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New Natural Dog Meals: Name Brand vs. Start-Up. Answering pet owners’ demand for healthier, fresher options for dogs, the pet food industry is cranking out new products, but what are they really cooking up? ZT Pet News compares two options to find out.

NEW YORK — Pets are increasingly becoming more prominent in American homes — lathered in privileges such as special grooming treatments and traveling on family vacations.

But while dogs are often considered children to some pet owners, the parallel ends there, as the mainstream doesn’t literally feed their pets the equivalent nutritional fare as their human offspring.

So for Fido, there is kibble — and these days it might be an organic, all-natural, complete health variety, but it hardly compares to freshly cooked stews or meals. For those hard-core pet parents who achieve the balance in their lives to take to the kitchen in making meals for their furry kids, hats off to you- but what about the rest of us?

Listening to the demand for healthy and delicious pet chow, the pet food industry has now expanded into human-grade options. As these products hit the shelves, the food clearly looks good enough to serve at your own dining table. But ZT Pet News has to ask — is it really as yummy as it looks? Are these new-age pet foods as hearty and tasty as they purport? And are the ingredients really better and safer for pets?

Two recently launched products caught our eye — one a name brand and the other a start-up brand gaining traction nationwide. Both “Beneful Prepared Meals” by Purina and “Homestyle Meals” by Freshpet Select are attempting to fuse nutrition with tastiness.

ZT Pet News decided to explore these new options that not only claim to be healthy alternatives, but are changing the mold — literally. While there are plenty of “all natural” canned foods available like “Mulligans Stew,” “California Natural” and “Homemade Doggy Dinners” — the official grub of first dog Bo Obama — not many brands are individually packaged, in resealable tubs like the chosen two.

The Contenders

Beneful, the premium dog food Purina claims, is the “perfect balance of real, wholesome ingredients and quality nutrition,” which has expanded to include stew-like hearty meals in plastic tubs. Purina, with brands like Alpo, Purina One and Beneful under their umbrella, is essentially a household name — making it an appropriate comparison to the little known competitor.

This competitor? Freshpet Select, the relatively new brand, which markets itself as “fresh food for your dog, not dog food,” is a refrigerated dog food made from 100 percent American-grown vegetables, rice, eggs and meat. The food is cooked with no preservatives which requires constant refrigeration and sets it apart from traditional dog food products where the average shelf life is three years.

Straight out of the blocks, Freshpet Select’s product has a clear advantage over Purina’s Beneful which expires in about two years from first production, versus Freshpet’s three-month expiration. While Freshpet is revolutionary in this shelf-life comparison, how do the two brands stack up when considering other factors?

The Flavors & Ingredients

With only two flavors out as of yet — “Lamb, Vegetable and Barley” and “Chicken, Vegetable and Rice” — Freshpet boasts minimally processed, all-natural ingredients. But the proof is in the pudding — or the stew for that matter — the vitamin and mineral enriched meals are labeled with easy to understand ingredient lists which include whole foods such as lamb, spinach, chicken and brown rice. The most pleasant surprise is that there are no fillers such as corn or wheat gluten, which if included, must be listed on the label by mandate of the FDA.

The Beneful meals have a broader range of flavors, including “Savory Rice and Lamb Stew” “Simmered Beef” and “Roasted Chicken,” however, their ingredients are not quite as recognizable. The “real” ingredients like lamb and chicken, while included, are overshadowed by ingredients like meat-by-products, corn starch and wheat gluten.

The Ins & Outs of Ingredients

While the actual components included are important in these meals, the key lies within to what extent. By law, dog food ingredients must be listed by the amount used in processing — meaning, the first ingredient on the label would transfer as the largest amount used during cooking.

Most pet owners fail to scrutinize the ingredients listed on their pet’s food, but one would think that if a meal is highlighted as a “lamb” product for instance, that it should include a significant amount of actual lamb meat.

That being said, the first five items listed on the Freshpet Homestyle “Lamb, Vegetable and Barley” meal are, in fact: “lamb, lamb broth, chicken, eggs and carrots.” Lamb cannot be found at the top of the ingredient list on the Purina Beneful “Savory Rice and Lamb Stew” meal. Rather the first five ingredients are: “water, wheat gluten, liver, white rice and meat-by-products.” Considering the Beneful meal we examined is called “Savory Rice and Lamb Stew,” this does not bode well for the brand that prides itself on “quality and freshness.”

According to Melinda Smith of HealthierDogs.com, fillers like meat-by-products, which can include intestines, feathers and feet, and wheat gluten are more often than not packed into pet food to significantly reduce the cost of production and boost taste.

With hardly any nutritional value, these fillers are very harsh on animal stomachs and difficult to digest. Smith also says such ingredients are linked to serious problems like gum and heart disease, severe allergic reactions, canine cancer, and more. Eds. note: None of the brands or products in this review were included in such studies.

The Bottom Line

While this misnomer about ingredient listings may slip by even the most diligent pet owner, both brands’ meals meet the nutritional standards established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials’ Dog Food Nutrient Profiles for growth and maintenance of dogs.

They are also around the same price — depending on what store and what region you are in — ranging from $1.89 to $2.30, and from human standards, look pretty darn tasty. However, eyes don’t always carry over to stomachs, especially dogs’ stomachs.

ZT Pet News gives Freshpet’s Homestyle meals 5 paws up for exceptional “whole food” nutrition and for stepping out of the box and avoiding the preservatives that unnaturally increase shelf life.

ZT Pet News gives Purina’s Beneful Prepared meals 2.5 paws up for listening to consumer demands, but the product quality falls short on actual “whole food” nutritional value.

As these meals take over as the standard for nutritional pet foods, the Zootoo community deserves first-hand experience on the appeal to canine companions. A mass comparative blind taste test would certainly make for a thorough analysis — perhaps Zootooers would like to get to the bottom of this pet food dialogue for the true results?

Would you consider trying these products and perhaps changing the lives of your furry friends? We want to hear from you! Do you have to sacrifice taste to use top notch ingredients? You be the judge. Should you depend on a classic brand or try something different and new? Try them out! Let us know!

Source:zootoo.com