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Question: I want to use a natural or holistic food. Some use whole meats and some use meals. Which one is best to use?

Using "fresh, whole, or deboned" chicken as a protein source sounds good to the public, but in fact it is a marketing technique. Why?.... because in the industry, ingredients are listed on the bags in the order of their weight before cooking. Therefore, whole, fresh or deboned chicken (which has a large amount of water) is listed first on the label. Yet when whole meats are cooked down, they are actually much less in their protein content, than when one uses a meal, which is already cooked and water removed.

So the end results is, a food using fresh, whole or deboned meats, is a food that is often a grain based diet and not a meat based diet at all. There are a couple of exceptions where the better companies will follow up "fresh meat" with a specific meal meal in the second or third position and this does up the anty in terms of protein.

Meat based (specific meat meal first) diets are very important for allergies and systemic yeast infections which are the biggest health problems in canines. Using a super premium meat based (specific meat meal) diet is critical to good health for your pet. Several brands that market their products as natural or holistic foods are in fact grain based foods, but because of how they market them and list them on the label, the public thinks they are a "meat based" diet. An examples of this is Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul made by Diamond pet foods.

Remember, you get more protein "bang for your buck" from a nutritional standpoint, when using a specific meat meal (lamb, beef, chicken, turkey, buffalo, duck, pork, venison etc.).