• Ground wheat - This is a grain that dogs would not naturally eat. Dogs do not have molars to grind grain, instead they have teeth designed to rip meat apart.
• Corn gluten meal - Corn is used a lot in pet products made in the US, such as this, as there is an abundance of corn and it makes a cheap filler. Not only do dogs not have the right teeth for grains, they also have trouble digesting it.
• Wheat flour - More grains.
• Water
• Ground yellow corn - And more corn!
• Sugar - Dogs don't need sugar. Their natural diet is meat so this will be in here for taste and this high up on the ingredients list tells me there is quite a lot in here. There is no nutritional breakdown on the label so I can't tell you how much but, like humans, dogs fed sugar will experience problems with their teeth, and obesity.
• Glycerin - This will be in here to keep the bars moist.
• Soybean meal - More grain.
• Hydrogenated corn syrup - This is also in abundance in the US and is cheaper than sugar so it is used in many processed foods for flavour.
• Bacon (preserved with sodium nitrite) - The label says this product is "made with real bacon" so here it is. Again in the wild it would be hard to think of a dog having access to a processed meat product containing a nitrite preservative many healthy eating humans avoid because there is concern that it reacts with stomach acid, forming carcinogenic compounds during digestion.
• Salt - Not sure how much salt in here, but not necessary in a dog's diet.
• Bacon fat (preserved with BHA and citric acid) - Pork fat in itself is not such a bad thing for a dog, but this is bacon fat treated with butylated hydroxyanisole (320), which the US Department of Health and Human Sciences says is "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen". I couldn't find any tests on dogs, but I wouldn't be taking any chances with my dogs.
• Meat - Way down on the list is meat which, in my opinion, should be the primary diet of dogs who are carnivorous in the wild.
• Phosphoric acid - This will be in here as a flavouring or a preservative.
• Sorbic acid (a preservative)
• Dried cheese powder - This is a tiny amount so far down the list of ingredients, but will be in here to give a cheese flavour.
• Calcium propionate (a preservative)
• Natural and artificial smoke flavours - I'm not sure when dogs preferred their food smoked but just in case they do there's natural and artificial smoke flavour in here.
• Red 4 - This is cochineal (120), a natural red colouring made from insects.
• Yellow 5 - This is tartrazine (102), a yellow colour phased out in the UK and EU.
A health warning must now be put on any food or drink that still contains this colour as it is thought to cause hyperactivity in some children.
• Yellow 6 - This is sunset yellow (110), which was also phased out in the UK and must carry a warning in the EU.
• Blue 1 - This is brilliant blue (133). In 2007 a study in UK medical journal The Lancet found that consumption of this and other artificial colours may be linked to attention deficit disorder.
• Added colour - I'm not sure if this is in here as a summing-up statement of the colours already mentioned or there are other colours in here that fall below the threshold of needing to be added to the list.
My recommendations
To me, these treats look like they've been designed more with the owner in mind than the dog. They look like strips of bacon and smell very strongly of smoke, cheese and bacon. Yet you know that these are simply a concoction extruded into the shape of a bacon strip with colour and flavouring added.
I believe you are giving your dog the best diet when it is a) something they would eat in the wild and b) as close to natural as possible. So that's not corn or wheat or cheese.
As some dog lovers say — when did you last see a dog raiding a corn field on a farm looking for food?
To be fair, the packaging clearly states that this is a treat food but your dog is still consuming it. I threw these out rather than feed them to my new puppy.
Look for other treats readily available such as dried liver pieces, which simply say on the label "100 per cent meat".
Highlights
• Uses artificial flavours, colours and preservative.
• More sugar, corn and grains than meat.
• Uses artificial smoke flavour.
