Purina Mainstay?

[IRescue452]

This post will make that stupid grade your dog food post come to light as being inaccurate.
Here are the ingredients in order: Ground yellow corn, corn gluten feed, beef and bone meal, soybean meal, ground rice hulls, animal fat +preservs., salt, dicalcium phosphate, animal digest.
Now to tell you what you are missing by just being a normal person reading a label.
When chicken is the main ingredient in a food, feathers, beaks and gravel/beddings are counted as protein. A chicken food that claims 20% protein is not exactly telling the truth. With beef, more of the cow is an edible source of protein including horns and hoofs. 16% protein is perfectly acceptable. In fact, for dogs, 0% protein is acceptable.
Corn as the first ingredient is a good thing sometimes. Most companies do what is called splitting, they take that 49% corn and split it into smaller groups. Corn is listed a few times, but much further down on the label so it looks like there is less corn. Purina rarely does this. Proctor and gamble does this on almost every label.
Ground rice hulls are 8% of the ingredients and are used as a source of fiber.
Purina does NOT use beet pulp. This is a reason why some dogs have questionable poop. Beet pulp is an artificial binder to create good looking stools. Any food that says beet pulp in the ingredients should be considered suspect and I would not use them because you don't know what they are trying to cover up.
Corn and beef are not bad ingredients either. No ingredient is to be blamed for allergies or other medical conditions. The reason most dogs develope allergies is because they are fed the same crap over time. As their immune system falters from being fed kibble, they are more likely to suffer allergies.
Another good thing about mainstay is that it tests negative for pentobarbitol. Proctor and gamble and nutro both test positive. This is a big red flag about dog foods that are considered good brands (by people who know squat about nutrition and the labeling games).

[IRescue452]

Would it make you happier if purina combined the first two ingredients? You seem to think it matters how many times corn is listed in the first 3 ingredients. If it were only listed once all the sudden this would be the best food right? Some companies do this. Gives you a false sense of security since it is only up there once. Purina would have every right to combine these two into one and make their product look better. They don't though. Why not? You put so much merit in the foods that play this little labeling trick, mainstay could join in.

[Kfamr]

I personally prefer no corn on the ingredients list - it serves no purpose other than a filler. This food is crap.

Vela is correct and put it nicely, I agree with her post explaining the ingredients.

Roxy may be okay though, as far as I recall she wasn't fed raw for long and not consistantly thru that time, either. It may be easier for her to adjust back to low-grade kibble. Hopefully you'll be able to convince her to get a higher quality food. Even something like Purina One or Nutro would be better than this. Good luck.

[Giselle]

If Mainstay combined all the corn ingredients, you'd end up with a very short ingredient list: corn, soybeans, beef and bone meal. I don't know. It still looks pretty yucky to me.

I'm also curious where you got your chicken definition from. This is what I found:

Chicken is the clean combination of flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken- exclusive of feathers, heads, feet, and entrails.

- AAFCO's definition

I also can't see how 0% protein is beneficial for a dog. Even dogs raised on vegetarian diets need substantial protein. How can a dog possibly survive and thrive on a 0% protein diet? I agree with Kay. I prefer to see no corn at all in a dog food. It doesn't matter how they space out their ingredients on the list. The fact is that corn is an undesirable ingredient and I would not feed anything that listed corn on the list.

Bri, can you buy Pro Plan? It's not the best, but it is loads better than other Purina products and it's fairly easy to find. I'm not sure how expensive it is, but I imagine no Purina product would be that costly.

Also, while it is claimed that Mainstay tested negative for pentobarbitol. It is undeniable that Mainstay and other Purina brands contain BHA. Hmm, carcinogens or anesthetics? It's up to you to choose the worse of two evils.

[IRescue452]

AAFCO also accepts dehydrated garbage as a proper ingredient. You really want to take their definition for something?
Kfamr, why would you want to feed anything with pentobarbitol? Doesn't that raise any red flags to you at all?

[Giselle]

AAFCO is currently the most reliable source for the validity of dog food ingredients unless you can show me some other organization that dedicates itself to verifying the quality of dog food. I'm curious, what ingredient is "dehydrated garbage"?

That reminds me, is Mainstay even tested by the AAFCO?

IRescue, in the same sense, why would you feed anything containing BHA/BHT/ethoxyquin/propylene glycol?

Bri, I don't want to hijack your thread, but I hope this is a neat education process

[Kfamr]

I"rescue"452, I don't feed and well never feed any of the foods mentioned in this thread - but, thanks for your concern.

[Vela]

AAFCO also accepts dehydrated garbage as a proper ingredient. You really want to take their definition for something?
Kfamr, why would you want to feed anything with pentobarbitol? Doesn't that raise any red flags to you at all?

Kay doesn't feed food with phenobarbitol in it....neither do a good portion of those of us in this thread. I have fed three foods to my dogs in their lifetimes, Canidae, Chicken Soup, and now Innova EVO, neither of those three have any of those offensive things you mentioned. I also prefer to feed food with no corn in it. It's not really a good food for animals or people. It won't kill you but it is VERY often a source of allergies in dogs from their food. Not sure where you get your facts but 0% is not okay and beet pulp is used as filler, just like corn, just like the "fiber". Dogs don't NEED all that fiber. If they are fed a good diet, raw, or HIGH QUALITY kibble, their stools are fine without needing all that fiber, which is really just another name for filler, to make the dog feel full without actually giving it any kind of nutritional value at all. If that is all someone can afford to feed their dog okay, at least it's being fed, but to truly beleive it's a good quality food boggles my mind.

Look at that list, IMO the Premium and super premium and performance foods are even still a whole bunch of crap, but still better than the bottom dregs. Look at what's at the bottom, that food is even at the bottom of the "crappy food list". So I just can't see how anyone can really truly think it's a great food.

Dehydrated garbage is okay for some....because that's what this stuff is, IMO.

Not to mention, splitting the corn up doesn't really help their food any, if you add it all up there is more corn in it than anything else. How about you eat mostly corn and tell me how healthy you are. It's not digestible by humans or dogs in any unseful form and is actually on of the worst vegetables for people or dogs to eat, if you want to get down to brass tacks. Why do you think it comes out whole on the other end???

http://www.gooddogmagazine.com/drydogfood.htm

[K9soul]

Wow, I'm not even going to begin addressing all those statements, I honestly just don't have the time, though I hope others will (some already have). I just want to say if you think Purina doesn't use beet pulp you might want to look through more of their formulas. They don't use it in all formulas but they most certainly do in some of them. I know for sure some of the Pro-Plan and Selects formulas do as I just looked at their ingredients the other day when someone asked about Selects.

[IRescue452]

I agree that corn isn't an ingredient you look for, but I don't agree why you are saying mainstay is a bad food based on corn, it has the same amount of corn as the other foods mentioned in this thread. I'm not saying its the best food, I'm just defending the fact that it is an ok kibble to feed.

Yes its aafco tested and conforms with aafco, what does aafco mean about anything? Aafco says that dog foods should say 100% complete on the bag even though new nutritional info is found everyday. As far as I'm concerned, AAFCO on the label means nothing about quality. Here's a better authority, Common Sense. Thats why I feed raw and why she tried feeding raw, AAFCO doesn't approve that dogs should be fed raw, they only approve kibble.

Quote: "Not to mention, splitting the corn up doesn't really help their food any, if you add it all up there is more corn in it than anything else"
I meant splitting it up on the label, mainstay DOESN'T do this while other companies do.

[Roxyluvsme13]

Roxy may be okay though, as far as I recall she wasn't fed raw for long and not consistantly thru that time, either. It may be easier for her to adjust back to low-grade kibble. Hopefully you'll be able to convince her to get a higher quality food. Even something like Purina One or Nutro would be better than this. Good luck.

She's been fed Raw for 2 weeks, then back on kibble for 3 days, because she wouldn't eat the Raw. Then, I started feeding it to her frozen, and she's been on it 3-4 weeks. I will most definitely switch her back to Raw when I can, seeing as I found a place that's perfect for getting different varieties of meat.

[bckrazy]

Irescue, I don't really understand your praising Mainstay for dividing three equal sources (ground yellow corn & corn gluten & feed corn) instead of combining them. Actually, by seperating those 3 sources, it makes it seem like there is less of each, when actually at least 50% of this kibble is feed-grade corn, period. Purina One is not 50% corn... it isn't a premium kibble, but it's leaps and bounds better than Mainstay. There CANNOT possibly be a large amount of beef & bone meal if the protein level is 16%. I would consider this one of the worst dog foods out there... might as well praise Ol Roy as species appropriate! The fact is that Briana has no choice what her Mom buys, but hopefully she can begin to save up money to pay the difference between cheap brands and a higher quality brand.

Briana, I honestly think you should make a gradual change to raw. Raw chicken quarters are good for acclimating, but feeding just that for a month (I might be wrong about that, but that's all that I gathered) is not a balanced diet. Remember that quarters are very boney, and at least 1 muscle meat meal should be fed per week. Additionally, so should an offal meal, with half of that being liver. I'm glad you are waiting, but I don't understand why your Mom would pay around $1/lb for raw, but refuses to buy a kibble that is around $1/lb? You can get wonderful brands such as Innova for $1/lb.