I’m Sue the one that left the comments for Laura about how I rotate my dogs’ food between Evo, Orijen, Acana, Fromm’s etc., all the time. I just read your question about Nutro NC Lite. Nutro carries 3 grades of their dog food. Nutro Max is the bottom, Natural Choice is the middle line and Nutro Ultra is their premium. If you go to their website and see the ingredients for Nutro Natural Choice Lite, you might not believe the claims. Here’s the list I copied and pasted from their website:

Ground Rice, Lamb Meal, Rice Bran, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Powdered Cellulose, Lamb, Natural Flavors, Yeast Culture, Soybean Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Calcium Carbonate, Poultry Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Potassium Chloride, Monosodium Phosphate, Taurine, Choline Chloride, Egg Product, Dried Kelp, Magnesium Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of Vitamin C), Copper Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Biotin, Potassium Iodide, Calcium Pantothenate, Niacin Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement (source of Vitamin B2), Sodium Selenite, Vitamin A supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of Vitamin B6), Thiamine Mononitrate (source of Vitamin B1), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity), Folic Acid.

Rice is listed twice in the first 5 ingredients. Powdered Cellulose is a cheap fiber filler. Dried beet pulp, another filler, is 4th and only 1 meat product in the first 5. It uses synthetic Vitamin K (Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex) a contorversial item! Also, this is a lite food. People don’t really need to feed a lite food, they just need to feed their dogs less food or give them more exercise! Kind of the same as humans. We need to eat less or exercise more to stay at the right weight. When you are feeding a good food the cost is not really much more. They eat less of it for the same or more nutrition. Less poop to clean up too because it is metabolized better and has less fillers. Our lab got a little bit heavy over the winter, so we just fed her less, per our vet’s direction. She looks great!

When talking to sales reps or other buyers, people may say the Nutro food is great for their dogs, but what were they feeding their dogs before this? Maybe a really bad dog food, which would make Nutro an improvement. Some people also feed table scraps, which would enhance the dogs food to some extent.

Sorry I made this so long. I hope Beverly gets a chance to see this. Great work with this site Mike! People can feed whatever they want, but the information is helpful.

Within the next 30 days we will be updating Nutro with our improved system. So, be sure to check back shortly. It’s quite possible we could be changing the rating of this dog food.

If you’ve been using Nutro with success, then by all means, continue to do so. We maintain a database of over one thousand products (still growing). So far, this dog food resides at the lower end of our scale for the likely amount of meat-based protein present. It also contains menadione… which is considered by many to be a “controversial” (though not necessarily bad) ingredient.

We certainly don’t claim to be all knowing or infallible… so we periodically re-visit each dog food. And over time our reviews evolve to reflect changes in both the product as well as our own opinion.

We really appreciate your opinion and promise to take your comments into consideration as we re-evaluate this food in the future.

Rescue Mom – all of my dogs are rescues. We have a very happy, healthy pack. Most dog foods have some glucosamine and chondroitin in them. Some have more than others. No dog food you are able to buy off the pet specialty store shelves has enough of those two items to make a huge difference. If your dog has arthritis or some other bone/joint condition which requires these, you definitely need to supplement their diet to provide clinical levels (which will make a difference).

I have no need or reason to change foods just because the “Advisor” says they think (in their opinion) it is sub standard. My experience with the food says otherwise. Also, my experience with the company has been outstanding. Every question answered completely to my satisfaction. I have a very healthy family of dogs as well as people (smile).