alpo canned dog food with gravy
Alpo Chop House Dog Food Review (Canned)
The Alpo Chop House product line includes the 3 canned dog foods listed below.
Each recipe includes its AAFCO nutrient profile: Growth (puppy), Maintenance (adult), All Life Stages, Supplemental or Unspecified.
Recipe and Label Analysis
Alpo Chop House Rotisserie Chicken Flavor in Gourmet Gravy was selected to represent the other products in the line for detailed recipe and nutrient analysis.
Ingredients Analysis
The first ingredient in this dog food is water, which adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.
The second ingredient is chicken. Chicken is considered the clean combination of flesh and skin derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken.1
Chicken is naturally rich in the ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.
The third ingredient is liver. Normally, liver can be considered a quality component. However, in this case, the source of the liver is not identified. For this reason, its impossible to judge the quality of this item.
The fourth ingredient is wheat gluten. Gluten is the rubbery residue remaining once wheat has had most of its starchy carbohydrate washed out of it.
Although wheat gluten contains 80% protein, this ingredient would be expected to have a lower biological value than meat.
This inexpensive plant-based ingredient can significantly boost the total protein reported on the label a factor that must be considered when judging the actual meat content of this dog food.
The fifth ingredient is soy flour, a high-protein by-product of soybean processing.
Although soy flour contains about 51% protein, this ingredient would be expected to have a lower biological value than meat and can notably boost the total protein reported on the label a factor that must be considered when judging the actual meat content of this dog food.
The sixth item includes meat by-products, an item made from slaughterhouse waste. This is whats left of slaughtered animals after all the prime striated muscle cuts have been removed.
With the exception of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, this item can include almost any other part of the animal.2
Whats worse, this particular item is anonymous. So, the meat itself can come from any combination of cattle, pigs, sheep or goats which can make identifying specific food allergies impossible.
Although most meat by-products can be nutritious, we do not consider such vaguely described (generic) ingredients to be as high in quality as those derived from a named animal source.
The seventh ingredient is beef. Beef is defined as the clean flesh derived from slaughtered cattle and includes skeletal muscle or the muscle tissues of the tongue, diaphragm, heart or esophagus.3
Beef is naturally rich in all 10 essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.
The eighth ingredient is corn starch, a starchy powder extracted from the endosperm found at the heart of a kernel of corn. Corn starch is most likely used here to thicken the broth into a gravy.
Corn starch isnt a true red flag item. Yet weve highlighted here for those wishing to avoid corn-based ingredients.
From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.
But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this Purina product.
With 3 notable exceptions
First, were always disappointed to find artificial coloring in any pet food. Thats because coloring is used to make the product more appealing to humans not your dog. After all, do you really think your dog cares what color his food is?
Next, this recipe contains sodium selenite, a controversial form of the mineral selenium. Sodium selenite appears to be nutritionally inferior to the more natural source of selenium found in selenium yeast.
And lastly, the minerals listed here do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Chelated minerals are usually associated with higher quality dog foods.
Nutrient Analysis
Based on its ingredients alone, Alpo Chop House canned dog food looks like a below-average wet product.
The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 50%, a fat level of 14% and estimated carbohydrates of about 28%.
As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 50% and a mean fat level of 14%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 28% for the overall product line.
And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 28%.
Above-average protein. Below-average fat. And near-average carbs when compared to a typical canned dog food.
When you consider the protein-boosting effect of the wheat gluten and soy flour, this looks like the profile of a wet product containing a moderate amount of meat.
Our Rating of Purina Grain-Inclusive Dog Food
Alpo Chop House is a grain-inclusive canned dog food using a moderate amount of named meat and unnamed meat-by-products as its dominant source of animal protein, thus earning the brand 2.5 stars.
