Essential Foods Essential Eternal Living review

The banding here puts this recipe level with the typical adult dry food, both of them in our Good band, and that is worth reading carefully. Our scoring rewards named animal ingredients, and this recipe deliberately has almost none, so a meat free list starts on the back foot however thoughtfully it is put together. The fundamentals underneath hold up perfectly well: protein at 32.6% of dry matter, estimated carbohydrate at 37.5% against the 46.2% typical for the shelf, and a mineral panel dosed in full. Protein and processing reads Poor, nutritional balance reads Good and transparency reads Outstanding.

Ingredients, as declared: Brown rice protein (17%), field beans (10%), linseed (8%), peas & pea protein (16%), sweet potato (6%), chickpeas (6%), whole dried eggs (6%), sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, brewer's yeast, fresh eggs from free-range chicken (4%), lentils (3%), lupins (3%), minerals, dried seaweed, Potato, vegetable gravy, lucerne, broccoli, algae, fructooligosaccharides, mannanoligosaccharides, cranberry, acai, bilberry, mulberry, apple, tomato, orange, pear, carrot, spinach, cauliflower, marigold, ginseng, decaffeinated green tea, ginger.

The protein case rests on brown rice protein at 17% and the pea pairing at 16%, with field beans at 10%, chickpeas at 6%, lentils at 3% and lupins at 3% adding their share. Several of those are concentrates, not whole foods. They are chosen for the protein they deliver, and the amino acid spread a dog would take off a carcass is a wider one. The total reaches 32.6% of dry matter, a strong number in isolation and a slightly softer one once digestibility is allowed for.

Egg is the single animal ingredient and it is a well chosen one. Whole dried eggs at 6% and fresh free range eggs at 4% bring protein a dog uses about as efficiently as anything it eats. They also bring fat and a wide spread of micronutrients, covering ground the legumes cannot reach.

Fat comes from sunflower and rapeseed oils, not from an animal. Both are respectable choices, low in saturated fat, and sunflower oil brings vitamin E along with it. Linseed at 8% carries omega 3 in its plant form. The algae further down the list matters more than its position suggests, because algae supplies the long chain omega 3 that dogs otherwise take from fish.

Taurine is the entry that shows the recipe has been thought through properly. Dogs normally take taurine from meat and fish, so printing a dose of 1,428 mg on a meat free food is exactly the right instinct. Brewer's yeast sits nearby, and few natural ingredients carry B vitamins as well. Seaweed brings iodine. The trace minerals come as amino acid chelates, with zinc and iron at 48 mg, manganese at 34 mg, copper at 14 mg and iodine at 0.96 mg per kilo.

Cranberry, acai and broccoli tail the list with the rest of the garnish, and none of it is what the recipe stands on. Calcium reads 0.98% of dry matter and ash 6.5%, both lighter than the brand's meat led recipes, which is simply what happens when there is no bone in the mix.

£6.75 a kilo, sold in 2.5kg and 10kg bags, each of which also comes as a multipack.

On an energy basis, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at roughly 226 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is £1.52 a day. The bag's own guide is lighter, 153 grams for a dog of that weight. Watch the ribs over the first fortnight and adjust from there.