Greenwoods Dry: Beef Beef Hooray with Lentils, Potatoes & Carrots review

Our Good band holds all three, level with the typical adult dry food. The spread inside the range comes down to construction rather than to care. The beef carries the most protein at 29.3% of dry matter with the least starch at 42.4%, and the turkey follows closely at 28.6% and 42.3%. The lamb leans harder on potato flakes and potato starch to land at 45.5% carbohydrate, close to the 46.2% typical. Protein and processing reads Good on the turkey and Average on the beef and the lamb. Nutritional balance reads Good on the turkey and the beef and Average on the lamb, and that pair of readings sums the difference up.

Ingredients, as declared: 28.6% fresh beef, 14.9% beef protein (dried), 14.5% potato flakes, 12.1% lentils (dried), 9.2% beet pulp (desugared), 8.1% beef fat, 7.8% potato starch, 2.2% carrots (dried), 2.1% sunflower oil, 0.5% brewer's yeast extract (hydrolysed and dried)

Fresh meat opens every label, at 28.0% in the lamb, 28.6% in the beef and 30.1% in the turkey. Fresh meat brings a lot of water with it, and the oven drives that off. That is exactly why each recipe pairs it with a dried protein of its own. The analysis backs the construction up, with protein landing between 27.4% and 29.3% of dry matter across the three.

Not one of the three carries cereal. The lamb runs on potato flakes at 18.8% with potato starch at 17.9%, and the beef on potato flakes at 14.5% with dried lentils at 12.1%. The turkey uses dried sweet potato at 23.6% with dried peas at 15.4%. Pure potato starch is a binder first and a nutrient source second, and that is part of why the lamb reads a little starchier than the other two.

The fat comes from the animal in each case, poultry fat in the lamb and the turkey and beef fat in the beef, with a little sunflower oil added to the beef for omega 6. Desugared beet pulp does the fibre work throughout, chosen in that form because the sugar has already been taken out of it.

The trimmings are short and sensible: dried cranberries and spinach in the lamb, dried carrots in the beef, dried pumpkin in the turkey. Hydrolysed poultry liver in the lamb and the turkey and hydrolysed brewer's yeast extract in the beef are palatants, in at 0.5% to make the bowl worth finishing. Both do the same job in different ways, and neither is doing anything to the nutrition at that share.

For a label this short the vitamin and mineral work is thorough, with the B group dosed individually, choline chloride declared and zinc between 123 and 127 mg per kilo across the three. Selenium comes in at a small dose, as sodium selenite. It is the commoner choice where two forms are legal. The turkey recipe alone adds DL-methionine, the only supplementary amino acid anywhere in this range.

Beef and nothing else fills the animal side, with fresh beef at 28.6%, dried beef protein at 14.9% and beef fat at 8.1%. No other recipe in the range does that. It also holds the most protein at 29.3% of dry matter and the least starch, with dried lentils at 12.1% and dried carrots at 2.2%, plus 2.1% sunflower oil. For a dog you want kept on a single animal, it is the obvious one of the three.

Every recipe is £4.33 a kilo. All three come in a 1.5kg bag, and the lamb and the turkey also come in 12kg along with an economy pack of two 12kg bags.

Across the three, a 15kg adult in moderate condition lands between 222 and 224 grams a day, which works out at £0.96 to £0.97, from a maintenance estimate near 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). For the same dog the labels ask 190 to 265 grams. Let the ribs settle the portion, not the chart.