# For Artemis-Ichiro, Or "Why Purina Sucks"



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

I'll just post the info on Purina here, since it is useful to other people too.

Let's start with their top-tier brand, Beyond. There are likely more peas than proteins because of ingredient splitting, and they use "canola meal" which some people classify as a grain. The food is listed as grain free. It's technically in the same family as cauliflower but it's a really weird choice when claiming to be grain free. I'm guessing the factory that squeezes their canola oil sells them the leftovers, but who knows?

If we move down to one of their more popular brands, say Friskies 7, the top few ingredients are: Ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal, soybean meal. Corn is split and the first and second ingredients. That's a lot of corn.

And just picking a random food, Pro Plan looks like this: Chicken, brewers rice, corn gluten meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), soybean meal. If there's a large gap between chicken and rice it could be an alright formula, but since all of their other foods are garbage I'm betting rice is a very close second to chicken, and if you combined rice and corn it would be much higher than chicken.

From a more global standpoint, Purina belongs to Nestlé, which is regularly classified as one of those bad corporations. They use child labor, pay them next to nothing, have bad farming practices, all that good stuff. So on top of bad ingredients and lots of splitting, they're just plain sketchy.

Does that help? I got my food stats off purina.com if you want to dig deeper. This guy only does dog food but it's a great resource as well: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/


----------



## Artemis-Ichiro (Jan 22, 2016)

Lol. Thanks! I got the last text!!

I have to look into Purina one, I was told a lot of breeders use that one around here.


----------



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

It's basically the same as their other "high end" formulas: Chicken, brewers rice, corn gluten meal, poultry by-product meal, wheat flour, soybean meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols, whole grain corn

Same top 3 ingredients as Pro Plan. Same top three ingredients in a different order as Friskies. Call the food whatever they want, they seem to only have minimal variety at the tops of their ingredient lists. Corn, rice, poultry.

Or you can look at a fish-based one (Purina One Salmon and Tuna), and get: Salmon, corn gluten meal, brewers rice, poultry by-product meal, soybean meal, whole grain corn, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols, animal liver flavor. So, the top three again, corn, rice, protein. Then poultry in their fish mix. Also, where's the tuna? "animal liver flavor"? Couldn't find real liver, Purina?

But I'm guessing you're seeing the pattern by now :lol:.

Here's Dog Food Advisor's reviews on the One line: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/purina-one-dog-food-dry/


----------



## Artemis-Ichiro (Jan 22, 2016)

Lol. They are lame!


----------



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

All that being said, I feed my adult breeding crickets Friskies. But I'm not feeding the adult crickets to anything, and the baby crickets get fresh veggies. So it's great for keeping insects you don't really care about alive for a low price!


----------



## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Here is my simple way of dealing with food companies. Look at the first 5 ingredients, how many need googled? How many would be good as the first ingredient? 
When any food company cooks the food, it drastically can change the order. Look to see how many ingredients are a protein? Those veggies are still protein.


----------



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

Brewers rice is the rice nubs left over after milling whole rice. The good rice gets used elsewhere and you're left with the little bits. Corn gluten meal is the rubbery stuff left over after most of the carbs have been washed off, which makes it a decent protein, but not much like corn. It also makes a good herbicide, apparently? Yum yum!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewers_rice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_gluten_meal


----------



## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

I basically have an ingredient dictionary from my neglected hedgehog food project. The word animal scares me. No clue what it comes from.


----------



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

My mom once bought "all meat" hot dogs. That was phase one of me going vegetarian :lol:. "Animal by-product meal" is just as bad!


----------



## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Unfortunately, people read animal in the ingredient list and the picture cows, chickens, pigs and fish. Not random roadkill, euthanized pets, horses or anything like that.


----------



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

Blech. I'd like to see a day-to-day breakdown of what all is in the animal meal one company produces. I'll bet it's completely different every day. But at the same time, I don't think I really want to know.


----------



## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Even poultry is not clear. But the word "animal" is probably used because a. they would have to separate the different kind and b. Some things are better left unknown. 
But just for the record, people food labels are just as bad. Why I prefer to grow my own, raise my own, can my own, freeze my own and cook my own. 
Hence my new additions I hope to pick up in the fall or next spring, GOATS!!!


----------



## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

I love goats! One day the boyfriend and I are planning to buy an acreage and have goats and chickens. I can't wait!


----------



## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

My reasoning is selfish. I love dairy. But doing an elimination diet, learned I'm lactose intolerant. The lactose is different in goat milk and breaks down much faster. So, hopefully once were moved to the farm I'll be a Nigerian dwarf momma. Plus I'm all about animals that can just eat the yard and I don't have to stress about them eating commercial junk.


----------

