Dog food-are these ingredients necessary?

Crowe wrote:
Been comparing dog foods again as I'm trying to find a less expensive alternative to the Blue Basics we've been using. Blue Basics contains lots of ingredients like blueberries, cranberries, yucca, peas, chicory root, kelp, and a few other things. This is in addition to the more "standard" type of stuff. This is their formula designed for dogs with food sensitivities. Do these things really add that much nutrition to the food? I would think that introducing items that aren't normally in a dog's diet might increase sensitivity. I've been looking at Purina Pro Plan's sensitive formula and it has the same basic items with good protein and fat levels, but none of the extra food-type items listed above. Comments?

Ehh. Everybody's got an opinion, and unless it's a vet (or even better, a veterinary nutritionist) then they're all worth pretty much the same two cents. Mine is that those ingredients are mostly gimmick. I'm sure they are nutritionally beneficial, but I doubt there's enough quantity of them in each bag of kibble to really be beneficial. Peas may be the exception, as many of the grain free foods (another gimmick, IMO) use peas to add protein.

And for a dog with allergies or sensitivities you want a kibble (or canned food) with the fewest ingredients possible. It's not that more ingredients necessarily increases sensitivity, but that the more there are the more likely it is that one or more of them will be a trigger.