# Nutri Source a good food?



## Binkalette (Dec 16, 2008)

We've been feeding our almost 3.5 month old Lhasa Apso puppy Iams Proactive puppy food for about a month, and I've wanted to switch her to something that's a higher quality.. We live in a really small town so there aren't many choices for where to buy dog food. Last night it dawned on me however that there is a small-ish country store on the edge of town that sells horse feed and stuff like that, and I remember going in there once with my mom to get something for the cat.. and so I thought maybe they have dog foods too.. Anyways I went in there and they had all kinds of food.. none of the Iams/Purina type stuff but I saw the chicken soup stuff and Diamond brand and some other brands I've seen talked about on this site. After reading the ingredients list on all of the puppy foods I decided I liked the Nutri Source (small and medium breed) Puppy food. I think it sounds like a pretty good food.. Here is the ingredient list:

Chicken meal, chicken, brown rice, white rice, fish meal (a source of fish oil), oatmeal, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), flax seeds, beet pulp, tomato pomace, sunflower oil, natural flavors, dried egg product, brewers yeast, potassium chloride, salt, proteinated minerals (zinc proteinate, iron proteinate, copper proteinate, manganese proteinate, cobalt proteinate, selenium proteinate), yeast culture (saccharomyces cerevisiae, enterococcus faecium, lactobacillus acidophilus, aspergillus niger, trichoderma longibrachiatum, bacillus subtillis), vitamins (vitamin A acetate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, niacin, pantothenic acid, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), folic acid, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement), glucosamine hydrochloride, lecithin, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), choline chloride, chondroitin sulfate, yucca schidigera extract, calcium iodate, rosemary extract.


Is it at least better than the Iams stuff we were feeding her? My next option to get a better food involves driving an hour and a half to a larger city.. X_X Lemme know what you guys think please! Thanks!


EDIT: Oh.. also they advertised on the bag about having something called Proven YeSacc 1026 strain of yeast applied to all of the nuggets.. What does that mean?

Heh.. As far as how well she likes it this says it all:









The empty bowl on the left is the new Nutri Source food.. the full bowl on the right is her old Iams food.


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## Kibasdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Seems like a halfway decent food. But one thing I don't like is the inclusion of "menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity)"

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=menadione


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## BentletheYentle (Oct 6, 2008)

I use NutriSource Adult Chicken and Rice in my rotation and I do really like it. It was actually the first food that Bentley ever thrived on. His coat became absolutely gorgeous, he finally hit his perfect weight, actually started eating every meal and his doggie breath disappeared. For the price it costs, its a great food. Now that I work in a pet food store and get discounts, he gets even better foods, but I still go back to it every once in a while if my checkbook is feeling pinched. Our store actually works closely with the company and they are going to be packaging their lamb and rice formula in our store brand bags which will be insanely cheap for me so I'm super excited for that! 

I will agree with that post about the vitamin K stuff, though. I do try to avoid it, but that's really the only fault I find with the food personally.


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## Binkalette (Dec 16, 2008)

Good to hear! (except for the vitamin K part..) I knew it was made in the USA but then my hubby wanted to know where and it turns out it's made in Perham, MN, with is about a half an hour from my home, and about 10 minutes from my parents cabin. I like that it's made so close to home.. makes me feel good about it


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## BentletheYentle (Oct 6, 2008)

Binkalette said:


> Good to hear! (except for the vitamin K part..) I knew it was made in the USA but then my hubby wanted to know where and it turns out it's made in Perham, MN, with is about a half an hour from my home, and about 10 minutes from my parents cabin. I like that it's made so close to home.. makes me feel good about it


Yeah, and I like their manufacturing. They only have one plant that makes the dog food and they have a wet lab right on site for testing. Plus, the fact that they only sell to smaller pet stores (not the big chains like Petsmart etc) and they only have one plant to ship from, their prices rarely go up. Very good considering most "big" foods have had price increases lately.


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## zannie (Mar 12, 2008)

i have been feeding it for about a year now and all four of my dogs do very good on it


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## Spicy1_VV (Jun 1, 2007)

I use Nutrisource Super Performance (it is the same as Sm/Med Breed Puppy) for some of mine sometimes. They do well with this food. It is not the best food, but it is better then most Iams I've seen and the average grocery store foods (pedigree, ol roy, most purina, kibblesnbits, ect). 

I also use PureVita for some, which like Nutrisource & Natural Planet Organix is also manufactured by Tuffy. It is a little costly I think compared to some of the others (Fromm, Wellness) I use but I throw it in the rotation sometimes and it is cheaper then others Merrick just went up for me so not sure if it is cheaper or more and Evo is more, Core is maybe just a drop more expensive. Maybe the place also carries the Purevita if you want to go a step up.

I do not like ingredients of some of the nutrisource foods though. The ones with lots of grains or corn or wheat. They are supposed to be taking wheat out so we shall see. 

For your question it means they spray the yeast culture on.

Yup it is manufactured here and family owned company.


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## BentletheYentle (Oct 6, 2008)

Spicy1_VV said:


> I use Nutrisource Super Performance (it is the same as Sm/Med Breed Puppy) for some of mine sometimes. They do well with this food. It is not the best food, but it is better then most Iams I've seen and the average grocery store foods (pedigree, ol roy, most purina, kibblesnbits, ect).
> 
> I also use PureVita for some, which like Nutrisource & Natural Planet Organix is also manufactured by Tuffy. It is a little costly I think compared to some of the others (Fromm, Wellness) I use but I throw it in the rotation sometimes and it is cheaper then others Merrick just went up for me so not sure if it is cheaper or more and Evo is more, Core is maybe just a drop more expensive. Maybe the place also carries the Purevita if you want to go a step up.
> 
> ...


They already took the wheat out of the Adult Chicken and Rice formula. I'm not sure about the others since I don't use them.

Pure Vita is an awesome food, just a bit pricey for me as a college student. At my store it runs $48 for a 25lb bag. Most of the other "premium" brands are cheaper. Definitely a great food if its in your budget though.


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## Spicy1_VV (Jun 1, 2007)

BentletheYentle said:


> They already took the wheat out of the Adult Chicken and Rice formula. I'm not sure about the others since I don't use them.
> 
> Pure Vita is an awesome food, just a bit pricey for me as a college student. At my store it runs $48 for a 25lb bag. Most of the other "premium" brands are cheaper. Definitely a great food if its in your budget though.


Yes you are right, they changed others too already. It is also using Chicken Fat instead of Poultry Fat. When my rep had mentioned it I made a mental note of it and later checked the website for ingredient change. However our distributor messed up. We were supposed to get samples of the ones without wheat. So DH told him to ship those. Distributor said only the Lamb and Rice had changed and sent 2 boxes of that. Well the Lamb and Rice is the exact same (at least the samples are and it didn't have wheat to begin with). Hopefully we will get correct samples in a couple weeks. I'm still stuck with old inaccurate samples. I don't pay much attention because I only have use for the Super Performance corn and wheat free.


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## BentletheYentle (Oct 6, 2008)

Spicy1_VV said:


> Yes you are right, they changed others too already. It is also using Chicken Fat instead of Poultry Fat. When my rep had mentioned it I made a mental note of it and later checked the website for ingredient change. However our distributor messed up. We were supposed to get samples of the ones without wheat. So DH told him to ship those. Distributor said only the Lamb and Rice had changed and sent 2 boxes of that. Well the Lamb and Rice is the exact same (at least the samples are and it didn't have wheat to begin with). Hopefully we will get correct samples in a couple weeks. I'm still stuck with old inaccurate samples. I don't pay much attention because I only have use for the Super Performance corn and wheat free.


Its kinda weird that they took the corn and wheat out of the Super Performance but not the regular Performance. That's the only one we have in stock at our store, but we do special order the super for people because they want to eliminate the corn/wheat. Now that I realize that formula is the same as the sm/med Puppy, I might just tell them to buy that to save the wait time (Thanks for pointing that out). I wish they would just take the corn out of all of their foods already. They also just lowered the size of the medium and large bags. At least they didn't raise the prices at the same time.


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## Spicy1_VV (Jun 1, 2007)

BentletheYentle said:


> Its kinda weird that they took the corn and wheat out of the Super Performance but not the regular Performance. That's the only one we have in stock at our store, but we do special order the super for people because they want to eliminate the corn/wheat. Now that I realize that formula is the same as the sm/med Puppy, I might just tell them to buy that to save the wait time (Thanks for pointing that out). I wish they would just take the corn out of all of their foods already. They also just lowered the size of the medium and large bags. At least they didn't raise the prices at the same time.


Super Performance has always been better since I've been using it. That is why I was disappointed on the large breed puppy food having corn b/c the sm/med (& super performance) did not. I'm sure they will at least keep corn in the reg performance since people can always step up to super. Also a lot of the lower end performance feed have corn (even if some of the foods of that same brand/line don't) for whatever reason. I think bulk and added carbs is why. Not sure though, I've noticed that with a lot of performance formulas having corn but say adult, puppy, senior, ect doesn't in same brand.


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## Binkalette (Dec 16, 2008)

Just an update on this thread: I contacted the company that makes Nutrisource dog foods and asked them about the MSBC (vitamin k) stuff and if they might be able to remove/replace it in the future and she responded that they are in the process of adding more natural sources of Vitamin K to the food and when the feel confident that the levels of natural vitamin K are high enough, they will be removing the MSBC from their foods  

I was actually pretty surprised that they read my email and replied with an -actual- answer! That's more than I've ever gotten from most companies. :-D

Anyways we are VERY happy with this food.. Our dog still eats is like it's 'people food' and I feel her overall health has improved. Her coat is softer and shinier, the goop in the corners of her eyes has VANISHED and she just seems so much spunkier. Her poops are also much firmer and smaller, and they dont smell as much as they did on the Iams puppy food. :-D


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## odp1979 (Jan 5, 2009)

The only thing I can see that is controversial is the beet pulp and tomato pomace, both are just fillers. Other than that, I would think this food is in the 4 star category.


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## chasse (Jan 28, 2009)

Binkalette said:


> Just an update on this thread: I contacted the company that makes Nutrisource dog foods and asked them about the MSBC (vitamin k) stuff and if they might be able to remove/replace it in the future and she responded that they are in the process of adding more natural sources of Vitamin K to the food and when the feel confident that the levels of natural vitamin K are high enough, they will be removing the MSBC from their foods
> 
> I was actually pretty surprised that they read my email and replied with an -actual- answer! That's more than I've ever gotten from most companies. :-D
> 
> Anyways we are VERY happy with this food.. Our dog still eats is like it's 'people food' and I feel her overall health has improved. Her coat is softer and shinier, the goop in the corners of her eyes has VANISHED and she just seems so much spunkier. Her poops are also much firmer and smaller, and they dont smell as much as they did on the Iams puppy food. :-D


Yeah, they answered my email too. I just found this forum about 5 mins ago while looking for more info and personal experiences with Nutrisource. I came to the same conclusion as the original poster, looking for dog food for a puppy I have coming in a few months. 

I was looking for something that mostly had rice as grain, since dogs have much smaller digestive systems than humans (making grain more difficult to digest) and rice is the easiest grain to digest. Rice also seems to be less allergenic and used in formulas for dogs with allergies/sensitive stomachs. This was further reinforced by looking at all the dogs who had trouble with the Canidae formula change where all they really did was decrease the amount of rice (due to the price of rice going up) and increase the peas, barley, oats, etc. Dogs used to digesting mostly rice had some serious issues with upset tummies. Then you look at all the upset tummy issues with Merrick puppy plate, well of course that will happen when you put chunks of freeze-dried veggies in the formula. I would go grainless but the high protein amount isn't recommended for puppies. 

Nutrisource small/medium breed puppy and California Naturals Chicken and Rice were the only two I could find that were mostly rice. I liked Nutrisource because they had a guaranteed analysis of 100 mg/kg Vitamin C (twice the amount of any other good food I could find) and Vitamin C is believed by some to be important for warding off hip displasia. Then there's also the high level of DHA (important for brain development), Glucosamine & Chondritan (not cheap to put in there), and the enzymes/probiotics. It's nice to see two sources of meat (California naturals has one). It has some of the highest amount of fish I've seen in a formula, fish is expensive compared to other meats. I too live in MN and that's a plus.

I was worried about the fish meal being the fifth named ingrediant. You know, what type of fish and is it and is it preserved with ethoxyquin (as most fish meal used in livestock feed is)? So I sent them an email and they responded by saying it is tuna fish and they require all their suppliers to sign an ethoxyquin free statement. 

I didn't realize they had menadione in it though. But if they are planning to take it out soon that's no problem. The concern about menadione seems to be the effects it has over several years. Yeah there's a couple of fillers (beet pulp and tomato pumace) but those are the tenth and 11th named ingredients right between flax seeds and sunflower oil. Thus there isn't a whole lot of it. I do worry about the high fat content of 21% though which may cause bloat. 37% of all Great Danes develop Gastric Volvulus bloat, which is often lethal to them. Breeds such as Weimaraners, St. Bernards, Gordon Setters, Standard Poodles, Beagles, and Irish Setters have been known to be susceptible. Of course, these breeds would probably be on the large breed food with a much less fat content of 14% though.

I think I'm gong to give it a shot when the puppy comes. I'll let you know how it goes.


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## BentletheYentle (Oct 6, 2008)

Binkalette said:


> I was actually pretty surprised that they read my email and replied with an -actual- answer! That's more than I've ever gotten from most companies. :-D
> 
> Anyways we are VERY happy with this food.. Our dog still eats is like it's 'people food' and I feel her overall health has improved. Her coat is softer and shinier, the goop in the corners of her eyes has VANISHED and she just seems so much spunkier. Her poops are also much firmer and smaller, and they dont smell as much as they did on the Iams puppy food. :-D


Yeah, from what I've experienced, they have excellent customer service. And I'm so glad to hear about how well your dog is liking the food! Those are exactly the sort of things I noticed when I switched my dog to this food from the new formula Canidae.



chasse said:


> This was further reinforced by looking at all the dogs who had trouble with the Canidae formula change where all they really did was decrease the amount of rice (due to the price of rice going up) and increase the peas, barley, oats, etc. Dogs used to digesting mostly rice had some serious issues with upset tummies.


I work at a pet food store and since the Canidae change, we have had MANY complaints about it and we've recommended either Nutrisource or CalNat to these customers. Most of them choose the Nutrisource because of the price and quality and almost every single one has come back and told us how wonderfully their dogs are doing, most even better than on the old Canidae.


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