Been Thinking...

Science Diet is crappy? My vet recommended that as well! We've gone through so many different foods with Chili, and I wouldn't eat them if I were a dog.

By the way, Max, you might want to price compare the Innova if there's another outlet for it in your area. Vets' offices often sell feeds at a higher price, simply because they buy in smaller volume and don't get the same discount.

Okay, so you really want me to get up on this soapbox? Are you sure??

Too late!

We now live in a society that by and large will only pay attention in small bytes of information at a time. We want it quick and easy. We're consumers of unprecedented volume, and we have allowed ourselves to be lulled into an apathetic lethargy when it comes to swallowing whatever the TV screen, bag blurb, celebrity spokesperson, benign or authoritarian looking actor, authority figure, ad nauseum gets compensated to regurgitate to us. In short, we very predictably believe what we're told because it's easy and we've become far too trusting and accustomed.

We just don't question.

We make it far too easy.

No, governmental agencies don't give a flip about what our dogs eat. Proctor and Gamble, Purina and their ilk contribute millions to political parties - and they're smart enough to contribute fairly equally to both sides of the room.

The best way to combat this kind of practice is with your money. Don't buy their products. Write and let them know why you won't be buying their products. Worse yet, tell your local retailer why you aren't spending your dog food money in his store. That's where the pain is felt first, then it gets passed on up the line.

There - be proud of me now, lol - that wasn't too bad, was it?

Well that's what I hear, however I don't believe everything I hear.

My current vet recommends me to feed her Innova, but he also supports Science Diet which is what I've been feeding Ginger here as of late.

But doing some reading has made me switch to Innova here soon and Innova is overpriced as well in my opinion.[/url]

you made a great choice there, but i really do not think that innova is overpriced, considering what you get in the bag. when you look at it realistically, science diet is overpriced. i'll add a calculation at the end of this post to outline my statement a little more.

by "vet recommended", do you mean a vet actually recommending during a consultation, or the slogan hill's uses to market it? because that's just a cleverly used phrase that is included in their trademark. either way, see my comments above.

the sad thing is, what are you going to do about it? hills for example is a company that brought in 1.5 billion in revenue in 2004 alone, and it's a company that only has about 2,600 employees. if someone actually had reason to complain about something to them (which isn't hard lol), they don't have a problem to cough up the money to settle in court, plus a major share of veterinary research is sponsored by them, which would make it extremely hard to come up with facts they can't disprove somehow. the best thing you can do is boycot the company and tell everyone you know who has pets to do the same.

so, here goes the calculation:

let's base the calculation on the average nutritional requirements of a moderately active dog of 50 pounds. for these criteria, the AAFCO has established a value of 1,070.19 kcal/day, the NRC guideslines from 1983 cite two different numbers that average out to 1,580 kcal/day. we'll use the average of these two numbers for this example, which would be 1,340 kcal/day.

* science diet original and lamb & rice adult are generally priced at around $23 for a 20lb bag
nutritional value calculates as follows:
----- 1,684 kcal/lb, 365 kcal/cup, 33,680 kcal/bag, 92.3 cups/bag for the original
----- 1,680 kcal/lb, 364 kcal/cup, 33,609 kcal/bag, 92.3 cups/bag for the lamb & rice
these values are so similar they come out to the same when rounded, so i will only list the calculation once:
---------- cost per pound: $1.15
---------- cost per cup: $0.25
---------- daily feeding amount: 3.67 cups
---------- daily feeding cost: $0.92
---------- days bag will last: 25

* science diet advanced protection adult is generally priced at around $24 for a 17.5 lb bag
nutritional value calculates as follows:
----- 1,724 kcal/lb, 374 kcal/cup, 30,179 kcal/bag, 80.7 cups/bag
---------- cost per pound: $1.37
---------- cost per cup: $0.30
---------- daily feeding amount: 3.58 cups
---------- daily feeding cost: $1.07
---------- days bag will last: 22

* innova adult is generally priced at around $23 for a 16.5 lb bag
nutritional value calculates as follows:
----- 1894 kcal/lb, 557 kcal/cup, 31,260 kcal/bag, 56 cups/bag
---------- cost per pound: $1.39
---------- cost per cup: $0.41
---------- daily feeding amount: 2.4 cups
---------- daily feeding cost: $0.98
---------- days bag will last: 23

what you get for your money
for those 6 cents a day you spend more on the innova than on science diet, you get the following:
* whole, fresh, human grade ingredients, not on all kinds of industry byproducts and leftovers that have already been processed once and lost most of their nutritional value
* guaranteed hormone and antibiotic free meats; and grains, fruits and vegetables that have been tested to be free of pesticide residues
* no generic "animal fat" (which can include pets that have been euthanized and rendered)
* no poorly absorbable supplements and artificial vitamins
* a food made in small batches and not stocked by retailers in large quantities, so it won't sit on the shelf for ages. i talked to a natura representative last weekend and he told me that some stores have a turnaround time of natura foods of about two weeks - that means you get fresher food with more of the nutrients intact

and no matter how suspicious i look now (*grins*), i am not an employee of natura or in any way affiliated with them and i don't sell their foods either. they just happen to make great products that are definitely not overpriced when you compare the details and don't just look at the price tag of the individual bags.

Yea! Max! By the way, when's the last time you posted any photos of Ginger? She must be getting prettier all the time.