Home Reviews Holistic Blend Dog Food Review (Canned)

Holistic Blend Dog Food Review (Canned)

By Mike Sagman

Updated: October 10, 2023

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Product May Have Been Discontinued
Unable to Locate Complete Label Info
On Company Website¹

Rating:

Holistic Blend canned dog food receives the Advisor’s second-highest tier rating of 4.5 stars.

The Holistic Blend product line includes 3 grain-free, canned dog foods.

Each recipe includes its related AAFCO nutrient profile when available on the product’s official webpage: Growth, Maintenance, All Life Stages, Supplemental or Unspecified.

Use the links below to check prices and package sizes at an online retailer.

• Holistic Blend Beef Pate [A]
• Holistic Blend Duck Pate [A]
• Holistic Blend Lamb Pate [A]

Holistic Blend Lamb Pate was selected to represent the other products in the line for this review.

The first ingredient in this dog food is lamb. Lamb is considered “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered” lamb and associated with skeletal muscle or the muscle tissues of the tongue, diaphragm, heart or esophagus.²

Lamb is naturally rich in all ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The second ingredient is lamb broth. Broths are of only modest nutritional value. Yet because they add both flavor and moisture to a dog food, they are a common component in many canned products.

The third ingredient is sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are a gluten-free source of complex carbohydrates in a dog food. They are naturally rich in dietary fiber and beta carotene.

The fourth ingredient is choline chloride, an essential B vitamin that naturally occurs in both plants and animals. It is found in meat, eggs, fish, liver, soybeans and wheat germ.

Because a dog cannot store choline chloride in its body, the nutrient must be replenished to avoid a deficiency. Choline chloride is a supplement required by both AAFCO and the FDA.

The fifth ingredient is agar agar, a natural vegetable gelatin derived from the cell walls of certain species of red algae. Agar is rich in fiber and is used in wet pet foods as a gelling agent.

The sixth ingredient is potassium chloride, a nutritional supplement sometimes used as a replacement for the sodium found in table salt.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With two notable exceptions…

First, chicory root is rich in inulin, a starch-like compound made up of repeating units of carbohydrates and found in certain roots and tubers.

Not only is inulin a natural source of soluble dietary fiber, it’s also a prebiotic used to promote the growth of healthy bacteria in a dog’s digestive tract.

And lastly, this food contains chelated minerals, minerals that have been chemically attached to protein. This makes them easier to absorb. Chelated minerals are usually found in better dog foods.

Holistic Blend
Dog Food Review

Judging by its ingredients alone, Holistic Blend Dog Food looks like an above-average wet product.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 41%, a fat level of 14% and estimated carbohydrates of about 38%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 41% and a mean fat level of 14%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 38% for the overall product line.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 33%.

Near-average protein. Below-average fat. And above-average carbs when compared to a typical wet dog food.

Free of any plant-based protein boosters, this looks like the profile of a canned dog food containing a notable amount of meat.

Bottom line?

Holistic Blend is a grain-free canned dog food using a notable amount of named meats as its main source of animal protein, thus earning the brand 4.5.

Highly recommended.

Please note certain recipes are sometimes given a higher or lower rating based upon our estimate of their total meat content and (when appropriate) their fat-to-protein ratios.

Holistic Blend Dog Food
Recall History

The following list (if present) includes all dog food recalls since 2009 directly related to this product line. If there are no recalls listed in this section, we have not yet reported any events.

You can view a complete list of all dog food recalls sorted by date. Or view the same list sorted alphabetically by brand.

Notes and Updates