Pet Nutritionist Compares the Best and Worst Affordable Dog Foods On A Budget

welcome back to my channel for those of you new here hello my name is Skyler I am a certified dog trainer and pet nutritionist if you're watching this video you've probably seen some of my other videos where I rank different types of pet food from the ones that I recommend when I consider to be oh hell yeah or chef's kiss all the way down to the pee pee poo poo foods that really aren't doing much in the ingredient quality department on those videos I get a ton of questions about the price of the pet foods and more specifically requests to list the cost per pound whenever I do those rankings listing the cost per pound is something that I will not be doing at all for any pet foods because quite frankly it's really really unhelpful and can mislead you into how affordable a certain pet food may or may not be for you so instead I'm going to show you how to figure out exactly how much a food will cost per feeding and in turn how much it'll cost you per month as well as give you some of my suggestions for the foods that tend to recommend the most often that are a little bit more affordable than you may think as well as comparing those against common affordable pet foods that people feel pigeonholed into feeding because they find that higher quality good quality Pet Foods might be out of their price range with this of course every single person's budget is different what they consider to be affordable is different what people are able to spend on their pets versus other aspects of their life are different all of those perfectly fine and valid and there's definitely ways to take even a lesser quality pet food and enhance it to make you feel good about feeding their pets that food as opposed to feeling stuck overall my goal with this video is to help kind of give you the tools and open your eyes to higher quality pet food maybe even being less expensive than the food that you're already feeding thinking it's more affordable first and foremost before we get into comparing our affordable pet foods with some higher quality Alternatives we have to talk about math math is not my my strong suit I'm not a huge fan of math but I swear I made it easy on us we're going to be rounding up a little bit too so it gives us a nice buffer and case inflation keeps Rising which is likely to happen or you're not able to find the pricing of the foods the exact same as me the first two big numbers that we want to look for when we're comparing prices of pet food is going to be how much the actual bag costs and how much that bag weighs so this is going to be the price per pound the thing that people want me to list but I'll show you why that's misleading in a little bit for now that's what we're focusing on one thing that you might notice and you might already know is that the bigger the bag of food typically the less it costs per pound pet food manufacturers will typically scale their pricing in a way that makes small quantities more expensive per pound whereas larger quantities you get to save a little bit more because you're buying in bulk with that said I wouldn't recommend buying a bag bigger than what your pet can eat in about two months time any longer than that once you get past like this three month mark it goes stale has a higher chance of having those fats go rancid it's just not as beneficial and not as great as sticking with a one to one and a half maybe two month range to find the price per pound we want to divide the price of the food by the amount of pounds in that bag and that'll give us that price per pound number but we don't want to stop there because otherwise we're going to get very misleading information next we want to find the price per cup this is really helpful when we actually start to calculate the price per serving which is the most important thing that a lot of people will skip over but that's what actually gives us the accurate information that we're looking for now typically a standard measuring cup is about eight ounces when you do water but when it comes to solids there's obviously space between each little piece of kibble so if you were to measure a full eight ounce measuring cup full of kibble it's usually going to be anywhere between five and seven ounces depending on how big the kibble pieces are instead of that true eight I round it up to eight because the worst thing that can happen when we round up is that we're pleasantly surprised when things are less expensive it also makes our math so much easier because one pound 16 you have that that's eight makes the math so much easier so that way when you're in the pet store you're not going crazy so the price per cup is going to be that price per pound divided by two and that's how much eight ounces or an eight ounce cup would be next we use that to find the price per serving again this is the actual information that you're asking for when you ask for the price per pound this is how much it would cost to feed your dog or your cat one serving of this food every single food has a different serving size serving size is determined by the caloric density of the food that's how many calories are in each piece of food this is why it's so important to go buy the cost per serving instead of the cost per pound because if I had one pound of really really poor quality pet food I might have to feed five cups of that food whereas I would only need to feed two cups of a higher quality food overall that higher quality food depending on its price might actually just end up being cheaper than what I thought was a super affordable super cheap food so that's why this is all important and that's what we're going to be going over today to find the price per serving you're going to take that price per cup and multiply it by the number of Cups recommended on the back of the bag whether that be two and a half three and a third I've rounded everything to quarter amounts just for the sake of doing math throughout this video and in this case a serving is a daily allowance not necessarily morning and night it's per day last but not least from this you can calculate how much you expect to be spending on your pet food per month by taking that you know cost per serving amount multiply by however many days in this instance we're doing 30 just to make it nice and easy for math then I'll tell you about how much you can expect to be paying per month to feed your pet that food this it is a little bit more of a step than just calculating the cost per pound but this is how you're going to get the most accurate information and you'll see as we go along in this video the cost per pound and the actual cost can really really change your perspective of things that's the big takeaway of this video so let's get into comparing and kind of breaking down the prices of our more affordable Foods as we compare we need to have a dog as our example in order to compare things against so I'm going to introduce you to Bernie Bernie is a Bernese mountain dog he is an imaginary dog used for this experiment he weighs 100 pounds which is so nice for us it makes our math a heck of a lot easier Bernie is about four years old he's full grown he doesn't have any health problems so we can just look directly at the bag and his activity level is normal so we're just going straight off of what the bags recommend for 100 pounds worth of dog I chose to pick a really really large breed because the majority of people are gonna have dogs smaller than this so if you're looking at a price tag and you think wow that's really unachievable for me remember this is for a hundred pound dog and your price is going to be a lot lower most likely in order to gather our affordable Foods I went on Instagram and asked you guys when you think of a budget-friendly or an affordable food what brands come to mind and these were the five brands that you guys chose if you don't follow me on Instagram already you can follow me at tattoo.dogtrainer so that way you can participate in other polls and information in future videos the very first food we're going to be comparing is Iams when I did my ranking videos I put this in pee pee poo poo which is the lowest tier as far as ingredient quality goes if you're interested in learning any more about my ranking system or why things are placed certain places definitely check out those ranking videos and that'll give you a lot more information of why things are the way they are but I did include those rankings just so people who've seen those videos have a little frame of reference so this is the Iams proactive Health adult dry dog food in the lamb and rice formula the cost of this bag is 46.99 and the way is 30 pounds cost per serving on the other hand is four dollars and 12 cents which brings the overall cost per month to 123.60 the next food that you guys recommended as affordable was Purina Pro or Purina just in general the Purina foods do vary a little bit on my personal ranking system Purina Pro generally lands itself in the yucky territory which still means that they use products like corn wheat soy or byproducts but generally not the worst food but not recommended the Purina Pro Plan complete Essentials adult dry dog food the high protein probiotic chicken and rice blend costs 63.98 per 35 pound bag and the recommended serving size for a 100 pound dog is four and a half cups this brings the cost per pound to 1.83 the cost per serving is four dollars and eleven cents and the cost per month is 123 dollars and thirty cents Nutrish again thought of by you guys as an affordable food option lands itself in the yucky territory in the tier list and this is the Rachel Ray Nutrish dry dog food all life stages the beef pea and brown rice blend cost per 28 pound bag is 45.99 the recommended serving size for a 100 pound dog is five and three quarter cups this brings the cost per pound to 1.64 cents the cost per serving is 4.72 cents and the cost per month is 141.60 getting a little bit up in quality but still not foods that I personally recommend when I'm working with clients we have the cheers category where they at least don't have you know corn wheat so I buy products they're better ingredient quality but still maybe not ones that I would choose to recommend we have Blue Buffalo and this one's the Life protection formula the adult dry dog food in a natural chicken recipe for a 30 pound bag this food's gonna cost you 68.99 with a recommended serving size for a 100 pound dog of five cups this brings the cost per pound to two dollars and 30 cents cost per serving is 5.75 and the cost per month is 172.50 last of the brands that you guys thought were affordable is taste the wild again the cheers category definitely not a poor quality ingredient food just maybe not one that I personally would recommend this is the Taste of the Wild Sierra Mountain grain free roasted lamb dry dog food it comes in a 28 pound bag for 58.99 with a recommended serving size of six cups the cost per pound is two dollars and eleven cents cost per serving is six dollars and 32 cents and the overall cost per month for a 100 pound dog would be about 189.60 now we get into the foods that I personally recommend especially for people who are looking for more affordable or budget-friendly options these Brands tend to be a little bit more cost effective compared to some of the others in the high quality pet food tier but more importantly a lot of these brands are ones that I recommend anyway to anyone as good quality kibble regardless of budget just because I really really like them so as we go through this all of these I feel comfortable feeding all of these I do recommend often and I think you're gonna be surprised by just how affordable some of these scary price tags actually end up being we're gonna start off with first mate this is the grain friendly cage-free chicken meal and oats formula this comes in a 25 pound bag for 58 dollars and 29 cents with a recommended serving size of two and three quarter cups for a 100 pound dog the cost per pound is 233 but the cost per serving is only 321 which makes the overall cost per month for a 100 pound dog only 96.30 for Nutrisource probably the kibble brand that I recommend most often just because they have such a range of products this is the Nutrisource beef and rice recipe dry dog food comes in a 30 pound bag for 62.99 with a recommended serving size of three and a half cups the cost per pound is two dollars and ten cents cost per serving is 3.68 and the total cost per month is 110 dollars and forty cents next we have zignature zignature is a grain free food most Grain Free foods especially as you get higher up in ingredient quality are more expensive than grain inclusive Foods so if you're really worried about budget and you have a dog or cat that does not have any grain sensitivities then you may opt for a grain inclusive food to just help keep those costs down however if you do need a grain inclusive food zignature is a really good option it's also a great option if you have allergies that you maybe don't know the source of signature kind of caters to that demographic um so I thought that it was a really good one to include in this list this is the zignature turkey limited ingredient formula dry dog food it comes in a 25 pound bag for 78.99 with a recommended serving size of three and a quarter cups the cost per pound is 316. the cost per serving is 514 and the overall cost per month is 154.20 next we have from this is the from adult gold premium dry dog food and this is the chicken recipe it comes in a 30 pound bag that costs 68.99 and for a 100 pound dog it has a recommended serving size of three cups the cost per pound is two dollars and thirty cents cost per serving is three dollars and forty five cents and the cost per month would be about 103.50 last but not least of the foods that I recommend we have neutral Source element I already included Nutrisource in the video previously but this is their element line which is a high animal protein grain inclusive food if you were to look at my kibble rankings this would go in the chef's kiss category because it does have something that makes it stand out a little bit more or a little bit extra from the other brands of a very similar quality this boot is made to compete with origin and Essence so it is in that kind of upper tier of kibble if you're feeding something that's more of just one of their standard lines like the Nutrisource standard line and you want that extra added high protein High animal protein this would be a good option I wanted to include this because it is kind of that extra standout but also it creates a really good kind of top of the food chain a lot of people would look get a food like this and think that it's way out of budget but I think again you'll be surprised just how in budget this food could potentially be depending on what you consider to be affordable and in your budget this is the Nutrisource element series coastal plains recipe it's a high animal protein food comes in a 30 pound bag and it costs about 95.99 with a recommended serving size of four cups that means the cost per pound is three dollars and 20 cents cost per serving is 640 and the overall cost per month for a 100 pound dog would be 192 dollars so that was a lot of information you're probably thinking okay that doesn't really mean anything to me yet you just rattled off a bunch of numbers maybe I'm getting it how does this all work out well this is what it would look like if we compared those Foods based on a cost per pound breaking which is what I get asked for all the time please include the cost per pound what is the cost per pound I'm not going to feed a food that costs four dollars per pound if we were to just look at the cost per pound this is how our ranking would line up I've included an asterisk next to the foods that I personally often will recommend to people are most affordable according to cost per pound is the Iams followed by Rachel Ray Nutrish Karina Pro number four is Nutrisource one of my recommended Foods five is Taste of the Wild six Blue Buffalo and then the final four are all foods that I would recommend so from first mate zignature and Nutrisource element when we look at this our first initial reaction to high quality Pet Foods is represented here we expect them to be a higher cost and according to the cost per pound they are however that doesn't give us the full picture and that's going to be really apparent in this next graph where we compare the actual cost of these Foods per day to feed this is using that number that we came up with for the cost per serving so this is how much it would cost to feed your dog each day another thing to keep in mind is this is based off a 100 pound dog with the numbers rounded up so if you have a dog that weighs either 100 pounds or significantly less even you can expect to pay less for this food since we've been rounding up according to the actual cost per feed our most affordable food is first mate which is one of the foods that I recommend our second most affordable food from another one that I recommend another one that seems maybe out of budget for some people third one Nutrisource the fourth one is Purina Pro so it takes there's three other Foods more affordable than that Purina Pro followed by Iams which according to you guys was recommended as the most affordable of the ones that were taken into consideration number six Nutrish number seven zignature which is one of the ones that I recommended number eight Blue Buffalo number nine Taste of the Wild and number 10 was that Nutrisource element that kind of Stand Out chefs kiss food and if you look at the graph the cost difference between Taste of the Wild and Nutrisource element is nearly identical in fact the differences Taste of the Wild is six dollars and 32 cents per feeding for a 100 pound dog and Nutrisource element is 6.40 for a hundred pound dog per serving that's only an eight cents difference between Taste of the Wild and Nutrisource element when we look at the actual cost per month how much it would actually cost you per month to feed each of these foods to a 100 pound dog the ranking doesn't change but it gives us a little bit of a better idea of how much these Foods actually cost in the grand scheme of things there's a couple other points that I want to get across in this video besides just the fact that cost per pound when you're looking at dog food tells us nothing in the grand scheme of things when we're looking at budget and price another thing that can influence price is whether it's grain free or grain inclusive a lot of lower quality Pet Foods the grain free and grain inclusive options are a relatively similar price and part of this is because they use lower quality ingredients for the grain free and maybe a little bit better in quality ingredients and the great inclusive because they want you to look at those numbers see that they're generally the same ish so that way it's not sticker shock higher quality Pet Foods tends to have a little bit more of that sticker shock between the grain inclusive and the grain free or even the more common proteins in Grain Free versus the more exotic proteins and grain free that sticker shock reflects the fact that they really don't change much to the base formula there's just an actual price difference in materials between a lot of the grain free or grain inclusive ingredient differences basically what I'm saying here is if you're really worried about budget you're wanting to feed the highest quality of kibble that you can and you have a pet that does not have food sensitivities to grain they are able to eat higher quality grains than going with a grain inclusive option might be worth it to you because it is typically going to be a lower price than a grain free option this would also allow you to incorporate more wet food or even raw food into your pet's meals if you're wanting to focus on making that a point to incorporate some pets do need a grain-free food they Thrive best on a grain-free food and ultimately this video is not about the differences between grain free or grain inclusive or debating that if you're interested in that debate and learning some more information on grain free versus grain inclusive I have a whole video about it so you should check that out after this one the second thing that's going to help to influence price is where you buy your food typically pet food manufacturers especially the higher quality pet food manufacturers do charge a little bit of a premium of a couple of dollars when you do online sales versus in person this means that if you're looking to buy Nutrisource or signature for example you're more likely to get a better price if you shop and store at your local independent retailer than you would online for a lot of those Brands Amazon is also not an authorized seller um so that's kind of a risky route to go anyway sometimes you'll find those Foods on chewy again they're probably going to be a couple bucks more than they would be at your local independent pet store but if that's all you have access to that's fine too along with that a lot of the higher quality foods do have a frequent buyer program so if you shop in store at a local independent pet store they might already have you in their program as a frequent buyer this means that anywhere between you know a buy 10 get the 10th one free by 12 get the 12th one free this really helps to kind of cut the cost down over time because you get to look forward to a free bag maybe once a year maybe twice a year depending on how much you're feeding and knowing you have a free bag at some point can be taken into consideration when you're looking at your budget and how much you can afford to feed if you don't know if your local pet store has a frequent buyer program feel free to ask about it or ask if they do Astro that tends to be the most popular kind of rewards tracker among pet stores at least on the west coast they don't offer it maybe even call the food manufacturer and start clipping your PCS some brands do it some Brands just don't for example Nutrisource does track a frequent buyer program they do a buy 12 get the 12th one free program whereas a brand like first mate doesn't do a Rewards program and that helps to keep the overall cost of their foods low so you end up just paying less instead of getting a free one I hope this video helped answer some questions that you may have about affordable pet foods and more importantly I hope that it opened your eyes to just how affordable some of these Pet Foods actually can be that doesn't mean they're affordable for everybody it doesn't mean that they're in everybody's budget but kind of based on what you're currently feeding I would recommend checking out seeing how much it actually costs you to feed per month and if there's a food that you want to switch to but that initial sticker shock has been making you a little nervous go ahead do the math see how it shakes out and see if that makes a difference in your decision if you have any video requests regarding affordable or budget-friendly pet foods go ahead and leave those in the comments below one of my goals with this channel is to educate all of you guys so you can make the best choices that you can for your pets but also kind of break down some of those stigmas around higher quality Pet Foods or more biologically appropriate diets because there are ways of incorporating high quality foods high quality ingredients no matter what your budget is if you like this video give it a like if you haven't subscribed to my channel already please go ahead and subscribe down below and if you'd like to kind of Follow Me between videos you can follow me on social media I have an Instagram tattooed dog trainer where I will sometimes pull you guys for videos and you can also follow my business account top dog behavior thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one bye [Music] foreign

Channel: The Tattooed Dog Trainer

Views: 102,382

Keywords: dog food, dry dog food, kibble dog food, budget dog food, affordable dog food, best dog food, worst dog food, purina pro plan, purina dog food, dog food on a budget, iams, iams dog food, nutrisource dog food, nutrisource element, orijen dog food, zignature dog food, grain free dog food, dog food with grains, rachael ray nutrish, blue buffalo, taste of the wild, review, dog food review, fromm, firstmate dog food

Id: kRjb9kQhw-A

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 20 2023