Pet Food Ingredients - Q - Quality ( Low )

Q

Quality - Low Quality ingredients.

We have a choice to make in regards to what we feed our pets.

It helps when we can look at the ingredient list and know what are some of the lower quality items.

If you can't avoid them all, because at times it's impossible - you can at least look for a brand with the least. Hopefully you can find something that works well for you and your fur family.


Low Quality Pet Food Ingredients :

Animal By Product

Animal Digest

Animal Fat

Any Colouring

Any Flavouring

Apple Pumice

Artificial Colour 

Artificial Flavor

Beef and Bone Meal

Beef Tallow

Blood Meal

Brewers Rice

Cane Molasses

Canola Oil

Caramel Colour

Cellulose Powder

Citrus Pulp

Corn

Corn Bran

Corn Gluten

Corn Syrup

Dextrose

Dicalcium Phosphate

Digest

Egg Product

Ethoxiquin

Fish Meal

Flavour

Fructose

Glandular Meal

Grape Pumice

Ground Germ Meal

Ground Yellow Corn

Iodized Salt

Lard

Liver Meal

Meat By Product

Meat By Product Meal

Meat Meal

Mineral Oil

Molasses

Peanut Hulls

Pork & Bone Meal

Potato Protein

Poultry By Product

Poultry Fat

Poultry Meal

Rice

Rice Flour

Rice Hulls

Salt

Sodium Chloride

Sorbitol

Soy Flour

Soybean Meal

Soybean Mill Run

Sugar

Sugar Cane

Wheat Gluten

Wheat Middling's

Whole Grain Corn

Whole Grain Wheat

Yeast

Yeast Culture

* this is not a complete list

Long list.

I will give you a few examples of pet foods I believe to be of lower quality - this is just my opinion based on what I deem to be cheap or icky ingredients.

Almost everything you can buy in the Grocery Store or Department Store

Fancy Feast

Friskies

Hills Science Diet

Hills Natural Balance

Hills Science Diet Veterinary Diets

Iams

Meow Mix

Nutro

Purina Cat Chow

Purina Kitten Chow

Purina One

Purina Pro Plan

Royal Canin 

Royal Canin Veterinary Diets

Whiskas

Even some pet food store brands are what I would consider crap. They generally have low medium and higher quality foods.

*Royal Canin BabyCat Dry food has been useful at times when an orphaned kitten is just learning to eat solid foods.

**I have not read the back of every Royal Canin Veterinary Diet - Some may be better than what I expect.

***Don't change your pets food based on what I or someone else says - do your own research. 

This is also not a complete list.

You would think that price would be the key to pointing out what is higher quality - WRONG

The saying - You get what you pay for - does not always apply.

You pay what the rather talented marketing team has spoon fed you to believe it is worth.

Last little note of the post - You hear people talking about their cat doing great on meow chow - that is fantastic. Ask them again in 5 years. 

Many of the possible ailments that could be caused by crappy foods - and there are many - do not happen over night. 

They build up over time - they come out of nowhere - you have a hard time figuring out what is wrong with Fluffy because she has always eaten the same food!

Nothing new has happened - she has not gotten into anything - what could it be???

It could be that years of feeding Fluffy a food that is filled with ingredients that she should not - and in the wild would not be eating. 

It could be the additives, the colours, the sweeteners, the list of chemicals that fill the bag or the can. 

I could be wrong - Corn could be the best thing since sliced bread  - technically many of the ingredients for bread are in some of these foods as well...

It could be the best thing since Corn Bread!