Which Diets are Best
for Your Dog?
Diets that are rich in by-product meals or diets in which fresh chicken, turkey, lamb, dry chicken or lamb meals and rice are the principal ingredients listed on the labelling?
An Article by Mr. Robert Abady. President, Abady Dog Food Co. Ltd.
A careful examination of all relevant data by the Robert Abady Dog Food Company reveals that diets that are centred around the by-products meals may offer a significant nutritional advantage to your dog.
Here's why .............
Logically, ingredients should be selected purely according to the nutritional contribution they make to a ration.
When ingredients are selected for the production of dog food, there are many different factors that enter into the equation. An ingredient's nutritional yield versus its cost is central to sound dietary construction.
For example -- If ingredient A is nutritionally equivalent to ingredient B, but B costs 3 times as much for the same quantity of A, then the manufacturer who uses ingredient A can include 3 times more of it in his ration than the manufacturer using ingredient B and therefore can offer three times more nutrition at no greater cost.
Ultimately, what a manufacturer spends on ingredients is a major determinant of the selling price of nutritional products, therefore the manufacturer who uses ingredient A can offer a significantly better product than the manufacturer who uses ingredient B, for the same cost to the consumer if all other factors are equal.
If a manufacturer were to include one and a half times as much of ingredient A as the manufacturer who uses ingredient B, the product manufactured with ingredient A could still be 50% more nutritious than the one that includes ingredient B yet it could cost less.
While any dog food maker who puts nutrition first should be aware of these basic principles, as is the Abady Company, increasing numbers of manufacturers are producing diets that are built around the equivalent of ingredient B.
By reading this article, the buyer of dog food can learn which feeds are predicated more on marketing (sales appeal) than on sound nutrition.
Clear examples of the public being drawn in by slick advertising are exemplified by the rush toward fresh chicken and turkey-based products, lamb and rice diets and chicken meal-based diets. These diets are claimed to be more nutritious and better for dogs because they do not contain by-products and are more digestible, along with a host of other equally mythical claims.
Since the appeal of these products rests entirely on the claims that are made for the specific ingredients that are supposed to characterize the ration, a close examination of the nutritional values relative to the costs of those ingredients will shed light on the nutritional merits (or the absence thereof) of the ration as a whole.
Lamb & Rice diets (or lamb-meal based diets)
The ingredient lamb-meal is essentially the same as meat-meal and meat & bone meal.
Every one of these ingredients is produced principally from ground bone and offal (by-products).
The only difference is that lamb meal is produced from lamb bones and lamb offal and the others from traditional sources. As a result of market pressures on lamb meal however, it can cost up to 5 times as much as meat meal, or meat & bone meal!
Regardless of the source of these particular meals, the Abady Company's experience has shown them to be unsatisfactory as cornerstone protein sources for carnivores.
As to the claim of lamb meal being more digestible than other sources of animal protein, it is entirely without foundation. There is no reason to believe that lamb bone protein is broken down and assimilated more easily than any other source of animal protein.
As to the rice component of the lamb and rice diets, a lot of fuss is being made about the superior digestibility of rice. If it is brown rice, it is less digestible because dogs cannot break down fibrous material. If it is white rice, it should be kept to a minimum, because the only contribution white rice makes to a diet is starch (carbohydrates). From a scientific standpoint, the dog has no requirement for carbohydrates and therefore the lower the quantity in a diet, the better.
The most physiologically compatible ingredients to carnivores are meat, internal organs, fat and bone - not grain.
As to the claim of the overall superior digestibility of so-called lamb and rice diets, it is entirely improper.
These diets usually contain high levels of indigestible fibrous materials which would
need to be eliminated if digestibility (let alone quality) was to become a legitimate selling point.
Also, a quick check of the ingredient panel on most so-called "lamb & rice" diets shows that most contain liberal amounts of other grains such as wheat and corn which would negate any claimed advantage of a diet that is presumed from it's promotional descriptions to contain mostly rice.
The various grains are added, no doubt, to such formulas to keep the level of lamb meal as low as possible.
The chicken meal based diets offer more of the same thing. Like lamb meal, chicken meal is usually comprised of nothing more than chicken backs (bones) after the meat has been scraped off. Yet because of limited usage by the industry it costs up to three times what poultry
by-products meal costs yet offers no nutritional advantage.
The fresh chicken, turkey or lamb diets have a few interesting twists to them.
First, as there is no firm standard as to what actually constitutes chicken or turkey, they can be derived from skin, genitals etc. or even reconstituted meals.
Second, these ingredients are included in the listing of ingredients with their moisture content intact even though in the final dry product the moisture has been cooked out! Listing the
moisture laden solids can give the impression that three or more times the amounts of solids are in the product than are actually present.
For years the public has been conditioned to believe that ingredients are listed in the order of the amounts included in the formula on an equal basis - each one being at least 90% solids.
This new twist allows large quantities of moisture which does not end up in the finished product to be listed on the label as something other than what it is!
Chicken Meal Based Diets
Fresh Chicken, Turkey or Lamb Based Diets
By-Products (internal organs) play a central role in the feeding of carnivores, as do muscle meat, fat and bone.
Poultry by-products meal is an economical and nutritious source of high
quality animal protein.
It is composed of lungs, heads, gizzards, necks, feet, intestines (without their contents) and other clean parts of the carcass.
Nutritionally it is equal to superior to the ingredients discussed earlier and it costs many multiples less.
It is not true that heads or even feet (which represent only a small component of poultry by-products meal) are undesirable as components of dog food.
While they have little aesthetic appeal to humans, heads contain valuable brain, tongue and ocular tissue, and feet are 20% protein & 16% fat.
Both are rich in various amino acids and fatty acids of the most important varieties.
Among these can be found Arginine (essential for fertility and immune system support) Glycine (a potent free-radical scavenger and a component of glucose tolerance factor which regulates insulin metabolism) and Aspartic acid (which helps with the synthesis of glycoprotein and with the detoxification of ammonia).
Feathers are NOT a component of poultry by-products meal, unless it is of very low quality.
What Makes Abady Different and Much Better
Abady products are designed and manufactured around entirely different premises.
They are made for carnivores (dogs are carnivores).
In order to meet the nutritional requirements of carnivores, which are at the top of the food chain, nutrition cannot be compromised.
Abady uses a full spectrum of essential animal-based ingredients, by-products from a variety of sources, muscle meats etc, menhaden fish meal, hard fats and poly-unsaturated fatty-acids and minerals from bone and they are used in abundance.
To add to this superb, species-appropriate menu, the product is finished & perfected through a process which is unique to the Abady Company (patent pending) - a process that enhances nutrient availability while reducing plaque. It is an advance so special, in fact, that it represents the only solid improvement in the production of dog food since the extrusion process was
invented about a century ago.
Once you try Abady on your dogs you will understand the difference between products inspired by marketing and those based on sound scientifically advance, natural species-appropriate feeding principles and you need never again be tempted by products that promise more than they can deliver.
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Pinnacle Pet Supply - Marilyn Brotherton
7251 Assiniboine Road, Cartier, MB.
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Canine Reproduction