Compare Your Dog’s Food To Proportions & GET A FREE SAMPLE!
As most of you probably know, we recently just did a post reviewing Proportions dog food. Since we (Bubbs & I) love this food so much I decided to do another post about it. No I’m not going to write another post about how great it is, you already know that from our previous post, but I am going to dive a little deeper into telling you why it is a much better option than what you are probably feeding your dog now.
We’re going to do a little ingredient inspection. :) And we won’t be sugar-coating it for you either, so be careful.
This idea came to us after we did our sample review of Proportions. Yes, it is yummy. Yes, Bubbs loves it. And, yes, it LOOKS amazing. But what about the important part…is it REALLY healthy for him? Yes, there is chunky, yummy doggy t0-die-for chicken pieces in delectable juices, and healthy, dehydrated fruits and vegetables…but all that is on top of kibble. Right? So we thought we’d go check it out. See what is REALLY in this Proportions food. What if it is just doggy “junk food” wrapped up in a bow?
This post will not be for the faint-hearted. I’ll be including some definitions of ingredients listed in each of the foods, and they will not be easy to read. They certainly were not easy for us, but I do think that it is important we are all well-aware of what we are feeding our pets! I’ve cringed a few times this morning, and it’s been pretty hard to actually read what some of this stuff is, what it is used for, and to understand why it ends up in our dog’s food.
First, I did some research for the ingredient list of Bubbs’ current food we were offering him and copied it into a Word document. For privacy sake, I’m not going to disclose which brand, but if you really want to know, contact me (or you could do a little research on the blog, we mention it all the time!). Second, I found the ingredient list for the Proportions Crunch Blend and also copied into a Word document.
Thus, began the inspection and honestly, we were a little nervous as to what the findings would be.
I went through each line of ingredients and highlighted them according to good/bad, etc. Anything not highlighted is just a bonus or something we just can’t get away from.
Here is the list of ingredients of Bubbs’ current food and Proportions side-by-side so you can see and compare what is in each diet :
To understand the key, and the easiest way to compare the two without it getting too complicated, I decided to go the “Good/Bad” route. I initially started to break it down into further categories, such as highlighting the vitamins in one color, minerals in another, but it just got too crazy and everything was highlighted, etc. I wanted to be sure to just stick to the basics and keep it clean and simple. Ingredients in yellow are actual ingredients. Ingredients that are good, wholesome, healthy ingredients. Stuff I’d eat (well, maybe not Chicken or Salmon Meal). Ingredients highlighted in red are obviously bad. Things we don’t want to know is in our pet’s food. Things that are hard to stomach, but sometimes very difficult to get away from if you are going to offer any kind of processed food to your dog, and the same goes for processed food we eat ourselves. Items not highlighted are grains, vitamins, minerals, preservatives, etc.
We’ve written a post about how to read a dog food label HERE, and we’re going to use that as a guide. It’s a good, quick read if you want to jump over there to take a look real quick.
First up, Bubbs’ Current Diet.
The Good:
- Chicken – YAY! We love chicken and we love that it’s the first ingredient listed. (Wow. That was long.)
The Bad:
- Brewer’s Rice – small milled fragments that have been separated from larger kernels of milled rice. It is processed rice product that is missing many of the nutrients contained in whole ground rice and brown rice, thus reducing the quality (Sounds very nutritional, doesn’t it?)
- Poultry By-Product Meal – is a high-protein component made from grinding clean, rendered parts of poultry carcasses, and can contain bones, offal, and underdeveloped eggs; costs less than chicken muscle meat, but lacks the digestibility of chicken muscle meat *disgusted*
- Corn Gluten Meal – a by-product of corn processing and used in animal feed, but also can be used as organic herbicide; many dogs and cats can develop an allergy to corn after eating this for an extended period of time (Well, that explains A LOT.)
- Whole Grain Corn – more corn, yuck
- Corn Bran - a filler made from the tough outer layer of corn
- Soybean Meal – a high-quality protein filler that is also used in fertilizers; not good, not good at all. *disgusted*
- Fish Meal – nutrient-rich feed ingredient that is made by pressing, cooking, drying and grinding of fish or fish waste until most of the water and some or all of the oil is removed; the fish used generally contain a high percentage of bones and oil; is also used in high-quality organic fertilizer *disgusted*
- Animal Digest – THIS IS THE WORST. Click on the link of you want to read what it is.
- Glycerin – sugar & sometimes preservative
- Dried Egg Product – processed egg product that includes breaking eggs, filtering, mixing, stablilizing, blending, pasteurizing, cooling, freezing or drying, and packaging (What happened to just adding eggs?)
- Ferrous Sulfate - used to fortify foods and just doesn’t sound natural to us, but since both foods include it on the ingredient list, we assume it’s a must.
Last up, Proportions.
The Good:
- Deboned Turkey – turkey with no bones! That means MEAT!
- Chicken Meal – when ‘meal’ is mentioned, it basically means anything that has been ground or reduced in particle size; ground up chicken meat that has been dried; no, it’s not chicken meat, but it’s not a by-product either.
- Salmon Meal – “___”; see Chicken Meal but substitute for Salmon
- Tomatoes – real veggies!
- Salmon Oil - excellent source of Omega-3
- Ground Flax Seed – excellent source of Omega-3
- Carrots – real veggies!
- Spinach – more real veggies!
- Sweet Potatoes – even more real veggies!
- Apples – fruit!
- Blueberries – more fruit!
The Bad:
- Menhaden Fish Meal – fish meal again, but Proportions actually communicates which type of fish they are getting their meal from, while Bubbs’ Current Food just goes generic, mystery fish.
- Tomato Pomace – the skin of processed tomatoes that usually has potential to have higher amounts of pesticides
- Natural Chicken Flavor – produced in a laboratory to give flavor to processed foods that lose almost all the flavor through the process of freezing, dehydrating, and canning; comes with all processed foods.
- Ferrous Sulfate – used to fortify foods and just doesn’t sound natural to us, but since both foods include it on the ingredient list, we assume it’s a must.
I can’t believe the difference in these foods. You can see for yourself if you compare the good vs. bad ingredients in each one. Bubbs’ current food has ONE good ingredient. ONE. But Proportions has ELEVEN. ELEVEN! That is a HUGE difference in quality. HUGE. Bubbs’ current food has a very long list of bad ingredients, but his new food, Proportions has only a few and only one that is listed in each one (Ferrous Sulfate).
Proportions has 3 real sources of protein, while the other has only one. Proportions has real vegetables and fruits, while the other has NONE. Proportions has two great sources of Omega-3, while his current food has NONE.
I don’t know about you, but I can physically see that Proportions IS a much better food to offer to compared to his current diet, and honestly, we can not WAIT to see the results of what Proportions is going to do for him. We expect BIG changes in his attitude towards food (we already have!), his energy level to increase, his coat to pick up some beautiful shine, and his happiness shoot through the roof from switching him over to Proportions!
We’d definitely be interested to see what your comparisons turn out to be like? What kind of JUNK do you have in your mystery kibble? Send us your comparison to erin@alldogblog.com!
We’re heading in the right direction by feeding Proportions Whole Food Meals, and we think it’s time that you take the step with us! You can call 800-860-4956 M-F 8:30-5:30pm to receive a FREE SAMPLE (two meals worth) of Proportions for your dog to try by mentioning our blog, All Dog Blog! Just tell ‘em who sent you and your pup can be on their way to a happier, healthier, longer life!
STOP the fillers! STOP the By-Products! Stop the JUNK!
Just give us the REAL stuff!
Thanks, Proportions!
You ROCK!
Related posts:
- Proportions Dog Food Review & FREE Samples!
- Win 2 FREE Months Of Proportions Dog Food From Dogster!
- FREE Samples Of Wysong Epigen Dog Food!
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Erin, Proportions . Proportions said: http://www.alldogblog.com/2010/09/compare-your-dogs-food-to-proportions-last-day-to-get-a-free-sample http://fb.me/HFKCTRdr [...]