Pet Nutritionist Ranks Dog Foods | Tier List

hi everybody my name is skyler and i am a certified dog trainer and pet nutritionist today we are going to be creating a tier list of a bunch of different dog food brands um and kind of ranking them seeing where they line up from a nutritional perspective quick disclaimer all of the things shown in this video are my own opinions based on my experience as a professional pet nutritionist i'm always continuing to do research as we all should in our field especially with something so ever changing as pet food i have been working with dog food for going on three years now and i've specifically been working with nutrition and consultations for probably two and a half years i am a huge nerd and not everybody cares this much about dog food and i think that that's definitely an issue that we need to address because i could go into a whole other video just about all the sketchy things that dog food manufacturers are allowed to do but that's not this video we're going to touch on a bunch of different topics i'm hoping to just skate by and if you would like me to go further in depth on anything that i talk about in this video please let me know in the comments below i also just want to point out that if we were to make a nice happy little pyramid of what's most biologically appropriate for your pet kibble is by far at the bottom like canned food exponentially better than kibble and you should never be feeding a diet that's entirely kibble you should always at least be adding moisture in there somewhere that being said this is only going to focus on kibble because that is the most popular and most affordable way to feed your pet so if you'd like me to do a similar video on canned or raw diets absolutely let me know i would love to do that for you so first of all let's address the tears so at the very very bottom we have the pee pee poo poo tear these are foods that are either basically not dog food like this is more suited for a chicken than a dog super sketchy practices or there's something in the food or manufacturing or branding that i find scammy tier two we have yucky so any food that contains corn wheat soy or by-products automatically can't go any higher than yucky for those that don't know corn turns directly into sugar in the dog's body wheat is the number one food allergen soy can cause endocrine disorders and byproducts or all those nasty parts of the meat that you don't want in your food so why put it in theirs third tier we have cheers these are all foods that are fairly clean in their ingredient panel there might be a couple ingredients that i'm not a huge fan of you're doing great if you're feeding in this level it means that you've probably done your research but there are bigger and better foods that you can move up to so these are great entry level foods number four we have ohelia and if you're feeding in that level that's awesome you are doing great at that point you can focus on adding add-ins and different things to even make their diet even better but this is a great level to be at and above that we have chef's kiss and this is a very special tier it doesn't necessarily mean that these foods are better than the foods no hell yeah and i know that's a little bit confusing this tier is more for foods that do something very specific that i really appreciate or i really think is cool this is the tier where if i turn over the bag and i look at it as a nutritionist i get very excited because they at least did something cool now all of these brands i'm taking into consideration are from the very best to the very worst and everything in between if i were to make this just of the super premium brands it would look completely different just keep that in mind so we will go ahead and start with our very first brand and that's purina alpo i feel like i talk about alpo way more than they deserve and it's because their ingredients are laughably bad like this food is laughably bad if you look at the first five ingredients which makes up the majority of this food you got ground yellow corn beef and bone meal soybean meal animal fat preserved with mixed trichophyrols and animal digest this particular food also follows the flavor rule which means that in order for them to put beef flavored on the bag they just need to have something in their food that they can trace to the beef flavoring in this case it would be the beef and bone meal that doesn't actually mean they have to have meat in it this brand's also manufactured by purina which is owned by nestle so when you get higher up bigger companies manufacturing the food especially something as big as purina the ingredient quality completely depletes because you only get so much to go around with all that said alpo deserves to go into pee pee poopoo next we have diamond naturals first five ingredients of diamond naturals beef meal grain sorghum ground white rice dried yeast and egg product not too bad of an ingredient panel just looking at those first five this food also uses the 25 rule which means that in order for it to be beef meal and rice those two ingredients have to make up at least 25 percent of the food with a minimum of three percent this food is manufactured by diamond pet foods which is owned by shell and camper inc so this smaller kitchen smaller facility than purina for sure but still and you'll see later in this list still a pretty big manufacturing company all that said if you're feeding diamond naturals you get a cheers next we have purina beneful and first five ingredients we got beef we got whole grain corn we got barley rice whole grain wheat and corn gluten meal this one also uses the with rule which means that in order to be labeled beef flavored or have beef in it have beef on the front um it needs to be at least three percent beef with water included and the fact that it's beef and not beef meal is their first ingredient leads me to believe that the finished product has significantly less than three percent beef this brand is also made by purina which again owned by nestle so with the sketchy but totally legal use of beef is the first ingredient advertising beef is the first ingredient and looking at that ingredient panel assuming that beef is not the most by weight um beneful goes in the pee pee poo poo next we have hills science diet and i'm gonna have to make a whole separate video about veterinary foods um but let's just look at the first five ingredients of hills so we have lamb meal brown rice whole grain wheat brewer's rice and corn gluten meal what's important to note about hills in particular is that they actually trademarked the term prescription so you'll notice that no other veterinary foods use the word prescription because they legally can't because hill's science diet owns it that is an issue there's also nothing in veterinary foods that make it prescriptive in the first place there's no medication there's no need for a prescription um so that's in my opinion kinda scammy especially when you're spending 80 on a bag of food that being said hills is made by hills pet nutrition which is owned by colgate palmolive the ownership of the word prescription alone that puts immediate red flags in my brain hills goes in the pee pee poo poo layer next we got taste the wild first five ingredients for this particular flavor of taste of the wild is water buffalo lamb meal chicken meal sweet potatoes and peas not a bad list of the first five however this particular flavor is advertised as being with bison and venison the width rule uh means that at least three percent of whatever is listed so three percent of each must be included in the food and when you look at the actual ingredient panel itself bison is number nine and venison is number ten so obviously you're losing a couple points for me for easily misleading the consumer because obviously not all consumers know these weird rules that i'm talking about and again if you'd like a whole video on pet food rules let me know uh that being said taste the wild is owned by our friends at diamond pet foods which is owned by shell and camper inc so this is our second brand that's also made by diamond pet foods keep that in mind cause like i said they're not as small as you think all of this said and done if you're feeding taste of the wild you deserve a cheers because it is a pretty good food it's a great entry level point next we have origin pet foods and two years ago this definitely would have been in a different spot than i've placed it now and even now looking at just the packaging of the food it would for sure be ranked higher than i've put it however origin has a history so let's start with the good first five ingredients of origin original we got deboned chicken deboned turkey atlantic flounder whole eggs whole atlantic mackerel that is an incredible first five ingredients of the food and it continues with meat for like another three lines on the ingredient panel which makes me very excited however back in 2016 uh champion pet foods the company that makes origin moved to kentucky from canada canada has a much higher standard of how their food is grown and prepared than we do here in the us for example they require that their meats be humanely raised and humanely killed and we don't require that here in the us so when a company makes that switch it's immediately a red flag in your mind that it's cutting costs and then in 2019 origin starts to sell in petco this is because they have their family-owned business and they also have an investment group and essentially the investment group got so big that they owned more company than the family did so they get more say and they wanted to make the petco money so they went into petco the issue with going into petco means that you have a much wider audience which means that your sourcing is going to go down and even in like the year that i've been watching them pretty closely because i'm i like the conspiracies of everything um i've already seen their ingredient panel significantly reduce in quality not so much that it would be a huge concern but you are definitely seeing them kind of go down a path with all that said origin goes in the oh hell yeah category because even with kind of the sketchy path that they might be going down i sure hope they don't but it's kind of looking that way um they're still a great food like you can't deny that ingredient panel it is great they use a whole prey model which is awesome you see kidneys you see livers in there it's a great looking food i just can't get behind the ethics to move it up to chef's kiss next we have rachel ray nutrish now we know our girl rachel would never do us wrong um but that's not exactly the case here so the first five ingredients of rachel ray nutrish we got chicken we got chicken meal we got dried peas we got soybean meal and we got whole grained corn rachel ray nutrish is also manufactured by ainsworth pet nutrition which is owned by the mj smucker company so again big name brand company lasts great as far as ingredient sourcing and product testing that kind of stuff because they went and added soy and corn to their foods you automatically get put in the yucky category next we have carnivore carnivore is a canadian company and the first five ingredients of their ingredient panel is fresh chicken chicken liver eggs organic sprouted barley seed and salmon so carnivore is very proud of the fact that they are completely synthetic free they use whole food nutrition and it's also slow baked kibble carnivore is also made and manufactured by carnivore inc so they're completely an independent company which means they have much more control over what goes into their food for this reason carnivore is given a chef's kiss and i'm just really excited by the fact they don't use synthetics that is something that i would like to see used in a wider variety of pet foods for sure first five for nutrasource are chicken chicken meal brown rice barley and chicken fat preserved with tacofrls and citric acid which is a natural preservative nutrasource actually adds a lot of preen probiotics onto their food which is great really good for digestion and that kind of stuff they're also manufactured by tuffy's pet foods and owned by kln family brands which is essentially the same thing they are an independent company they own their own manufacturing plant which is always a plus like i said if they own their own stuff they have more control of what goes in and out with that nutrasource isn't oh hell yeah so next we have kirkland pet foods and to be totally honest with you i was expecting this to not be great um but given who actually makes their food i'm not as surprised that it stands where it does so kirkland pet food first five ingredients we have chicken chicken meal whole grain brown rice cracked pearled barley and chicken fat preserved with mixed tocopherols so kirkland is actually made by diamond pet foods which also same band that does diamond naturals and they also do taste the wild so again we have a little bit of a bigger group of people here than we would like for pet food typically they do make a whole lot of food um but it is way better than a lot of the alternatives that you can get at a grocery store so this one goes in the chairs next we have purina pro plan uh first five ingredients for purina pro plan uh we got chicken rice whole grain wheat poultry byproduct meal and soybean meal so pirinet is obviously owned by purina which is owned by nestle and i almost put this one in the pee pee poopoo because purina you see everywhere purina has a cult following and that's a big part because they often give free food to veterinarians breeders um show dogs that kind of stuff because they obviously want to build their brand and they're very smart that way and i could do a whole video about how dog food manufacturers are really really smart and also kind of sneaky but i almost put it in peepee poopoo realm just because of my experience with talking to people about pet nutrition and them telling me that i'm incorrect because purina told them otherwise we're just going based off of this pyramid goes in yucky so next we have iamb's iams i'm gonna be totally honest is what i fed my older dog for the majority of his life up until he was like 12 um which happened to be right around the time that i learned and knew better so i was recommended items by the vet that was the vet recommended food at the time let's take a look at what i was feeding my dog so first five ingredients we have chicken we have ground whole grain corn ground whole grain sorghum chicken by-product meal and dried beet pulp iams is owned by mars which also makes candy bars which is owned by png so again large company not so great ingredient panel you get a yucky so next we have blue buffalo and i just have to say i do have some respect for blue buffalo because i feel like they really opened the consumer's eye to what's in their pet food so for that i totally commend them they also used to have some better quality food um but because they were exposing other brands by name they got into some legal issues and their qualities just declined for sure over the past five eight years so let's take a look at their first five so we got deboned chicken we got chicken meal we got peas we got pea protein and we got tapioca starch so we're not seeing corn wheat soy byproducts here blue buffalo is manufactured by blue buffalo pet products which is owned by general mills which you may recognize from cereals uh which again larger company we don't like that too much but because blue is lacking corn wheat so i buy products we have to give them at least some credit so we'll put them in cheers you can definitely do better than blue for sure but if you're feeding blue you're not feeding the worst by any means next we have farmina fermina is an italian brand they were originally only made in italy but recently opened up a kitchen in the united states first five ingredients for farmina are chicken dehydrated chicken whole spelt whole oats and chicken fat farmina is made by the farmina pet food holding so it's an independent manufacturer as well which we love all that said farmina gets a great hell yeah and it's a really good food if you're gonna feed a green inclusive food this is a really really good one next we have royal canaan and i'm not gonna go into my whole veterinary spiel again you already know how i feel about that and again i'd love to make a longer video about that topic in and of itself but we got royal canaan let's look at the first five we got corn we got chicken by product meal we got brewer's rice we got brown rice and we have corn gluten meal royal canin is also made by mars which is owned by png with an ingredient panel like that it shouldn't be a surprise that this food is pee-pee poo-poo last but not least we have essence which is owned by pets global which is the same company that makes signature so some of you might be more familiar with signature if you shop specialty pet foods essence is a fairly new brand i think they introduced it like a year and a half two years ago now and it was made to kind of compete with origin for the super high meat content so the first five ingredients for essence we have guinea fowl duck turkey chicken duck meal and i believe the next four ingredients three or four ingredients are also meat so that's super exciting we love to see that they also advertise that 86 of the protein in their food comes from an animal source as opposed to plant sources which is super super cool because obviously you want the meat protein you don't want the filler plant protein um and then like i said made by pets global which is an independent company which we love to see because of the super high meat content i do have to commend them for that and put them in with chef's kiss just because again i looked at the back of that ingredient panel and it was very exciting i feel like more brands should strive to have that kind of animal content in their foods especially graffiti kibble so that is my pet nutritionist approved tier list for a bunch of different pet food brands this obviously didn't include all brands or all brands that i would recommend there are definitely things that i would love to talk about that weren't included on this list because i just wanted to get a good scope of a bunch of different foods here so if you have any questions for me or if you'd like me to go more in depth on any of the foods or topics that i covered in this video make sure to leave a comment down below make sure to like this video if you enjoyed it if you have differing opinions on where foods were placed on this list absolutely as long as you leave a civil comment and cite your sources i'd love to have a discussion with you i'm open to answering any questions that you have if you have specific to your pet nutrition questions i do have my business email in the description feel free to email me there and we can definitely get you some help for your pets so with all of that i'll see you next time bye you

Channel: The Tattooed Dog Trainer

Views: 937,620

Keywords: pet food, pet nutritionist, certified nutritionist, dog nutritionist, dog food ranking, dog food ranked, pet food ranking, pet food ranked, hills science diet, royal canin, orijen dog food, essence dog food, nutrisource, purina pro plan, purina beneful, farmina dog food, blue buffalo wilderness, iams dog food, kirkland dog food, dog food review, carna4 dog food, costco dog food, taste of the wild dog food, best dog food, worst dog food, healthy dog food, best puppy food

Id: Ekx6WGBFVak

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021