John birch dog food

Has Anyone heard of John birch dog food? I am looking for reviews or opinions on it?

http://www.pet-pantry.co.uk/Dog_Food/puppy_junior.htm

Thank

Seems to have taken over where Whites Premium were, but bigger range. Food's good quality.

Analysis: Protein 30%, Oil 14%, Fibre 2.5%, Ash 9.5%

Analysis is ok.

Ingredients: Poultry Meat meal (31%), Rice (18%), Maize (18%), Oats, Poultry Fat, Sugar Beet Pulp, Fish Meal, Chicken Hydrolysate, Brewers Yeast, Egg Powder, Linseeds, Salmon Oil, Minerals and Vitamins, Yucca extract, glucosamine, MSM, chondroitin, minerals and vitamins.

I am not a fan of foods which use the addition of chondroprotectives as you cannot know the quality and the quantity is probably not sufficient.

Rice
Maize
Oats
Linseed

that is a lot of different grains and linseed has to be converted by the dog from ALA to DHA/EPA and some dogs cannot do this.

ETA this attempt at an undercover ad is transparent to most of us.

It contains grains and yeast - I'd steer well clear of it

I don't really get the undercover ad comment.

Mynothernpost was about which puppy food to
Put my sprocker on to and a member on there suggested I ask whether anyone knew about this one.

So is this a good one or not?

Original choice was
John birch
Autarky
Iams
James well beloved
Wainwrights

I would keep the puppy on what it is used to for a while - then change gradually.
Look at the ingredients in the dogfood. Ask yourself why they are there. Does a dog need sugar beet? Or colourings? What percentage of meat is in it? Is it named meat or `meat derivatives`. What on earth are `vegetable derivatives`. etc etc. Why does a dog need cereal? Can a dog even digest cereal?
Some foods are better than others. It is ultimately your choice.

What's the problem with grains? I usually seem to see this sort of response from advocates of raw feeding, rather than from users of dry complete food and when I've looked into it veterinary opinion seems to be that there's no problems with grains as a source of energy.

Unfortunately unless they specialise in nutrition, the only training vets get in canine nutrition is the sponsored day hosted by one or other of the commercial dog food manufacturers.

Even the Waltham site will declare that there is no proven need for carbohydrates in the dog's diet.

Dogs get their energy from fats, not carbohydrates like humans.

If you are going to feed grains then it is useful to remember that not all grains are created equal.

Some are higher in protein, etc.

So Oats, rice and then barley or maize or wheat generally in that order.

Sugar Beet Pulp (as opposed to sugar beet) is a FOS which is a prebiotic which enables the production of short chain fatty acids essential to the health of the gut.

Also not all vets opinions are the same, some are trained in nutrition or have a holistic approach and some eschew commercial diets in favour of raw or home cooked, eg Ian Billingshurt, Mark Elliott, Richard Allport, Nick Thompson, Tom Lonsdale to name but a few.

I feed a commercial diet in an emergency but it is a grain free one.

Most of the arguements against grains and cereals seem to be that dogs can't digest them, but dogs have been winning Crufts on commercial foods for generations so I don't see it being much of a problem.
I've been feeding dogs on a diet including rice for many years and have not noticed any problems in general health and body condition. I find the arguements for raw diets unpersuasive.
Found this interesting article on the subject, written by a veterinary nutritionist. Covers a lot of questions in quite a balanced way, I thought.

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There is no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates for dogs. There is also none for fiber, though we well recognize the benefits, and the same could be said for other nutrients like glutamine, Vitamin C and even probiotics. Carbohydrates contain calories. Grains contain carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, fiber, and a little protein.

Recently, carbohydrates included in diets for dogs have been vilified, especially in the form of grains such as rice, wheat, corn, barley, oats, etc. The reasons are myriad:


Fallacy 1: Dogs have a shorter GI tract than people, so they cannot digest grains unless they are partially digested first.

Fact: Decades of research proves that dogs digest grains as well as carbs quite well.
• The lack of salivary amylase has been stated to be one reason why dogs don’t digest carbohydrates well. Why would dogs need salivary amylase when they gulp their food? Dogs produce potent pancreatic amylase as well as ‘brush border’ enzymes to digest their carbs (like humans).
• Most digestion of carbohydrate occurs in the first part of the small intestine (like humans).
• Some have stated that dogs have more acidic stomachs and retain food in their stomachs longer than people, making a meat based diet more suitable for dogs since protein is initially digested in the stomach. The pH of the dog's stomach ranges from 1.08 to 5.5 (Ouyang et al., 2006, Smith, 1965, Buddington et al., 2003, Sagawa 2009). For people, the pH ranges from 1-4 (Krause's Food and Nutrition Therapy). This makes the acidity equivalent between the species, with the dog ranging slightly more alkaline in certain settings.
It is true that like humans, dogs cannot digest cellulose, a single structural carbohydrate used by plants to form stalks, seed coats, vegetable structure etc. Only herbivores like cows can digest cellulose, turning it into some other vital nutrient, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to compare the GI tracts of dogs and people to cows. Canine digestive physiology resembles human digestive physiology much more closely, so grains and veggies should be cooked or ground as finely as possible (either before or during the act of chewing) to derive the benefits contained in them.


Fallacy 2: Feeding carbohydrates place stress on the pancreas.

Fact: The pancreas was created to produce enzymes to digest fats, proteins and starches. That’s its job. Many people feed digestive enzymes as a daily supplement, I suppose to support what they see as this delicate flower of an organ do its job with protein and fat. There is evidence that supplementing enzymes actually downregulates the pancreas’ own production of proteases. That’s not necessarily a good thing – see my blog from 1-27-09 for more information. But during bouts of pancreatic inflammation (otherwise known as pancreatitis), where those very enzymes are released to cause inflammation and damage to the pancreas and surrounding organs and tissues, the treatment is to reduce fat in the diet in order to suppress production of those enzymes. The treatment is…….high carbohydrate diets - and they work.


Fallacy 3: Since food moves through the GI tract rapidly, there is no time to ferment carbohydrates and therefore no need for them. Because carbohydrates are not fermented, if they are included in the diet they will cause gas and voluminous stools.

Fact: Like humans, dogs harbour many lactic acid producing bacteria which ferment fibers contained in grains. This fermentation itself can cause gas. Odiferous gas can also be caused by clostridial organisms. Clostridia are more numerous in the GI tract when dogs are fed a high meat, high fat diet such as raw, grainless diets.


Fallacy 4: Grains cause allergies.

Fact: If dogs have the genetic predisposition to develop food allergies, they can become allergic to certain foods. A recent review of 7 studies indicates that dogs are most commonly allergic to the following foods (in descending order): beef, dairy, wheat, egg, chicken, lamb/mutton, soy, pork, rabbit and fish. In cats, the most common allergens are beef, dairy, fish, lamb, poultry and barley/wheat (in equal numbers), egg and rabbit in equal numbers. I will admit that I’ve seen higher numbers of corn allergy than would be suggested by these numbers, as well, but please note that grains do not constitute the majority of allergy offenders.

While dogs do not require the carbs found in grains or potatoes or any other food, there are some instances where you still might derive benefit from them being there. For instance, grains contain certain fibers that are beneficial for the growth of probiotic bacteria in the gut. They also contain various required vitamins and minerals. And since grains, as compared to meats, contain lower fat contents, they can be used as a “place-holder” in a diet that fills a dog up while reducing the fat content. I’ve seen people feed pitifully small amounts of raw diets to dogs whose weights needed better control. Poor hungry dogs!

This is not to say I approve of diets formulated with high concentrations of carbohydrates simply to limit cost. I just want to note that there is no reason to expressly avoid them unless your dog has a specific intolerance to them or some condition that requires use of a diet that is low in carbohydrates. And remember that healthy cats are another matter entirely- they are true, pure carnivores, and as such, should probably not be fed diets that contain noticeable carbohydrate levels.

Back to carbohydrates vs grains – take this to the bank: If it’s a dry kibble, it contains carbohydrates. This is because kibble is made by the process of extrusion, which doesn’t work without a certain minimal level of starch. So those grainless diets that sound so good, and so paleolithic – yeah, those contain carbohydrates. Just in the form of potato, tapioca, or other starch containing food.

My point is that if we are going to eschew grains, let’s do it for the right reasons, and if we instead want to avoid carbs, we *have* to read the labels carefully.


Susan G. Wynn, DVM,Registered Herbalist(AHG)
Georgia Veterinary Specialists, Sandy Springs, GA
Clinical Resident in Small Animal Nutrition, University of Tennessee
www.susanwynn.com, www.vetnutrition.blogspot.com

Yes and I am sure if I could be fagged I could post 10 opposing views from other veterinary nutritionists.

What does this prove?

Only that everyone has an opinion.