Bosch Light review

The typical adult dry food reads Good on our scale, and Bosch Light comes in a step below that, in our Average band. Be careful what you conclude from it: a light recipe deliberately strips out fat and dilutes calories, which is exactly what drags a general-nutrition reading down. Judged as a slimming tool, the pieces are where they should be, with modest fat, high fibre and dosed L-carnitine. The unnamed poultry and the heavy cereal share account for the rest of the gap.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried poultry protein (18%), rice, barley, corn, millet, dried beet pulp (desugared), cellulose, protein hydrolysate, fish meal, poultry fat, dried peas, peas, fish oil, dried yeast (incl. 0.1% mannan oligosaccharides, 0.06% β-glucans), potassium chloride, sodium chloride, green-lipped mussel extract (0.1%), dried chicory.

Dried poultry protein at 18% is the animal anchor, already concentrated, so protein still reaches 21.7% of dry matter despite the diluted calories. The species is never named, the one real transparency gap on the label.

Rice, barley, maize and millet share the starch work, and estimated carbohydrate comes to 58.2% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. In a light recipe some of that is by design, since carbohydrate displaces fat, though it does mean the food leans firmly on its cereals.

The fibre pairing is the heart of the plan: desugared beet pulp for gentle fermentable fibre and cellulose for pure bulk. Cellulose adds fullness with almost no calories, which is its whole job here. It is also the ingredient critics of light foods point at, being a processing byproduct with no nutrition of its own. With total fibre declared at 7%, it is working as a legitimate tool rather than a filler run amok.

L-carnitine at 200 mg per kilo is the metabolic helper, an amino acid that assists the body in burning fat while sparing lean muscle, and it is backed by an unusually full B-vitamin panel. Green-lipped mussel extract at 0.1% adds joint support, sensible in a food for dogs whose joints are carrying too much.

Fish meal and fish oil supply the omega 3s, and calcium is declared at 0.98% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level.

£3.02 a kilo when we checked, in a 12.5kg bag, with a 2 x 12.5kg twin pack also sold.

Fed for weight maintenance at roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult dog needs about 264 grams, which comes to £0.80 a day. The label's own maintenance line says 200 grams for that weight, and a reducing plan would sit below maintenance in any case.