY love your dog? Throw more money at the dog food solution of convenience, pellets in brighter shiny packets with bigger font.
Dog Food makers NEVER have to tell you the PERCENTAGE of MEAT in their packets.
Dogs don’t actually NEED carbohydrates (veggies or grains), but your dog is eating 70% each time you feed them almost ANY dog food (wet or dry).
Why do dogs in the wild eat 95% meat and meat products? Because they were born to hunt and kill and eat meat. That is what they desire, what they need, and what keeps them healthy and natural.
Almost makes you think…