Everybody wants to say that the “High-end Natural and Holistic” brands are way too expensive. If you look at ingredients alone, I say there is no question which is better. The holistic brands win hands down. But, if you need more information to decide, just look below. I am going to compare Old Roy Complete, Purina One Healthy Weight and Perfectly Natural Dog Mature, which is a new product on the market that I have been feeding on trial for about 6 months now. I will refer to it as PNDM from here out.
Let’s take a look at the ingredients:
PNDM Old Roy Complete Purina One Healthy Weight
Brown Rice Ground Corn Turkey
Chicken Meal Meat and Bone Meal Brewer’s Rice
Brewer’s Rice Soybean Meal Poultry By-Product Meal
Fish Meal Chicken By-product Meal Corn Gluten Meal
Beet Pulp Wheat Midds Whole Corn
Potato Product Animal Fat Corn Germ Meal
Barley Wheat
Oats Oat Meal
Organic Sunflower oil Soybean Gluten Meal
Organic Flax Seed Meal Animal Fat
Egg Product Animal Digest
Carrots
Cranberries
Tomato
Alfalfa Meal
A holistic food, such as Perfectly Natural Dog, has only whole natural products. There can be no by-products in it to qualify as holistic. You could eat this yourself with no problem. If you notice, the Purina One and the Old Roy both have many by-products. Old Roy doesn’t have a meat meal that isn’t a by-product meal and the Purina One has three sources of corn. Since the turkey in the Purina One is not meal, a lot of it will be lost in the cooking process, so this starts looking more like a corn based product with only 12 -15% turkey. Who would have thought that, since Purina One is promoted as a “better” dog food.
Now to break this down into dollars. The PNDM has a four ounce cup, meaning that a standard one cup measure like you would use in the kitchen weighs four ounces. I am going to assume four ounces for the others also since I don’t have samples to weigh. The moisture on those two is higher, so I am willing to bet that it is five or six ounces to the cup.
I am also going to use a 35 pound dog as my example. Old Roy Complete costs $8.98 for a 20 pound bag at Wal-Mart. Assuming a four ounce cup, this translates to $.30 per day to feed the dog at the recommended amount of 2 and a half cups per day. Purina One Healthy Weight costs $20.47 for an 18 pound bag at Wal-Mart. This translates to $.70 per day at the recommended 2 and a half cups per day. The PNDM costs $23.99 at select feed suppliers for a 15 pound bag. This translates to $.60 per day at the recommended rate of 1 and a half cups per day.
Purina One is obviously an expensive choice at $.70 per day, for a lower quality dog food than it’s promoted as. Old Roy is certainly economical at $.30 per day, but your feeding by-products. The fact that it has wheat midds means there will be more poop to pick up also. With the moisture difference, I am going to suggest that these costs are more like $.75 and $.35 per day respectively.
Perfectly Natural Dog Mature appears expensive when you look at the bag price, but at $.60 per day it is cheaper than Purina One Healthy Weight. With no by-products, this food is so highly digestible that there is very little waste to pick up. Maybe one stool a day.
In my experience, based on the feeding trial I have been doing with my dogs, I am feeding less than the recommended amount of PNDM to my old, inactive dog and on target with the very, very active one. I feel that with the quality ingredients, it is worth the extra money to feed my dogs a better food.