[“Blue”]

Hi, I found your site and have been reading reviews for about 1 month. Here an idea I’d like to see in all reviews, but maybe you’re saving it for Editors Choice.

Kcals. This relates to cost of keeping a dog.

And here’s a question I have. Why do you give high Carb foods 4-5 stars when a wolf’s natural diet would be very low carbs?

I haven’t seen these addressed, maybe I just haven’t found them yet as there’s a lot of info here. I really appreciate your site and look forward to the editors choice section.

[theBCnut]

If you look at the carb levels of 1 and 2 star foods you will see that the carb level in the 4 and 5 star foods is actually quite low…for kibble. Kibble has to have carbs as a binder, so it would be extremely rare and require special processing for a kibble to be truly low carb. The 5 star foods really are the top 20% as far as protein levels are concerned and usually fat goes up as protein goes up, so they should be the 20% of foods with the lowest carb level too.

A lot of us have asked for calorie info to be included in the future, so we are still hoping it will happen, but it isn’t required on the government regulated label and can change at any time, even bag to bag.

[“Blue”]

Tks Patty. I buy your reply about carbs, needed as a binder. But have to question the Kcal response. If Kcals are given on the package they should be included in the review, just as any ingredient is. It can’t be much trouble to include it when listed.

If Kcals change doesn’t that mean the ingredients changed? At that point the whole review is out of date.

Anyway, I don’t mean to argue with you, I recognize and appreciate your many contributions to this site, just want to make the case to include Kcals in reviews. 🙂 A 3-4 star food with 500Kcal/cup is more interesting to me than a 5 star, 300 Kcal/cup food. I haven’t found a food yet that will keep weight on my bluetick at the published serving/weight sizes.

[theBCnut]

We all want kcals on the reviews. The problem is that not all dog food manufacturers make it easy to find that info. It may or may not be on the bags or the website.

BTW, the GA lists minimums for protein and fat, if the fat level is actually at the minimum then the calorie count is one thing, but if the fat level is anywhere else, and it usually is, the calorie count changes. That’s how it can change batch to batch, but the ingredient list and GA not change.

Hound Dog Mom has the same issue with her Bloodhounds, she has to feed more to keep weight on them. She feeds high fat raw now.

[InkedMarie]

Hey DoggieDad, do you post on DFC too?

[“Blue”]

Hi InkedMarie,
No, not sure what DFC is but I’ll google it.

Patty,
Tks for your continued input. There seems to be a lot more to dog food chemistry than the average dog owner ever realizes. Maybe the Editors Choice selection criteria could include that the mfg’r has to put Kcals on the label. But evidently that doesn’t work if there is no gov’t requirement for truth in labeling.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 4 months ago by "Blue".

[InkedMarie]

DFC=dog food nutrition chat, a forum that I think has a poster named DoggieDad.

[theBCnut]

Our gov’t truth in labeling laws are up for the highest bidder, and the highest bidder is big business, so the laws are about as close to meaningless as they can be without there being a huge stink raised by consumers.

[“Blue”]

Rather than start a new thread, I will post here, where my new question seems to fit anyway. Under the 5 Star Dry Dog Foods is listed Primal Freeze Dried Formula, but not the 5 Star rated Stella & Chewys FD and the Grandma Lucy’s FD. Is there a reason for this or just an oversight?

[theBCnut]

/dog-food-reviews/grandma-lucys-pureformance/
/dog-food-reviews/stella-chewys-raw-freeze-dried/

I would assume it is because Mike decided not very long ago how he was going to categorize freeze dried and dehyrated foods, so he hasn’t got to all of them to add tags for the dry list, since they aren’t really like a regular dry food. You should go down to the bottom of the page and shoot him an email about it. He likes to be informed about the things like that that we find so he can fix them.

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