Want safer food for your cats and dogs? Check this url out.
2This url is to a site that tested cat and dog food for contaminants as apparently there are no laws about unacceptable levels in pet food (you know - good things like cadmium, arsenic, pesticides, lead, mercury…)
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i would recommend using multiple sources when researching pet food, as the ratings vary greatly based on different factors. also look into who is sponsoring or paying for these studies on the various sites.
as a note, though, i find it incredibly interesting that Orijen and Acana - often considered ultra-premium pet foods - are in the bottom ten. they are very expensive foods, produced in the US and Canada in smaller factories, that are usually known for having ‘almost too much’ good ingredients. i look forward to diving into that, as i have friends who feed it and would like to warn them if this is legitimate.
on another note, i think it is unfair and misleading to group freeze dried foods into dry dog food, and wish they separated those into groups of free dry and kibble. stella and chewy’s makes a great freeze dried patty, but those of us with large dogs - they don’t even try to recommend you feed them that food exclusively - you’d pay $40 a day, rather you use it as a supplement and topper.
for cats, i’m pleased to see wellness wet cat food scored well. it’s a reasonably priced healthy food, though it does contain somethings that are not premium quality, such as excess potato starch, low quality fish (whitefish), and carrageenan. things like this are why i believe it is important to read multiple sites who specialize in evaluating different parts of the food.
@meh Good advice. I agree completely about seperating dry food from the raw and freeze dried stuff. None of the foods in their top ten are available locally, and only one (#8) is suitable for my household.
Here’s a scary article from one of the sites I use for research. It’s enough to make you want to do home prep, but balancing their nutritional needs, especially with cooked food, is a challenge. Raw fed pets are barred from pet therapy work with Delta Society.
@meh They were ONLY looking at bad news contaminants in the food (that is the top bar) and not the overall quality of the food mix in it. The second bar is mostly price related. I think what might make sense is take all the 5 star ones as they have the least number of contaminants and then cross reference that with a list of “quality” (eg higher quality protein, limited grain, etc.) and see what is left.
@moondrake Yes but read the comments after the article. It would appear that that article has a bias the other direction (fear mongering).
I think the reality is, just like in human food, many companies use the rules/laws as the maximum to reach and stop there and not the minimum to reach and then do better.
This project was, well, scuffed up pretty good in an AMA on Reddit. Take that for what you will. They are not releasing their actual source data, don’t plan to submit for peer review, and presented a bit of a defensive attitude. I’m just beginning to dive in here, but I’m a large pet food geek so I’ll keep reporting back anything interesting I find. The lab they claim did testing appears quite new, someone even pointed out it’s website was only registered a short time before the projects own website. Oh, and they’re not releasing who is funding their studies. “Concerned consumers” or something. I’m going to go ahead and caution people to not make any drastic changes to their pet food based on this website, despite that fact that clearly many Redditors are meaninglessly assumptive and skeptical without knowing much about how studies work. There’s still legitimate cause for concern in their answers.
Reddit AMA
@meh Always interested in hearing your input. I’ve done a lot of research myself but I’d welcome your opinion. I’m currently feeding Nature’s Domain salmon, a grain free Diamond product sold through Costco. Recently I’ve read some things that undermine my confidence in Diamond, and it’s a little troubling to be feeding food available in only one store. The dogs are doing fine on ND, but I’m looking around a little for potential alternatives. I need to stay at about $1lb or less, I’m feeding about 100lbs a month. Got any suggestions?
@moondrake Actually, due to budgeting, I recently switched my GSD to Costco’s ND from Acana. I also have concerns about it’s quality, but so far she is doing really well on it. I’m only just finishing the first bag. I do not appreciate the lower amount of animal based protein in it (instead it’s a lot of plant protein and potato), but can’t argue with her results. Weight seems steady, she eats it, stools are regular and solid, and in fact she seems to get the runs less than she did on the Acana (she tends to get excited poops when we go hiking/dog park).
I used to exhaustively research what I fed my animals, but over the last year I have come to terms with a middle ground that, I think, comes close to where the cost-benefit starts to level off. That’s how I ended up on Wellness and Acana, and more recently to ND. My cats are doing fantastic on Wellness (wet food), so I feel great recommending that. Their coats are silky, no dander, and manageable shedding.
@meh just realized i did the URL wrong. here is the real AMA
@meh what does the AVMA have to say?
Would care much more than anything a human doc had to say about pet food or even human medicine commentators.
Know several human docs who wanted to be a vet until they said it was way too much work,. human med school is easier. Think about it - one human body or many species of animal body?
And animals are not people. Needs are very different from species to species and sometimes even breed to breed.
@Cerridwyn I am not sure what you are getting at? I didn’t read anything a human doctor said about pet food. I’m sure vet school is hard. I am not sure the AVMA has commented on this project.
@meh I think that board of directors is credible and looking at what those folks have done for a living it is likely they are independent of the pet food industry. I also think the fact that they confirmed their results with two other labs is promising.
In addition I’d suspect they aren’t publishing their data as they likely paid a lot of money for it and they don’t want others to take that data and use it for other purposes (commercial in particular). Consumer Reports doesn’t publish their data either, most scientific journals including medical ones don’t publish their data… it is very uncommon for people to publish their data. They only publish their RESULTS with an explanation on how they got those results (statistics used, but generally not the lab used to identify something, etc.). In this regards this website is no different than anything else in science.
What is fair: Knowing the names of the three labs would be expected and if they aren’t on the website then asking them and reasonably expecting an answer is fair. Condemning them for not publishing their actual data isn’t. Asking them for how they weighted the different contaminants to get their score for how safe the food is with respect to contaminants is fair. Because this is a consumer oriented website it is not unexpected that they don’t list all the scientific details. Consumer Reports doesn’t either. They talk, in fairly general ways (not in enough detail to duplicate exactly what they did) how they tested, they then show some categories where the product is rated on a 1-5 scale, and they have a weighted scale but they don’t tell us how they weight it.
@Kidsandliz I’m sorry to have made you defensive on it, I just like to combat sensationalist news and science when I can, but it is just my opinion. Their info is not scientific in nature. Scientific studies do publish their data and do publish their methods. “Consumer grade” or oriented “studies” just are not a thing and imo should never be considered. This is just my opinion on it, and I do not think this project’s info is useful. I can’t paralell a study on pet food toxicity to consumer reports. But fwiw, I also think CR is garbage.
@meh I have read peer reviewed science journal articles daily for years. Most journals do not require that the data set be published - although currently this is something that is being argued (in the academic and scientific community) pro and con with respect to doing that. I agree they should have been transparent about their methods.
I do not agree they should be required to publish their data set. They are not governed by academic journal rules and doing so would jeopardize their ability to keep control over the use of their data they paid for (and thus damage them financially). If they lost control of that likely they’d get fewer donations as people would not be driven to their site. This is their competitive advantage and they need to protect that to stay in business.
While I’d like to see this information too, the fact that it isn’t there doesn’t mean I automatically discredit what they have done. IF there was conflict of interest on their board and/or IF they had not confirmed the result of the one lab with two others (I don’t know the variability of results in measuring contaminants between labs - eg how reliable results are, but that they took the time and money to confirm results with 2 other labs I think adds significant credibility), THEN might I start to question the results.
Ok, this was short lived. I’m highly skeptical of this project and highly suspicious they are funded by a major player in the pet food industry. I can only say suspicious and skeptical because they do not make available their source data or funders, however, I am going to toss this site out personally on the basis of:
-The site originally rated nutritional value of food along side “contaminant” level to give a well rounded score of product value. This was stopped somewhere near the beginning of the product - a reason given that, basically, it was “too complex”. However, the Project still resolves to give an overall “value” rating on their food.
-They make a point to headline - which to me comes with an implication of “healthier” - that “grain free” foods scored worse on their particular tests.
-After the above change, Purina Dog Food was given the Project’s highest rating for both low contaminants AND value. Again, after the Project decided that looking at ingredients was “too complex” and shifted focus to only looking at an amalgamation of “contaminants” and comparing them to arbitrary standards such as EPA drinking water requirements.
-On the EPA Drinking Water requirements, they provide no justification for why they use this standard - essentially claiming that since there is no standard, they chose this one.
-Once again, they will not publish raw data or even levels of specific contaminants in any food. They merely use a scale and rating system to compare different foods.
-Purina and other major pet food conglomerates have recently been conducting similar tests in order to launch lawsuits against their smaller “all natural/grain free” competitors.
I can’t conduct a real study against their findings or compile a set of data that proves that they are illegitimate. I can only point out why I particularly am tossing this site to the side. And I am, this is junk. And probably paid for by Purina.
@meh So maybe it only makes sense to look at the level of contaminates identified and rely on other lists for everything else.
I doubt Purina paid for it though as there is a ton of their stuff that is 1 star on the cat list (did not do a search on the dog list). Some 5 too, but there is a mix of brands with 5 stars.
If you look at who is on their board, etc. all those folks look credible and independent from pet food manufacturers.
They also said they used one lab and then validated the results with 2 other labs.
@Kidsandliz There’s just no way to substantiate their claims. They won’t show their data. They won’t tell you what is in the food that is bad or how much. They do not have a metric against which they are basing their claims. It’s not good science.
And they started out evaluating ingredients and contaminents, then abruptly altered course.
@meh It may have been for financial reasons why they stopped. They may not have raised enough money. It would be expensive (expensive for a group relying on donations, chump change to a large manufacturer) to do all that at 3 independent labs. You could always call them and ask and see what they say…
@Kidsandliz Maybe. A lot of maybes. Science is science because of transparency and reproducibility. Not finances and legal concerns. It is a great struggle in our country today. But that it is difficult is not an excuse for me to allow poor reporting. But in reality, I just don’t believe them.
These guys are suspiciously vague about everything lol
Their system apparently bases the 5-star rating off of the best scoring food, but they won’t tell you how that food scored either, so in theory foods well below the toxic level could be scored as 1-star. They also have almost no citations from what I can see and refuse to submit their work to a peer review or give actual numbers
The real crime here though: It also seems they only have 3 tiers to their 5-star system (1 star, 3 stars or 5 stars lol)
Which isn’t really indicative of anything specific I guess, but what’re they doing with those leftover stars?? Tell me THAT’S not suspicious
@Chops Consumer Reports magazine doesn’t submit their stuff to peer reviewed journals either even when they do items that a science or medical journal might be interested in. These people are similar and are not an academic center, they are a non-profit group. It is academics who publish, the rest of the world doesn’t do it that way. The industries most of those folks on the board work in are used to trade secrets and likely are taking the same approach to what they paid good money for.
They wrote this for the consumer who does not have a degree in science. If someone contacts them and asks these questions and then they refuse to answer rather than having the receptionist refer you to someone who actually can answer those questions then that might raise questions, but to say they “refuse” to do something just because it isn’t on their website isn’t fair. Refusing requires asking pointed questions and getting a refusal or a run around.
@Kidsandliz They responded in the Reddit that they would not share their methodology or lab results. Refusing to share the methodology means that we have no way of knowing how the scoring system was weighted. Refusing to share the test results means we don’t know if the presence of unwanted chemicals in specific foods was dramatically higher than the amount recommended for humans or only 1% higher. We also don’t know if the human safety limits on these things are the same for our pets. While we share a lot of the same food and safety tolerances, they are not identical. The safety tolerance for chocolate for my dogs is no chocolate, while for me it is all the chocolate. Basically they are posting recommendations without showing the foundation and asking us to take them at their word. Which is not to say I discount them entirely, althpugh tgeir data is useless to me as the foods on their top ten list are not available locally and at a glance only one of them seems appropriate and practical for my dogs. But I also take their results with a grain of salt. As I do most information on the internet. I trust dogfoodanalysis.com because they provide a detailed explanation of how they’ve rated each food, a detailed description of what’s good and bad in each food, and these values are consistent throughout the site. Even so, I take their scores less to heart than the actual analysis of the food.
@moondrake OK I didn’t know that as I am not on reddit. I can understand not sharing the actual lab results because someone could steal what the paid for and use it for their own purposes. Other reputable consumer groups don’t share that level of information either. With respect to how it was tested, they may not know how the labs tested the stuff (eg the act tests used and how they are done since that was delegated to the lab) if they are meaning that with respect to methodology - because that is methodology too - sharing the names of the labs is enough there.
If by methodology one means the math formula and decision rules then that is a different issue. Sort of. A published scientific article needs to disclose that to be credible but a consumer group (and businesses) usually doesn’t operate that way. Consumer Reports doesn’t disclose that stuff in intimate detail either. If might be worth someone calling them on Tuesday and, without all the background of reddit and this thread (so they don’t start out defensive), ask them some of these specific questions - for example to what is the range of the presence of a specific nasty chemical in cat/dog food, what kind of cut off are they using in a one star item vs a 5 star item…
@Kidsandliz I don’t read reddit very often either, the print is too small on my tablet even with my glasses.
Whew…
The Nutro food we feed our dogs is very high rated.
I did a lot of research earlier & I also wanted a dog food made in the US.
Thanks!
@daveinwarsh You are welcome. I was shocked though that the top rated dry cat food is like $54 for 4 pounds. Nope not getting that - I’d be spending more money on them to eat than on me. The one I am feeding them is 3 star. Time to move up to something better though and conveniently I am just about out of cat food. Wish they had done this years ago as then my poor kitties would have had something better for them for the last 16 years.
@Kidsandliz Reminder for anyone switching pet foods - don’t forget to transition them slowly. Add more and more of the new food as you reduce their old food over the course of a few weeks.
Damn. Trying to search crashed my phone. Guess I’ll have to open the laptop.
I’ve always used dogfoodanalysis.com and a couple of other sites to research dog food, when I had a cat I’d just buy her the same brand as I researched for the dogs (Taste of the Wild for many years). I’m happy to add this site to my research list. Thanks.
Interestingly, Purina has been an unexpected ally in keeping premium dog food companies honest. Seems they are keeping a close eye on their competition, using their own labs to test the claims of the high end dog foods. Purina recently sued the pants off Blue Buffalo because they found corn and chicken by-products where they weren’t supposed to be. Blue Buffalo is in turn looking at legal action against their suppliers, claiming they were swindled. But that’s the defense every time, isn’t it? Why aren’t they spot testing their own foods? Where’s the quality control? It’s disconcerting, especially this thing with euthanasia drugs turning up in beef based dog food. And the way it gets caught is dead dogs. Scary as hell.
PS. I was casual about researching cat food as she hunted for about 75% of her food, she’d been a stray then a farm cat before coming to live with me so she was used to feeding herself and only snacked at home.
@moondrake you are very right about Purina. I was surprised. When my daughter went to Vet school, they actually learned about what was available then and she made many comments about the ‘scientific’ stuff not living up to it’s advertizing and Purina products being very good.
Purina and I think IAMS gave vet students free pet food back in the day. Don’t know how IAMS rates now, it’s been years and I don’t have a pet so not worth the time, but do the same research you would do if you were going to feed it to your kids
@Cerridwyn Two vets in the family (niece in vet school and cousin’s kid). I made some comment about now all these perks of free stuff (free samples) for their own pets. Apparently not so much so any more, and most companies give none. The shelter I volunteer at has some “free samples” of treats for families that adopt animals but that’s all any company gives them.
@Kidsandliz I was told by a shelter that the local Walmart used to donate damaged bags but they caught employees deliberately damaging bags so they could go to the shelters so they quit donating. Petco gives a coupon book to new adopters that includes a free 6lb bag of dog food and some other free and discounted stuff. Just show up at Petco with your new family member and ask for one. I believe Purina has a free puppy kit that’s the same idea, I think they give it out at Petsmart. I like the Petco one because it’s good for adult rescues as well.
@moondrake I was at Petco yesterday liberating a 7 year old cat from his cage for a family who Petco gave the booklet with coupons (I volunteer for the no kill shelter that has the animals there). I was stuck there nearly 2 hours answering questions as they were picking through that booklet buying stuff (odd assortment of coupons in there like $50 off autoclean dirt box, different foods…). I need to remember to pick up a bunch of those coupon books to bring back to the shelter since it is across town. Thanks for the unintentional reminder LOL
Well, one can argue that they appreciate or can see personal value in this project’s information. But it is an unequivocal fact that this website has utterly 0 scientific value. That point I cannot and will not argue. There was never reason to have feathers ruffled - buy whatever food you feel fit for your animals.
Suggesting that peer reviewed scientific articles have no published data is also patently false.While you may need to pay for rights to read it, it is absolutely part of any results and must support the conclusion.
Anyways, I really don’t want to get nasty and argue. There’s no need for it! Have a great weekend, folks.
@meh It is NOT required in most peer reviewed journals to release the data sets in order for an article to be published. That is the norm in only a couple of journals. Most of the time the actual data sets are not released. The results of the statistical analysis is released as that is part of the results section of the paper, but not the actual physical data.
Several people are discrediting the information on this website for reasons that aren’t necessarily valid when considering that this is a non-profit organization (business) and not an academic endeavor.
Business reasons why they would not publish their data:
Sure it would be nice if they’d give a bit more information like the actual level of contamination is counted as contamination and what range is included in each start, but it might be that since they are looking at a number their formula may be very complicated - for example - nothing beyond a certain max depending on the contaminant and in addition a total score no higher than X. Considering that this is a consumer website and not a scientific one I can see why they don’t think this is necessary.
With respect to what went on on reddit where they refused to disclose what they likely feel is protected information and it sounds like (I have not used that board) they were defensive when attacked - that is still a separate issue than whether what they did is scientifically sound. Yes it makes it harder to independently judge, but that is their stupidity rather than necessarily meaning all three labs they used weren’t credible, data is forged, etc. Since most of their board came out of the for profit business sectors and this behavior is normal in the for profit sector, I am not surprised that they are behaving this way (and there are lots of credible non-profit consumer groups who operate the same way).
They don’t appear to have a conflict of interest (I can’t find that even one of those people has worked in the pet food industry when searching on them and plenty of them have related important experience like human food expertise or scientific, regulation, etc. experience - so enough collective credible knowledge and experience to know how to do this “right”) which means they likely don’t have an ax to grind.
I certainly agree that it would be nice to know more information, but I am not going to discredit this site and their results for that reason because they checked their results at 2 additional labs and the board appears to have no conflict of interest. One can go look to see who their biggest donors are if you think, as one person did, that it was likely a pet food company paid for the study (except when I searched the list of results that pet food company had several pages of one star items along with some 5 star and 3 star items so even if it was, and I don’t know that it was, funded by a pet food company, it sure didn’t seem to influence the results). the non-profit rules require fairly complete reporting of sources of donations (I have not gone to look).
As at least someone else has said - use this in conjunction with other lists out there. Personally I’d use the contaminant information from here (not the value information since they didn’t indicate the details of what constituted value) and quality of protein/other food items used from some other list and see how those two lists overlapped and pick that way (I’d also rank my final results by cost per serving of the food but then again I am on a budget). So does anyone have a good list of pet foods evaluated for quality of protein, etc. used?
@Kidsandliz For dogs, http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/.
If you look at the level of detail on the individual reviews you’ll see the kind of information I look for in a source, especially the pros and cons section at the bottom. For example, this is what I used to feed Simba TOTW Pacific Stream. Note the absence of cons. http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=1286&cat=all.
This is what I feed now, Nature’s Domain salmon.
These guys together are eating almost 3x what Simba ate I needed to find a more economical choice. Unfortunately dfanalysis doesn’t have a review for the food I’m using now (or I couldn’t find it, their search engine could use some work), so I had to go to my second favorite dog food website, dogfoodadvisor.
https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/natures-domain-dog-food/
I don’t pay too much attention to the rankings at either site, the highest ranked foods are far too expensive and even if I were wealthy most wouldn’t be good choices for giant breed dogs. I’ve researched my breeds to understand their needs and I use the detailed analyses on these two sites plus a few others to evaluate and select what kibble is best for my dogs at my budget range.
I tried researching cat foods a few years ago and could not find comparable websites. They may be out there, I just didn’t find them.
A useful essay on this subject, and a partial explanation why the Clean Label Project’s information is of limited use. Manufacturers are constantly switching sources. On my Great Dane list, about 1/4th of the couple hundred members fed Canidae. It seemed to be the perfect good quality dog food for danes. Then, abruptly, something changed, and over the course of a month we had dozens of people on the list with sick dogs, all of them starting new bags of Canidae. A couple of members called and were told they’d switched suppliers on their main protein, but the dogs didn’t adjust and within a few weeks everyone switched. There’d have to be constant testing to realistically know what was on the shelves on any given day.
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/choosing-dog-food/dog-food-reviews-problems/