hi everyone
just like to ask what is everybodys opinion on oscar dog food? my dog has gluten allergy and they specialise in gluten free foods,
she seems to be going well on it her coats good and weight is fine
i also add some tripe with it.

thanks

heather x

>she seems to be going well on it her coats good and weight is fine

My opinion is that would definately be the food for her :)

If she's healthy food sounds really good and suiting her.  Why change somethings that isn't doing any harm?

Hi heather_ leanne,

I too have been feeding Oscars complete food to my dog and she looks stunning on it, I've always been a little embarrassed to say so as most people rate either JWB or Burns.

i fed oscars for a few months & was very pleased with it.Its certainly not a 2nd rate food.
the only reason i stopped feeding it was because of what they use as a persevative

If you're feeding the "Super Premium" range, then I think it looks pretty good actually:

Chicken and Rice

Rice 58%, Chicken 25%, Poultry fat, Beet pulp, Egg, Calcium carbonate, Salt, Chicory

Lamb and Rice

Rice 55%, Lamb 30%, Poultry fat, Beet pulp, Egg, Calcium carbonate, Salt, Chicory

Fish and Potato

Potato Starch 40%, Herring fish 15%, Soya protein 15%, Poultry fat, Beet pulp, Brewers yeast, Egg, Calcium carbonate, Dicalcium phosphate, Salt, Chicory

I particularly like the look of the Lamb and Rice one - 30% meat in a dry food is very high.

Some people might not like the Salt, but there's added salt in JWB too, and I'd rather see Salt used as a preservative than BHT and BHA.

they use bht & BVA as a prev, thats why i stopped. i believe that they do use really low levels though

Not according to their website, Michelle - they say:

"Free from artificial preservatives, flavouring and colouring."

http://www.oscars.co.uk/aboutus.ikml

Maybe they have changed it since you used it?

theres the small print!
o fed it 6months ago & told the sales people why i was stopping.

this is what they emailed me when i stopped ordering

Hello Miss. Dunscombe,

Please find a statement below from our founder Mr. Martin Dancy.
I look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions.

"We do use natural Vitamin E as antioxidant as well as in human food BHA/BHT. This is a regular question I receive as I can appreciate how confusing it is for pet owners reading conflicting sales literature & product labels. I will try to clarify & apologies if you already know some of this.

Preservatives are like vinegar or propionic acid, which are used to prevent the product from going mouldy usually in higher moisture products - we do not need to use these.

Antioxidants are used to give the normal 12month shelf life as they prevent / slow down the natural oxidation (rancidity) of the oils / fats / fat soluble vitamins A,D,E. Unless you only eat fresh food I can guarantee you have eaten these on a regular basis, and the most common human food ones are BHT & BHA. Nothing wrong with them, fully UK & EU approved. Ethoxyquin tends to be used in USA & there have been several health warnings on this product but never scientifically proven but we, as a precaution, do NOT use it.

Now where do Vitamins E & C come in as natural antioxidants? Both are unstable & oxidise quickly in the atmosphere so have to be protected, guess what with,  BHA/BHT direct by the two main world manufacturers. If you are going to use these as feed nutrients then they need to be protected but you can also use the unprotected versions as they will act as free radical antioxidants.  We use them too.  

Similarly all the fats we spray on the food and you probably use for cooking need to be protected too.

So why do some manufacturers claim they only add natural antioxidants? - well it is true they may only add natural antioxidants but it is almost certain that one or more of their ingredients / vitamins will contain others such as BHT/BHA but they choose to ignore this.  We do not as part of our honest label policy even though the amount is minuscule and we do not add it in our process."

Kind Regards
Elaine Madden

ive put this on so people can make their own descisions as wether the risk is worth it?

Well I read the email Michelle, but have to say I'm none the wiser for reading it!! ha ha!!!

This is what I understand:

Yes they do include BHA and BHT - despite the fact that they also state on their website that they use only "natural" preservatives, which these are definitely not - and if they trying to do a semantic play on language it's a bit low and deceitful: ie "BHA and BHT are antioxidants, not preservatives, therefore we can legally say we use only natural PRESERVATIVES but not antioxidants" - did anyone else read it this way??  I think that's pretty disgusting, if it's the case - I'd think more of them if they just listed BHA and BHT in the ingredient list or at least didn't claim to use only natural preservatives.  :(

Onetwothree, this is the same point I made some time ago about JWB whose labelling contains the wording no added artificial preservatives , but the reply  e-mail from them they used similar explanation as to the use., but remember if its less than 1% manufactures to not legally obliged to say so. I agree with you 100% about honesty at least it allows you to make a logical decision based on facts -Jo

No, it's not the same Jo - if you email JWB and ask them, they reply and say that they can assure us they do NOT add BHA or BHT to their products.  Yes, they could have been added earlier in the supply chain by whoever delivers the meat to them, but the same can be said of any manufacturer. 

But by admitting that some of the ingredients they use may have BHA,BHT in before they purchase them from their suppliers means their product is not 100% free of  bht,BHA  its still one and the same yes they don't add it at manufacture but their product still has ingredients that are preserved using them .So they are not free of THEM  but its just that they don't have to declare them because its less than 1%-I am not against the use of these preservatives because of the wide spread use of them in both the human food chain and pet food the limits have been proven to be safe .However when manufactures use  potentially misleading information in to sell a product although legally entitled to do so
It brings their sales ethics in to question -Jo
    

I agree with you that it is bad of any manufacturer to mislead like this.

However, JWB say that their meat "MAY" have had it added at source, before they receive it - they don't say that it definitely has had it added, so we can't be sure that it does have it.

When emailed they have also been more open and honest than this email from Oscar's, which is a bit hard to understand actually!

i guess if BHT/BHA is used to stabilise the vits E & C,then less must be used to do this than the whole food?

Surley "may have" can be defined as what the customer doesn't know won't harm them.
Simply to shrug  ones shoulders, like what Jwb is doing is IMHO poor.-jo:rolleyes:  

I don't think they are just shrugging their shoulders.

In the UK it is legal for any meat retailer to add BHA and BHT before they sell the meat to a pet food company, and _without disclosing_ to the pet food company that they have added it.

So, what should the pet food company do in that case?  If they list these ingredients, their food may NOT have it added by the supplier, and they are shooting themselves in the foot by listing something which many people consider to be undesirable.

I think they do all they can do - they don't list the ingredients, but if people enquire, they are honest about the possibility of the food having it added by the supplier.

No you are wrong and the answer I got from JWB was that they have to test as part of their quality control ingredients received from their suppliers to insure that the level of
BHT/bha are inline with guideline, if they don't test they run the risk of using ingredients that are above the guidelines they cant just assume that they have to be able to prove it  I would be worried if they are using meat that they don't know how old it is or what's been added to it as you imply-jo 

But it's not just meat arriving already preserved if you read the memo it says the vitamins themselves are "almost certain" to be preserved also.

it is on the bags of food & in the small print But it is kinda misleading.  & you have to look for it i will add my dogs did do really well on it & looked great. Flynn (my fussiest one) did start to go off it a little (after 2x 15kg bags) however this is par for the course for him.But the girlies couldnt get enough (& they arent big eaters) So i switched him to Genesis,which he really likes (now well into third 15kg sack!!!!!)

Its a shame that they do use BHA/BHT,because other than that i felt it was exellent

i did have exellent customer service though & their mail order (with lots of other treats /toys/chews etc) service is exellent

Yes it is definitely on the list of ingredients on the bag, there is also plenty of customer service both via the phone and the rep who delivers it.There is also the option to try before you buy so you aren't buying a bag before you know what it really contains.

Have to admit to not really knowing what BHA/BHT were so wouldn't have paid much attention to it.

Molly is looking really good despite what these maybe.

I wouldn't worry Chocymolly, millions of dogs get the benefit of well preserved foods with the integrity of the ingredients, vitamins and minerals intact and show no signs of any harm at all.  Molly will be looking good because of them not despite :) Indeed there is no evidence they have ever been harmful at anything like the levels permitted that is why they are licensed.  It looks rather like you would have to feed fresh foods anyway if you wanted to avoid them :)

Hi Isabel,
I've given up worrying I think :)  Most commercial dog foods will have something that poeple will disagree with.

Tohme,

I think it says X & Rice so you know what the meat content is before you look at the rest of the ingredients, on the list of ingredients it actually says Rice ?% then chicken/lamb ?% so they do list it properly on the bags and their leaflets too.

I don't worry about grains or any of it so long as it is suiting the dog.  I'll start worrying when my dog looks at all worried :D

It is interesting that they can call these foods X and Rice/Potato when in actual fact, they should really be called Rice/Potato and X looking at what makes up the bulk of the food!

That's a relief :)

I did post the ingredients a while ago but didn't get much interested response, I do feed the "Super Premium" range but am a little concerned about the Fish and Potato ingredients after reading previous comments for feeding dogs Soya Protein.
Or is this okay?

Molly did enjoy samples of all the different flavours and we are now looking at the puppy range they have to offer.

FWIW If I fed a commercial food I would not use one that contained Soya, it is a thyroid inhibitor and can also bind other ingredients rendering them unavailable to the body. It is also a prime gas producer!!

I would not feed beet pulp either preferring to provide both fibre and FOS via more useful ingredients such as bone and bananas/garlic and Brewers Yeast can be problematic for some dogs.

However this is merely my opinion and I am sure millions of dogs do extremely well on it ;)