Ask Bill: What is the best food I can buy at Walmart?

Q: I read your column every week and really enjoy it. I have never been in your store as I am on a fixed income. What is the best food I can buy at Walmart?

A:  You may read my column but you must not retain anything you read or I am not getting my point across. It is less expensive to feed just about anything we carry than anything purchased at Walmart and all the foods we carry contain better ingredients and more nutrition. Look at the ingredients list on the bag or you can purchase "anywhere you shop".  If it contains

brewers rice (Brewer's rice is the small milled fragments (5/164ths of an inch) of rice kernels that have been separated from the larger kernels of milled rice.  "Dust" and "floor sweepings" from rice.  Cheap with very low nutritional value & used as a filler.)

corn gluten meal (Corn gluten feed is that part of the commercial shelled corn that remains after the extraction of the larger portion of the starch, gluten, and germ by the processes employed in the wet milling manufacture of corn starch or syrup. Inexpensive by-product of human food processing and contains some protein but is mainly used to bind food together.  Hard to digest and a common cause of skin issues.)

soybean meal 

soy protein concentrate (Soy protein concentrate is the clean dehulled soybean seeds that have had most of the oil and water soluble non-protein constituents removed.  A lower quality protein source.  Soy has been linked to allergic reactions and itchy skin.)

BHA/BHT (BHA/BHT is short for Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA) and Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT), both of which are chemical preservatives.  Chemical preservatives banned in human use in many countries.  Often associated with dry/itchy skin and associated with liver disease.)

dyes,

beef and bone meal (Beef & bone meal is the rendered product from beef tissues, including bone, exclusive of any added blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. By-product made from beef parts not suitable for human consumption.  This is an inexpensive, low-quality ingredient used to boos the protein percentage.)

chicken by-product meal (Chicken by-product meal consists of the dry, ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines - exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.  Cheap and of inconsistent quality with poor nutritional value.)

poultry by-product meal,

wheat mill run, wheat middlings (Wheat Mill Run and Middlings consist of coarse and fine particles of wheat bran and fine particles of wheat shorts, wheat germ, wheat flour and offal from the "tail of the mill".  "Floor sweepings", a cheap filler ingredient.)

wheat flour

and/or animal fat (Animal Fat is obtained from the tissues of mammals and/or poultry in the commercial processes of rendering or extracting. It consists predominantly of glyceride esters of fatty acids and contains no additions of free fatty acids. If an antioxidant is used, the common name or names must be indicated, followed by the words "used as a preservative".  Any kind of animal can be included such as 4D animals (dead, diseased, dying or disabled), goats, pigs, horses, rats, road kill, euthanized pets, restuarant and supermarket refuse and used grease.  Inferior to chicken fat and/or vegetable oil.)

it is not a bargain, it is just cheap.  I mean the ingredients, not the cost.  We do not carry any foods with these left-over ingredients from the human processing industry. They are there not for the health of your dog, but for "excessive" manufacturers profit. Our least expensive food is Diamond Naturals Beef Meal and Rice: Beef meal, barley, rice, peas, egg product, chicken fat. $20.98 for 40lbs and feed 2 3/4 cups per 50lb dog.  Old Roy Complete Nutrition: Corn, meat and bone meal, soybean meal, chicken by-product meal, wheat middlings, animal fat, brewers rice and dyes.  Cost approximately $15.50 for 40lbs and you feed 3 1/4 cups per 50lb dog. 

What that boils down to is that even though the Walmart food is "cheaper" to buy, it is NOT cheaper to feed.  It will cost you the same or more to feed Ole Roy than Diamond Naturals. "Cheap" doesn't always mean inexpensive.  Sometimes it is just plain cheap.