Thank you for your replies.
I actually just called Wellness, and asked them about this, as well as ‘why the gelatin’ that this site says actually has no nutritional value for dogs. The person I spoke to knew about the amazon post and they had seen the papers referred to. She said that the Green tea extract was given in super doses to fasting dogs, whereas it is used in much smaller quantities in their foods for its natural preservative effect. By the way, green tea extract has a similar effect in people if you take the doses that were given to these dogs. She also pointed out, as is true, that in these studies they said no such effect was seen in dogs that had not been fasted. If the dog eats the food with the green tea extract in it, it is necessarily not ‘fasted’.
As long as I had her on the phone, I asked her why they used gelatin – she told me it was basically used as a binder because of the high meat content of the food.
All in all, I was pleased with her response.
To the user who suggested Ziwipeak – thank you – I looked at it, and was impressed that it includes glucosamine and chondroitn – I currently give my dogs a supplement for these. However, so does Wellness, and Wellness has a lower fat to protein ratio than Ziwipeak. I read a couple of reviews from people that had fed Ziwipeak and said that their dogs had loose stools and/or gas when on Ziwipeak. My dogs do tend to get gassy if they eat too much fat, and since I have three Great Danes that could make for a pretty stinky house. I did contact Ziwipeak too, to be fair, and haven’t heard back. So, while I didn’t have a negative experience with their customer service, I had a better one with Wellness.
I have samples of Honest Kitchen, Wellness and Ziwipeak (I think) coming. While I prefer the latter two for their inclusion of glucosamine and chondroitin, Honest Kitchen’s grain free has an even lower fat to protein ratio, and no gelatin.
More will be revealed….
