MERRICK BACK COUNTRY DRY DOG FOOD Review

With a score of 4/10, this is considered a high risk dog food. There are 10 recipes that have average protein of 35% and average carbohydrates of 27% as calculated. This line has the highest average protein of Merrick’s dry dog food lines at a reasonable level for a dry dog food.

This line loses ingredient quality points for its high carbohydrate content derived from including several grains and starches. Excessive carbohydrate is an indicator of low quality foods as it’s often used to keep costs down. Large amounts of starch can increase insulin levels, cause obesity and negatively impact gut balance.  Even though this line is described as Raw Infused (meaning they’ve added some freeze dried proteins), they’re not higher in protein than similar foods and these recipes are still essentially kibble.

This line loses significant ingredient quality points for excessive added vitamins and minerals. This usually reflects poor quality or overly processed ingredients. Ideally, these nutrients should come from whole food sources. Vitamin and mineral excesses, especially vitamin D and copper, can also result from vitamin premixes.

It’s also worth noting that the line contains sodium selenite as a source of selenium. Dogs need selenium, and it’s usually added in very small amounts. However some research suggests that sodium selenite may be associated with potential toxicity, so selenium yeast is the preferred form of this mineral.  

The line also loses ingredient quality points for including plant protein and seed oil. Plant proteins are a low cost substitute for quality animal protein. Animal sources of protein are preferred because they contain a wider array of amino acids and are more digestible. Seed oils like canola, safflower and sunflower are highly processed and are inflammatory as they’re rich in omega-6 fatty acids, which can cause systemic and gut inflammation.  

It doesn’t affect the score, but it’s good to see these foods include probiotics, however they don’t guarantee the amount. 

The ingredient safety scores for this line are low, with many concerns. Like all kibbles, Merrick’s Back Country Dry 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. 

There are a few recipes that use ingredients known to have high pesticide or herbicide residues,  like oatmeal and barley, sometimes in the top 5 ingredients. Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers pose a significant health risk to plants, animals and soils. Foods with the largest reported amount of residue are penalized, including crops that are known to be spray-dried with glyphosate. There are also known GMO foods in the top 5 ingredients including potatoes. There are limited safety studies on genetically modified and Roundup Ready crops although they are lacking in nutrients compared to non-GMO foods. GMO crops also strip nutrients from soils, lead to increased pesticide risk and may be involved in bee die-off.

The use of rice in several recipes costs ingredient safety points because of arsenic contamination. This is a significant concern with rice since it naturally absorbs arsenic which can contaminate the water it’s grown in. Arsenic is linked to chronic health issues. Finally, points are lost as natural flavor is used in each recipe to make processed food more palatable. But natural flavor is often either MSG or animal digest, which is a very low quality ingredient with limited safety studies.

All of these recipes contain glam ingredients. These are expensive or desirable ingredients like blueberries, kale and apples that are often added to appeal to consumers but may be in minuscule amounts when they’re below the salt in the ingredient list. Salt is an ingredient added in small amounts so anything listed after salt has little or no nutritional value.  

Ingredient splitting also occurs in some recipes. This is a technique of splitting ingredients into sub-categories (such as peas and pea protein, or potatoes and potato protein) to move certain ingredients higher or lower on the ingredient list. This is often used to disguise the amount of lower quality ingredients in the food, such as corn, potatoes or peas, and moves desirable ingredients, like proteins, higher.

These foods don’t specify whether the fish is farmed or wild caught. Farmed fish is less nutritious than wild caught fish and doesn’t contain the same healthy fatty acid balance. 

Merrick doesn’t state the omega6:omega-3 ratio in their foods. While this is true of most foods, AAFCO allows a very inflammatory limit of 30:1. Diets rich in omega-6 fats can cause chronic inflammation and disease.