[AllAboutTheBay]

I decided to switch my dog’s food after some recent tummy troubles (previous food was Whole Earth Farms) and came across what looks to be a new brand of food, Crave Dog Food. It has a 5 star rating on here, meat based (according to DFA), and availble at my local pet store for only $40 for a 22lb bag. I would have to feed less than what I am now so it’s actually cheaper. Seems almost to good to be true, considering many meat based foods are $60+ a bag. So is this a good deal or is something not quite adding up?
The food boasts a protein content of 31% and the first few ingredients are: Chicken, chicken meal, chickpeas, pea protein, split peas, dried potatoes, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), lamb meal, salmon meal. I know that meat meal has a high protein content (and this food has 3 different meals) but it also looks to have significant plant based protein with 4 listed before the second meat meal. Also, on Crave’s website, the food is called “Crave with protein from chicken” the key word being “with”. The following “with rule” statement was taken from the AAFCO website : “The “With” Rule
Simply put, including the words “with” or “similar” allows an ingredient to be included in the product name or anywhere else on the label at an inclusion rate of at least 3% of each named ingredient. “Honest Jack’s Dog Food With Chicken” should contain at least 3% chicken, while “Cynthia’s Super Cat Food with Tuna and Rice” should contain at least 3% tuna and 3% rice.”

Now I may be over analyzing this so does anyone have any further insight/opinions/thoughts about this food? It seems like it might be good but the price seems lower than average for what it seems like you are getting.

[Susan]

Hi,
Compared to Whole earth farms yes you probably are getting more meat protein with the Crave dog food, the Whole earth farm when I had a look at a few formula’s only had 1 meat meal as 1st ingredient then a carb that was it…
The Crave Dog Food has chickpeas, (Garbanzo beans) as 3rd ingredient then its has pea protein as 4th ingredient, then split peas as 5th ingredient, it’s a bit pea heaving, this is call ingredient spliting, where the pet food companies write pea protein, pea flour, pea fiber etc instead of just writing peas, if they just wrote peas the peas would probably be 1st or 2nd ingredient, so they splilt the same food ingredients up to move it further down the ingredient list….

When the ingredient list is written it’s done when the ingredients are raw not cooked, so it’s good there’s Chicken Meal, Lamb Meal & Salmon Meal, it would have been better if the ingredient list read, Chicken, Chicken meal, Lamb Meal, Salmon Meal, then potatoes, peas, & chickpeas, you’d probably would be getting 29% meat protein, the rest would be plant protein but at the moment your probably getting around 20-24% meat protein & the rest is plant proteins??…
It would be good if these pet food companies had to write the plant protein % & the meat protein % on the kibble bag, we’d probably have a shock with how low the meat protein really is in these kibbles especially all these’s new grain free kibbles using chickpeas, lentils pea protein, split peas, pea flour, pea fiber, pea starch etc, these ingredients up the protein %…

Rotate between a few different brands with limited ingredients that agree with your dog that have a few different ingredients this way your dog isnt eating the same ingredients 24/7 then reacting to an ingredient cause that’s all he’s been eating, look for a kibble with 3 meat proteins as 1st 2nd 3rd ingredients then sweet potatoes, peas, rice, barley, are better sometimes then these grain free kibbles that are higher fiber & proteins cause they have chickpeas lentils peas as 2nd, 3rd or 4th & 5th ingredients…

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