Hill's Prescription Diet Hills Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome Stew review

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives (chicken 8%), derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, vegetable protein extracts, vegetables (carrots 0.8%), oils and fats, minerals, fruit, seeds. Highly digestible ingredients: Chicken, pork liver, rice flour, rice starch, vegetable oil. ActivBiome+ Digestion prebiotic blend (3.2%): Ground pecan shell, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried beet pulp, dried cranberries.

Meat and animal derivatives open the recipe, with chicken drawn out at 8%. The front of the list otherwise runs in category terms: derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, vegetable protein extracts and vegetables, with carrots pulled out at 0.8%.

Below that, Hill's names what it treats as the digestible core, chicken, pork liver, rice flour, rice starch and vegetable oil. Pork is therefore in the recipe as well as chicken, which is the sort of thing to raise if your vet has picked a protein deliberately. Liver is also doing palatability work, which counts for something in a food meant to be eaten during a rough patch.

The ActivBiome+ Digestion blend is declared at 3.2% and split out into ground pecan shell, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried beet pulp and dried cranberries. Hill's groups those five under a prebiotic heading, fibre chosen with the gut flora in mind rather than with the dog's own digestion.

Potassium alginate appears at 4.8g as a technological additive, a seaweed-derived gelling agent that gives a stew its set rather than adding anything nutritional. Each trace mineral carries a printed dose: zinc 33.7mg, iron 10.6mg, manganese 2.3mg, copper 1.0mg and iodine 0.3mg.

Moisture is declared at 78.5%, so most of what goes in the bowl is water by weight. Taking that out, protein reads 25.1%, fat 14.9% and crude fibre 7.4%, with the carbohydrate estimate at 46.1% and calcium at 1.07%. Rice flour and rice starch are carrying the texture, and they are why the carbohydrate estimate falls where it does in a recipe of this shape. Energy is 81 kcal per 100g.

Feeding is generous by weight because the food is dilute, starting at 99 grams a day for a 1kg dog, reaching 454 grams at 10kg and 1153 grams at 50kg. How much of that your dog should get is a decision that belongs with the vet who put it on the diet.

It is packed in a single 354g size.