ACANA RESCUE CARE DOG FOOD Review

With an average score of just 4, ACANA’s Rescue Care is their lowest scoring line and is rated as a high risk food. Overall, this would be considered a lower level dry dog food. The Rescue Care line loses food quality points for its fairly high carbohydrate content, with an average of 32%, which makes it one of ACANA’s highest carbohydrate food. Excessive carbohydrate is in indicator of low quality foods as they are used to keep costs down. Large amounts of starch can increase insulin levels, cause obesity and negatively impact gut balance. Like many ACANA foods, the Rescue Care line is a bit unique in that it doesn’t contain a lot of added minerals, which indicates higher ingredient quality. However, it does lose food quality points for excessive added vitamins and unspecified animal proteins, which indicate lower quality ingredients.

The food safety score is lower because, like all kibble, ACANA Rescue Care is ultra-processed. The individual ingredients in dry dog foods are heated several times during processing, which can cause a significant loss of enzymes, vitamins, amino acids and phytonutrients. Processed foods are also linked to higher mortality rates in many species. This line also loses points for unspecified fish species in its fish oil, as well as multiple added amino acids, which suggests most of the protein comes from less complete plant sources and not animal sources. 

ACANA Rescue Care loses a significant number of points for several high pesticides/herbicide foods in the top 5 ingredients, including oats, peas and lentils. These crops are sprayed with Roundup before harvesting and are higher in Roundup than most other foods. The food also loses ingredient safety points for natural flavor, which is often either animal digest or MSG, which are low quality ingredients with limited safety studies. Finally, the food does not provide the omega-6:omega-3 ratio, which is a concern since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory ratio of 30:1. 

It’s worth noting that there is significant ingredient splitting on this label. Dog food ingredients must be listed by weight, from most to least. These foods have oat groats in the top 5 ingredients and whole oats appears further down the label. There is also splitting with red lentils and green lentils, green peas and yellow peas. There is little difference between these ingredients but listing them separately moves them further down the label to make consumers believe there is more meat in the food than there probably is.