Acampingwewillgo wrote:
Who really is the definitive source for knowing what canned(or any) dog food is rated? I like to be an informed consumer and one site I was led to was "Dog Food Adviser" who has a ton of different foods rated by content. Blue Buffalo/Blue Wilderness has always been a highly rated product by them but with this resulting lawsuit, I have to question the "Dog Food Adviser" web site. I'm going to switch back to Newman's canned food for now..but I'd love to have an idea as to the real winner when it comes to "truth in Advertising". DR. Doug???
IMO there is no definitive site, just as there is no definitive ranking for what constitutes "good" or "bad" human food. My guess is that Dog Food Adviser appeals to people because it's so simplistic (although perhaps misleading) in listing what are (supposedly) "good" and "bad" foods. Who doesn't understand the five star system?
And yet they list many five star foods I wouldn't feed to my pets if I were given a free lifetime supply.
The "problem" is complex. Human nutrition is complex. Are carbs good or evil? Depends on who you ask, and the nutritional needs of that person. For a diabetic too many simple carbs certainly aren't good. For someone who needs a high fiber diet complex carbs are great.
A confounding factor as I see it is that veterinary nutritionists seem to just look at nutrient profiles. As long as the nutrient profile is met, most of those that I've read don't seem to think it matters what foods are being used to meet those profiles. OTOH the "all natural" crowd tends to think the foods used matter a lot. Just as with human nutrition where the more natural crowd would prefer to get their Vitamin C from organically grown oranges (eating the entire fruit, not just drinking the juice) and those who are only interested in meeting their RDA for Vitamin C are fine with mixing up some Tang in a glass of tap water. Is one of them right or wrong, or are both approaches equally acceptable? After all, they both meet the RDA for Vitamin C. In the end is that all that matters? Or does the quality or amount of processing of the source matter?
I don't like to see big pet food companies vilified because much (if not all) of what we know about canine and feline nutrition we know because of the research those companies have done or funded over the years. That's not a small thing! Do I think they could do a better job of providing higher quality products? Yep.
One article I do like is
this one from The Dog Food Project. It wasn't written in response to Dog Food Adviser's rating system, but in response to a silly grading "system" that made the Internet rounds long before the DFA site ever existed. I don't like it because I necessarily agree with all of it, but because it points out how nuanced and arbitrary it can be to figure out what ingredients are "good" or "bad."
