Purina Beneful Healthy Weight Dry DOG FOOD Review

With a score of 1.5/10, Purina Beneful Healthy Weight is another low scoring line of Purina dog foods. It’s considered a very high risk dog food based on our criteria. Contributing to that is the ingredient safety score of 0/10 for the single recipe in this line. There is only 1 recipe, with 25% protein and 41% carbohydrate as calculated.

The carbohydrate content is exceptionally high, especially when this is marketed as a food to reduce or maintain weight. Dogs have no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates but starch is required for extrusion in dry foods. Excessive carbohydrates are an indicator of lower food quality as they can be used to reduce manufacturing cost. Foods that are high in carbohydrates can increase insulin levels, increase the risk of obesity and cause unwanted changes to the gut microbiome. 

Although this recipe lists chicken as the first ingredient, it’s followed by a list of grains and starches. You’ll find corn, barley, rice, wheat, oat meal and soybean meal, as well as soybean hulls, within the top 11 ingredients. Manufacturers state they include soybean hulls, an industry waste product, as a source of insoluble fiber in dog food. This is questionable as this same line of food states that it includes “accents” of apples, carrots and green beans. You’ll find these listed after salt meaning these are glam ingredients that are added in such minuscule amounts that they provide little or no nutritional value. Apples, carrots and green beans have naturally derived vitamins and are also a source of insoluble fiber so if they were added in larger amounts, it would be preferable to using cheap industry waste like soybean hulls.

Also high on the ingredient list are plant proteins like corn gluten meal, soybean meal and oat meal which also contribute to the high carbohydrate level. Plant proteins are a less expensive substitute for quality animal protein. You want to see animal sources because they’re more digestible and contain a wider array of amino acids than plant based protein sources.

An excessive amount of vitamins and minerals have been added to meet nutrient requirements in this recipe. This usually reflects poor quality or overly processed ingredients. Vitamin and mineral excesses, especially vitamin D and copper, can also result from added vitamin premixes, so it’s preferable that most or all vitamins and minerals come from real foods. 

It’s also worth noting that the recipe 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. 

On the ingredient safety side, this recipe scores 0/10, which is concerning. The concerns begin with kibble being an ultra processed dog food which costs points. 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 recipe also uses ingredients known to contain higher pesticide/herbicide residues, like wheat and barley, in the top 5 ingredients. Crops that are spray-dried with Roundup contain more glyphosate/herbicide residue than other crops, even genetically modified ones. Glyphosate is an antibiotic that can kill beneficial gut bacteria and has been linked to cancer and other diseases.  

Corn is a GMO crop included in the top 5 ingredients of this recipe, with soybeans further down the list. 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, require increased pesticide risk and may be involved in bee die-off. 

This recipe also contains natural flavor, which is added to make processed food more palatable. But natural flavor is often either MSG or animal digest, both low quality ingredients with limited safety studies. The use of rice costs a point because of potential arsenic contamination. This is a significant concern since rice naturally absorbs arsenic that can contaminate the water it’s grown in. Arsenic is linked to chronic health issues.  

This recipe contains food coloring, which has been linked to health issues. It also includes menadione, a synthetic form of vitamin K that is not required in dog food. It may be linked to immune system dysfunction, oxidative damage to cells, liver toxicity, and allergic reactions. 

The concerns below don’t cost points but are worth noting. 

There is ingredient splitting in these recipes. That’s the practice of splitting ingredients into subcategories to make them appear lower on the list. This can also move more desirable protein ingredients higher.  

Lastly, Purina doesn’t provide the omega-6:omega-3 ratio, which is a concern since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory ratio of 30:1.