Overall, Acana Pacific Pilchard is an above average dog food, earning 7 out of a possible 10 paws based on its nutritional analysis and ingredient list.
When evaluating a dog food, the first five ingredients can tell you a lot about the quality of a product as they make up the bulk of the product. Ideally, you're looking for quality protein sources with a minimum of cheap starches, fillers or by-products. Continuing down the ingredient list, look for ingredients that resemble real food with a minimal number of unpronounceable chemicals - the same as you would for human food.
Acana Pacific Pilchard includes the following:
Note - a bolded ingredient in the above tables indicates it is one of the first five ingredients listed by the product manufacturer.
In this case, Acana Pacific Pilchard's most plentiful ingredient listed is fresh whole pacific pilchard, which is considered a quality protein source. It also contains whole pilchard meal as additional quality protein sources.Additionally, it's worth noting that this product does not list either by-products nor bulk-adding fillers within its top ingredients. By-products are considered inferior, lesser quality ingredients. Common fillers typically used to add bulk to the product are not required in your dog's diet. Together, their combined absence may be indicative of a higher quality product.
Allergen alert: This product contains fresh whole pacific pilchard, whole pilchard meal, pilchard oil and freeze-dried pilchard which may be problematic for dogs who suffer from seafood food allergies.
Compared to the other 1160 dog foods in our database, Acana Pacific Pilchard has:
Using the calculations provided by the AAFCO, Acana Pacific Pilchard has approximately 339 calories per 100g (96 calories/ounce), which is compared to the average of the other dry dog foods in the DogFoodDB.
All the product information on this page is based on data collected from the manufacturer's product website as retrieved on January 1, 2017.
Ingredients as published by the dog food manufacturer:
Fresh whole pacific pilchard, whole pilchard meal, whole green peas, whole red lentils, whole garbanzo beans, pilchard oil, fresh green kale (1.5%), fresh spinach greens (1.5%), fresh turnip greens, cold-pressed sunflower oil, lentil fiber, whole green lentils, whole yellow peas, fresh whole butternut squash, fresh whole pumpkin, dried brown kelp, freeze-dried pilchard (0.1%), fresh whole cranberries, fresh whole blueberries, chicory root, turmeric root, milk thistle, burdock root, lavender, marshmallow root, rosehips
Nutritional information as published by the dog food manufacturer.*
The manufacturer's published guaranteed analysis values normalized for moisture content.
*Note that some nutritional percentages reported are only estimated values, and are indicated as such as (est). Each dog food manufacturer is required by law to publish a Guaranteed Analysis, which defines each product's maximum values of fiber, moisture and ash in addition to the minimum values of protein and fat contained within. Exact nutritional percentages are not available and hence all calculated values (including carbohydrate percentages and calorie amounts) are determined using these minimum and maximum published values and therefore may differ from actual values.
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