Iams Healthy Naturals Dog Food (Dry)

Rating:

Iams Healthy Naturals Dog Food earns the Advisor’s second-lowest rating of two stars.

Currently, the Iams Healthy Naturals product line includes four dry kibbles… two for adults, one for puppies and one for weight loss.

• Iams Healthy Naturals
• Iams Healthy Naturals Lamb Meal and Rice
• Iams Healthy Naturals Puppy
• Iams Healthy Naturals Weight Control

Iams Healthy Naturals was selected to represent the others in the line for this review.

The first item in this dog food is chicken. Raw chicken contains about 80% water. After cooking, most of that moisture is lost… reducing the meat content to just 20% of its original weight.

That’s what makes any uncooked meat a much smaller contributor to the overall protein content of a dry dog food than its equivalent and comparable meat meal.

So, don’t be fooled by chicken’s “first ingredient” status here. To reflect its lighter weight, this item should more accurately occupy a much lower position on the list.

Which brings us to chicken by-product meal… a dry “rendered” product of slaughterhouse waste. It’s made from what’s left of a slaughtered chicken after all the prime cuts have been removed.

In a nutshell… chicken by-products are the unsavory and inedible leftovers deemed unfit for human consumption.

This stuff can contain almost anything… feet, beaks, undeveloped eggs… you name it. This is not a quality item… yet it is (most likely) the dominant ingredient in this dog food.

The third ingredient is brewers rice. Brewers rice represents the small grain fragments left over after milling whole rice.

This is a cheap cereal grain by-product and not a quality ingredient.

The fourth item lists corn meal. Corn meal is a ground flour made from dried corn. Although there’s no way to know for sure, it’s reasonable to assume the corn described here is similar to the kind used to make feed for livestock.

Feed corn can be contaminated with insects, mites and molds.

Many blame corn for chronic canine allergies. But those allergies are probably more a result of what’s in the corn… rather than the corn itself.

The fifth ingredient is sorghum. Sorghum is a starchy cereal grain with a nutrient profile similar to corn.

Since it is gluten-free and boasts a smoother blood sugar behavior than other grains, sorghum may be considered a decent non-meat ingredient.

The sixth item lists barley… another quality carbohydrate supplying fiber and other healthy nutrients.

The seventh ingredient is chicken fat. Chicken fat is obtained from rendering chicken… a process similar to making soup in which the fat itself is skimmed from the surface of the liquid.

Chicken fat is high in linoleic acid… an omega-6 fatty acid essential for life. Though it doesn’t sound very appetizing, chicken fat is a quality ingredient.

The next item is beet pulp. Beet pulp is a controversial ingredient… a high fiber by-product of sugar beet processing.

Some denounce beet pulp as an inexpensive filler while others cite its outstanding intestinal health benefits.

We only call your attention here to the controversy and believe the inclusion of beet pulp in reasonable amounts in most dog foods is entirely acceptable.

After the added chicken flavor (whatever that is), we find dried egg product… a dehydrated form of shell-free eggs. Quality can vary significantly. Lower grade egg product can even come from commercial hatcheries… from eggs that have failed to hatch.

The quality of this item all depends on the caliber of the ingredient purchased by Iams (you get what you pay for).

In any case, eggs are easy to digest and have an exceptionally high biological value.

Also, the minerals listed here do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Non-chelated minerals are usually associated with lower quality dog foods.

Iams Healthy Naturals… the Bottom Line

It’s important to acknowledge that there are (of course) notable differences between these four Iams Healthy Naturals dog foods. The varying protein-fat-carb profiles can make the products rather difficult to pigeonhole.

However, the nutrient content of the standard adult dog food does provide a reasonable place from which to make comparisons.

The dashboard reports a dry matter protein reading of 29%, a fat level of 17% and an estimated carbohydrate content of 46%.

Good protein. Moderate fat. And slightly below-average carbs. By itself, the nutrient numbers of this Iams Healthy Naturals example would normally entitle it to a high two-star/low three-star rating.

But the Weight Control and Lamb Meal products exert significant downward pressure on our overall impression of the Iams Healthy Naturals group as a whole.

Bottom line?

Iams Healthy Naturals Weight Control is (for the most part) a grain-based dog food. The Lamb Meal formula (of course) features lamb meal… but (at 22% dry matter) probably not very much of it.

Excluding those two products, Iams Healthy Naturals is primarily a meat-based dog food using an inferior by-products meal as its main meat ingredient… thus earning the brand a disappointing two stars.

This is certainly not an inexpensive dog food. So, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a better kibble for your pet… or your money.

Not recommended.

Some Final Thoughts

Remember, no dog food can possibly be appropriate for every life stage, lifestyle or health condition. So, choose wisely. And when in doubt consult your veterinarian for help.

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Tagged as: adult, dry, puppy, weight control