Old Glory Dog Food earns the Advisor’s lowest rating of 1 star.

The Old Glory Dog Food product line includes five kibbles.

Each recipe below includes its related AAFCO nutrient profile when available on the product’s official webpage: Growth, Maintenance, All Life Stages, Supplemental or Unspecified.

• Old Glory Puppy [A]
• Old Glory High Energy [A]
• Old Glory High Protein [A]
• Old Glory Premium Adult [A]
• Old Glory Adult Maintenance [M]

Old Glory Premium Adult was selected to represent the others in the line for this review.

The first item in this dog food is meat and bone meal… a dry “rendered product from mammal tissues, including bone, exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents”.²

Meat and bone meal has a lower digestibility than most other meat meals.

Scientists believe this decreased protein quality may be due to the ingredient’s higher ash and lower essential amino acid content.³

What’s worse, this particular item is anonymous. It doesn’t even specify the source animal.

Even though meat and bone meals are still considered protein-rich meat concentrates, we do not consider a generic ingredient like this a quality item.

The second ingredient is corn. Now, contrary to what you may have heard, corn isn’t necessarily a bad ingredient.

On the other hand, although there’s no way to know from the list entry itself, the corn used in making many pet foods can be similar to the kind used to make feed for livestock.

And that can sometimes be problematic.

What’s more, corn is commonly linked to canine food allergies⁴.

For these reasons, we rarely consider corn a preferred component in any dog food.

The third ingredient is corn distillers dried grains. This item is a by-product of the ethanol (bio-fuel) industry. This low-quality ingredient is frequently found in cattle feed and only rarely used to make pet food.

The fourth ingredient is rice bran… a healthy by-product of rice milling. Though not as nutritionally complete as whole grain rice, brans are still unusually rich in fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals.

The fifth ingredient is poultry fat. Poultry fat is obtained from rendering… a process similar to making soup in which the fat itself is skimmed from the surface of the liquid.

Poultry fat is high in linoleic acid… an omega-6 fatty acid essential for life. However, we would have preferred a single-species item (like chicken fat).

Unfortunately, this fat is preserved with BHA… a suspected cancer-causing agent.

The sixth ingredient is corn gluten feed… a by-product from the manufacture of cornstarch and corn syrup. However, corn gluten feed should not be confused with corn gluten meal.

That’s because corn gluten feed contains just half the protein of corn gluten meal. And when compared to meat, glutens are inferior plant-based proteins lower in many of the essential amino acids dogs need for life.

It’s unusual to find this feed item in a commercial dog food. As its name suggests, corn gluten feed is primarily used as an ingredient in cattle feeds.

The seventh ingredient is soybean meal. Soybean meal is actually a useful by-product. It’s what remains of soybeans after all the oil has been removed.

Soybean meal contains 48% protein. However, compared to meat, this item is considered an inferior plant-based protein providing a lower biological value.

The protein content of both corn gluten feed and soybean meal must be taken into consideration when attempting to use the reported protein content of this product to estimate the actual meat content of this food.

The eighth ingredient lists wheat middlings… commonly known as “wheat mill run”. Though it may sound wholesome, wheat mill run is actually an inexpensive by-product of cereal grain processing.

In reality, middlings are nothing more than milling dust and floor sweepings.

The ninth ingredient is poultry by-product meal… a dry rendered product of slaughterhouse waste. It’s made from what’s left of slaughtered poultry after all the prime cuts have been removed.

This stuff can contain almost anything… feet, beaks, undeveloped eggs… you name it.

We consider poultry by-products slightly lower in quality than a single-species ingredient (like chicken by-products).

On the brighter side, by-product meals are meat concentrates and contain nearly 300% more protein than fresh poultry.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With two notable exceptions…

First, we find no mention of probiotics… friendly bacteria applied to the surface of the kibble after processing.

And lastly, the minerals listed here do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Non-chelated minerals are usually associated with lower quality dog foods.

Old Glory Dog Food Review

Judging by its ingredients alone, Old Glory Dog Food looks to be a below-average kibble.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 30%, a fat level of 21% and estimated carbohydrates of about 42%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 28% and a mean fat level of 17%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 47% for the overall product line.

Average protein. Average fat. And average carbs when compared to a typical dry dog food.

Yet when you consider the plant-based protein-boosting effect of the corn gluten feed and the soybean meal, this looks like the profile of a kibble containing only a modest amount of meat.

Bottom line?

Old Glory Dog Food is a corn-based kibble using a modest amount of meat and bone or chicken by-product meals as its main sources of animal protein… thus earning the brand 1 star.

Not recommended.

Has Old Glory Dog Food Been Recalled?

The following automated list (if present) includes all dog food recalls since 2009 related to Old Glory.

• FDA Warns Dog Food Maker Due to Safety Violations – Multiple Brands (5/15/2022)
• Six Dog Food Brands Recalled Due to Dangerous Mold Toxin (7/29/2021)
• Sunshine Mills Recalls Multiple Dog Food Brands (6/3/2021)
• 15 Pet Food Brands Recalled Due to High Levels of Aflatoxin (10/9/2020)
• Sunshine Mills Recalls Multiple Dog Food Brands Due to Aflatoxin (9/3/2020)
• Sunshine Mills Recalls Nature’s Menu Dog Food (8/25/2020)
• Dangerous Levels of Vitamin D Discovered in Several Dog Food Brands (12/7/2018)
• Evolve, Sportsman’s Pride, and Triumph Dog Food Recall (11/28/2018)
• Giant and Martin’s Recall Nature’s Promise Dog Food (11/21/2018)

You can view a complete list of all dog food recalls since 2009 here.

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