[CaitlinNes]

I know that rice is a common dog food ingredient, but I have read that rice often contains arsenic. As far as I understand, any field that was once used for growing cotton and now grows rice will contain arsenic, because arsenic was applied to the fields as a pesticide/fungicide and never leaves the soil unless the soil itself is removed and replaced with new soil. I still eat rice but only occassionally, so I wonder if the arsenic levels would build up to dangerous levels in a small dog who eats a little bit of arsenic in EVERY meal. Ironically, any time I have fed my dog boiled organic chicken and rice he only eats the chicken and will leave the rice all over the floor. Maybe somehow he knows. 🙂 Any thoughts on this?

[pugmomsandy]

While the FDA says the levels are low, I still wouldn’t feed a rice-based food everyday. Has there actually been a study done on dogs that have eaten rice long term? I love rice but only eat it once or twice a week now. I’m too scared to eat it any more than that. So much of our food is so bad for us now 🙁

[TheHappyHound]

The rice issue seems over blown. Throughout the world billions of humans consume rice as a staple part of their diet. It is disappointing that DFA does not rate any food with rice in it over 4 stars because of the potential of arsenic. A quality food made with humane grade meat that uses human grade brown rice as the main binding agent should be considered of the same caliber as 5 star food with white potato.

In my opinion human grade brown rice should be considered a quality ingredient that is not red flagged.

[theBCnut]

I was positive that there were 5 star foods with rice in them.

[pugmomsandy]

Actually, the fact that a food contains rice isn’t part of the rating system. It’s the amount of meat that affects the score. Just as an example, Canidae Single Grain Protein Plus received 5 stars although they are no longer making that particular food.

[theBCnut]

So I’m not completely crazy? Well, maybe I am…

[theBCnut]

BTW, red flagged does not mean bad necessarily. It means there is some controversy about that particular ingredient, you may want to know about the controversy so you can decide for yourself how you feel about that ingredient.

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