# Canidae vs. DVP Natural Balance



## Lucky's mom (Nov 4, 2005)

I think that is up for debate. I personally don't think Meal is as good as fresh meat except if its chicken byproduct meal which is naturally low in ash....but its all up for debate.

There are many folks who's dogs do well on Canidae and that means more to me then the ingredient list.


----------



## GoldenJoyx'stwo (Feb 25, 2007)

This is what the company has to say about it. 
http://www.canidae.com/ingredients/meatvmeal.html

More info: 

http://www.fda.gov/cvm/petlabel.htm


----------



## Zookeepermama (Nov 12, 2007)

You are right on Kimm, and if you think about it, it makes sense. The ingredients list is in order of weight, but ALL the ingredients get dried up to make kibble. So if a whole chicken is 70% water and it gets dried up for kibble, suddenly your kibble has much less chicken than you thought it did (70% less chicken). Meal is just the meat already mostly dried up, so if it is listed first, you know most of your kibble is made up of the meat part. 

This site also has a good explanation that will get you thinking about whats in the dog food. http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/how-do-you-rate-the-foods.html

Also, Im not sure it states on that site but when they say "chicken by-product" it means parts not fit for use under the AAFCO definition of "chicken". The term by product includes chicken feet, heads, bones, feathers, and carcasses that were ill or not otherwise fit for human consumption to name a few. I thought that was really gross so I dont feed my poor animals anything "by-product".

I like that FDA site KIMM, am bookmarking it now.


----------



## Ash (Sep 11, 2007)

Here you go:

http://www.animalworldnetwork.com/meatvsmealco.html
http://www.canidae.com/ingredients/meatvmeal.html


----------



## RileyStar (Mar 24, 2008)

A ton of foods have "meal" in them. I try to avoid anything that says "meat meal" What kind of meat is it?? If it says "Chicken Meal" or Lamb meal its usually okay IMO. But like said before it's all up for the debate.


----------



## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

Zookeepermama said:


> You are right on Kimm, and if you think about it, it makes sense. The ingredients list is in order of weight, but ALL the ingredients get dried up to make kibble. So if a whole chicken is 70% water and it gets dried up for kibble, suddenly your kibble has much less chicken than you thought it did (70% less chicken). Meal is just the meat already mostly dried up, so if it is listed first, you know most of your kibble is made up of the meat part.
> 
> This site also has a good explanation that will get you thinking about whats in the dog food. http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/how-do-you-rate-the-foods.html
> 
> Also, Im not sure it states on that site but when they say "chicken by-product" it means parts not fit for use under the AAFCO definition of "chicken". The term by product includes chicken feet, heads, bones, feathers, and carcasses that were ill or not otherwise fit for human consumption to name a few. I thought that was really gross so I dont feed my poor animals anything "by-product".


 
Very well put !!!! I feed no by-products and want a NAMED ( chicken, lamb, beef,etc) meal as the first ingredients. There are many ways manufacturers can mislead on an ingredients listing. As mentioned above, having a meat (chicken, lamb etc) named first makes you think that the primary ingredient is chicken when in reality once the moisture is removed it falls much further down the listing. Another common practice is to "split" ingredients such as carbs so that they may be listed as rice one time, rice bran another, etc all further down the list but when they are taken as a whole, you find they are one of the primary ingredients, if not the first ingredient.


----------



## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

BTW .... a really good book about food is "Food Pets Die For" by Ann Martin. It's eye opening to say the very least.


----------



## GoldenJoyx'stwo (Feb 25, 2007)

Zookeepermama said:


> I like that FDA site KIMM, am bookmarking it now.


Glad it was helpful. I sometimes think people don't open the links and the info gets lost in cyberspace. I also get all the recalls from there.

Labels drive me crazy! Contains 0 Trans fats, which can have a certain amount of trans fats because it's below a certain number. *No Trans fats* has none. Why do they make us think so hard??? LOL


----------



## Lucky's mom (Nov 4, 2005)

I got this from Chickensoup, but its pretty common on the web. I truely think this is why Eukanuba and Iams uses a fresh meat source for their main protien source. Then they supplement it with chickenbyproduct meal and fish meal. 


http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/faq/#56 

_What is ash and why do you put it in your pet foods? Ash is the non-combustible portion of the diet. This means that when a sample of the food is burned in a special oven called an ash oven, the portion that remains is ash. Just like a fireplace, but much hotter and more controlled. We do not add an ingredient called ash to the food, but our foods (and all other pet foods out there as well) do contain ash._

_Ash comes primarily from the bone content of the dry protein ingredients, such as chicken meal. Chicken meal is made from chicken meat and bone and is a natural source of essential minerals. Dry protein ingredients such as chicken meal typically contain 70% protein (fresh meats are only 20-25% protein because of their high water content). This ingredient also is made up of some fat, some moisture, a little bit of fiber, and ash._

_Ash levels in pet foods should be controlled, especially in adult or senior diets. Excess ash will contribute excess minerals to the diet, potentially leading to health problems. Ingredients such as chicken by-product meal are much lower in ash than chicken meal or lamb meal, but many individuals choose not to feed diets that contain by-product meal to their pets. _


I think some meals are higher quality then other......sometimes you dont know what you are getting.


----------



## Zookeepermama (Nov 12, 2007)

Lucky's mom said:


> I got this from Chickensoup, but its pretty common on the web. I truely think this is why Eukanuba and Iams uses a fresh meat source for their main protien source. Then they supplement it with chickenbyproduct meal and fish meal.
> 
> 
> http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/faq/#56
> ...



Youre right, this is about as controversial as corn as an ingredient heres a quote

"You might see ash levels of 14 per cent in a dry meal for dogs, but tinned products often have around half this level. The composition of the food will affect the ash content, but the elements are likely to be beneficial or neutral to the dog's health and not noxious or toxic at the concentrations in the product." 

from: http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg18625021.800


----------



## Dalton's mom (Apr 5, 2008)

Both my dogs are powered by Canidae ALS & we have no complaints.


----------



## GoldenJoyx'stwo (Feb 25, 2007)

Bumping...........

I don't know anything about this site or it's reliablity. Just raised some questions about Ash.
http://www.petcurean.com/index.php?page_id=126

http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk/ash.htm


----------



## katieanddusty (Feb 9, 2006)

Because so much of meat's weight is water, I'd much rather see the Canidae formula than something with chicken as the first ingredient followed by a bunch of grains. Most of the big dog food companies' attempts at "natural" food will do that so they can say "real chicken!" but it's still basically a bag of grain.

I'd stay away from "meat and bone" meal, or any type of by-product meal (I guess if there was some really good company using whole chickens that had to be called "chicken by-product meal" then it'd be debatable, but for now it seems to be more taking out the parts that humans want and using dog food as garbage disposal, which is probably why so many big dog food companies are owned by big human food companies).


----------



## Debles (Sep 6, 2007)

People seem to have "meal" and "by-product" confused.


----------

