If you have a television, you’ve probably seen a Beneful commerical. If you’ve been in a pet store, you’ve likely seen the bag. They portray a plethora of fruits, vegetables, and meats, and the commercials tout how many healthy ingredients their dog food has. You can see this with so many foods – Chef Michael, Hill’s Science Diet, Purina.

And yet when you read the back of the bag, it’s filler with vegetables and protein further down the ingredients list. It’s just enough that they can say it contains them.

When you read the ingredients on anything (both pet food and people food) the first item listed is the densest ingredient. If it lists corn, for example, then by weight there is more corn, which is essentially a filler that the U.S. has a surplus of.

Here is the ingredient list for Beneful.

Ingredients:

Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of vitamin E), rice flour, beef, soy flour, sugar, sorbitol, tricalcium phosphate, water, animal digest, salt, phosphoric acid, potassium chloride, dicalcium phosphate, sorbic acid (a preservative), l-lysine monohydrochloride, dried peas, dried carrots, calcium carbonate, calcium propionate (s preservative), choline chloride, vitamin supplements (E, A, B12, D3), added color (yellow #5, red #40, yellow #6, blue #2), dl-methionine, zinc sulfate, glyceryl monostearate, ferrous sulfate, niacin, manganese sulfate, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, biotin, thiamine mononitrate, garlic oil, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), calcium iodate, sodium selenite.

Holy. Crap.

The first four ingredients are fillers. Corn, corn gluten meal, and wheat flour are extremely common allergens in dogs and not something necessary in their diet. It’s surplus that we have here in the U.S. so it’s extremely cheap for the manufacturers. Chicken by-product meal is exactly that – by-products. It isn’t the meat, it’s chicken remnants from plants that process chicken for human consumption. Real meat and a few veggies are way down the list (and additional soy, another allergen), and yet the bag pictures lovely meat and vegetables waterfalling down the front. The salt content outweighs the vegetables!

How much will this bag of nothing cost you? About $15.00 for 7lbs.

Let’s look at a comparable bag of Merrick’s Whole Earth Farms, it’s not a grain free food or particularly fancy.

Ingredients:

Chicken Meal, Turkey Meal, Oat Meal, Pearled Barley, Ground Rice, Ground Millet, Ground Barley, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Duck, Buffalo, White Fish, Natural Chicken Liver Flavor, Salmon Oil (a natural source of Omega-3, Docosahexaenoic Acid-DHA)*, Organic Alfalfa Sun-cured ground, Yeast Culture, Tomato Pomace Dried, Dried Egg, Organic Sunflower Seed Ground, Salt, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Lysine, Blueberry Dried, Cranberry Dried, Yucca Schidigera Extract,Inulin (from Chicory Root), Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Cinnamon, Marigold Dried, Zinc Amino Acid Complex, Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus casei, Iron Amino Acid Complex, Vitamin E Supplement, Manganese Amino Acid Complex, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Copper Amino Acid Complex, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin D3, Niacin, Lecithin, Riboflavin, Supplement, Biotin, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Cobalt Amino Acid Complex, Folic Acid, Thiamine Mononitrate, Sodium Selenite.

You can still see grain (no corn or wheat though), but the first two ingredients are chicken and turkey. This is definitely what you want to see, and there’s even more protein sources down the list – among the fruits and veggies that are more toward the top.

How much will this non-fancy but much healthier food cost you? About $11.00 for 8lbs.

Beneful (and similar companies) are charging you more for nothing. Their ads outright lie but are in the legal amount of these ingredients. The companies choose aggressive advertising campaigns instead of putting that money toward a quality product. It’s so easy for people to think that they’re buying their dog a healthy food based on those ads and inflated price, and we really can’t trust them. The only way to get reliable, truthful information is to read the actual ingredients yourself.