Wendyl Nissen: Added sugar is barking mad

VIP Chunkers with Roast Beef and Vegetables.

Fresh meat a far better option than dog food full of questionable extras.

My hunt for good-quality dog food helped me find this Australian range, new to the market here, in the pet food fridge at my local supermarket. It looked great, seemed to have real meat in it, and came in seven handy packages in one.

Ingredients (in order of greatest quantity first)

Fresh meat from chicken and beef
This is all good, fresh chicken and beef is good for dogs.

Selected cereals
There is no mention of which cereals are in this food. For people wanting to avoid grains in their dog's diet, this is annoying. And with the cereals so high up on the list you can presume there are quite a few in here.

Vegetables (fresh carrots and peas)
The picture on the pack clearly shows chunks of pea and carrot but for the life of me I couldn't find any in the food I fed my dogs.

Salt
The typical analysis on this pack puts salt at 1.5 per cent, which means that for every 120g pack you are feeding your dog 1.8g of salt. This isn't too bad but a serving of fresh real meat would not have salt added.

Sugar
This should not be here. Dogs do not need sugar, they would not eat it in the wild and it is not good for them or their teeth.

Natural colourNice to see a natural colour in here, but again, real meat doesn't need colouring.

Essential vitamins and minerals (including thiamine)
These are not listed. Thiamine or vitamin B1 is important in the diet of a dog because it is necessary for carbohydrate metabolism. Some pets fed a completely commercial diet of canned or dried dog food miss out on this vitamin, and ironically they need more of it to help digest all the carbohydrates in commercial pet food. Natural sources of thiamine include brewer's yeast, legumes, beef, pork, milk, liver, nuts, whole grains, enriched flour and cereals.

Food acid
This will be in the food as a preservative.

Omega 3 and 6 fatty acidsThese are added in here as they are good for the dog -- they help maintain healthy skin, promote a strong immune system and play a role in cell growth.

Preservatives (223)
This is sodium metabisulphite, which is a sulphur-based preservative.

My recommendation
This seems like a cheap dog food but on closer inspection my medium-sized dogs would have to eat all seven packets of this food a day. This food is designed more for toy dogs who would daintily peck away at one little 120g packet a day.

But you really should just buy some meat because this food has added salt, and worse, added sugar. And cereals as a filler.

Instead, get a dainty pack of mince and feed it to your toy poodle. It will cost more but your dog will be getting better nutrition and less additives.