Would you pay $117 for a bag of rice? Sounds crazy, right? But consider this: there’s a special type of prescription pet food designed for skin conditions that costs $117 a bag.
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I was looking up the ingredients of said food for a friend: rice, rice, egg product, rice, soybean oil, and a mountain of vitamins and minerals. $117 for that.
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It’s insane. I told my friend, “Do you realize this is mostly just rice?” But what’s worse is the quality. The rice is the leftover, unfit-for-human-consumption rice—meaning it likely has extra arsenic as rice is known for arsenic contamination. The rice didn’t pass human food standards, so it ends up in dog food, even fancy prescription stuff.
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Then there’s “egg product.” This refers to eggs that were cracked at the egg facility, thrown in a dumpster, left there for about two weeks (exposed to flies, rodents, and cockroaches), then picked up by a rendering truck and sent to the factory to supposedly be “rendered safe.” Nasty, right?
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And soybean oil as the fat source? Have you read about how seed oils can be rancid and pro-inflammatory?
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I told my friend that her dog would be better off mixing 75% rice and 25% eggs, with a high-quality dog multivitamin. I guarantee the dog’s skin would improve because the ingredient quality would skyrocket.
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P.S. I don’t recommend this rice and egg diet as a long-term solution, but it would be a great transition away from the expensive, low-quality stuff. From there, she can work on switching to something better, like a meat-based diet. After all, dogs aren’t herbivores.
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Still seeing patients in Tampa, Clearwater, and virtually.