Natural & Delicious N&D Ancestral Grain Adult Medium & Maxi review

Our scoring lands this in the Excellent band, a clear step up from the Good band that the typical adult dry food occupies. What lifts it is the whole shape of the recipe, with no single flourish doing the work. Meat and fish take the first two positions and reappear twice more further down. Carbohydrate converts to 37.2% of dry matter where a typical dry food runs at 46.2%, and the mineral panel is both chelated and dosed in print. Ancient grain takes nothing away from that reading, because it is used as a modest part of the recipe rather than as its foundation.

Ingredients, as declared: lamb (20%), dehydrated lamb protein (18%), spelt (10%), oats (10%), dried eggs, herring, dehydrated herring protein, chicken fat, fish oil (from herring), dried beet pulp, dried carrot, alfalfa meal, inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, yeast extract (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), dried blueberry (0.5%), dried apple, dried pomegranate, dried sweet orange, dried spinach, psyllium husks and seeds (0.3%), sodium chloride, dried brewers' yeast, turmeric (0.2%), aloe vera extract, glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate.

Lamb at 20% is the fresh entry and dehydrated lamb protein at 18% is the concentrated one, and that pairing is the whole point. Fresh lamb carries its weight mostly as water, and cooking removes it. The dehydrated share is what actually turns up in the finished kibble, and 18% is a serious amount of it. Protein converts to 30.8% of dry matter and fat to 19.8%, which is a properly rich bowl by dry food standards.

Spelt and oats at 10% apiece are the ancient grain the name refers to. Spelt is an old form of wheat, and it brings a broader spread of B vitamins and magnesium and fibre than the modern kind. Plenty of dogs that struggle with everyday wheat handle it comfortably, though it does still contain gluten. Oats bring soluble fibre and a useful set of trace nutrients and digest easily once cooked. Between them they leave carbohydrate at 37.2% of dry matter, well under what most dry foods run at.

Behind the lamb sit dried whole eggs, herring and dehydrated herring protein, which is a thoughtful way to broaden the amino acid picture without leaning on plant protein. Herring oil supplies the marine omega 3s ready made, so a dog uses them without having to convert anything. Chicken fat is the other fat source, so despite the lamb billing there is poultry in the recipe.

Look at the additive panel and you see where this label gets ahead. Zinc at 163.8 mg, manganese at 64.6 mg, iron at 58.3 mg and copper at 15.8 mg per kilo all come as chelates. A dog's gut takes that form up more easily. Selenium arrives as selenised yeast, not as a plain mineral salt. Vitamin E is dosed at 600 mg, DL-methionine at 4000 mg, taurine at 1000 mg and L-carnitine at 300 mg, with green tea extract at 100 mg among the sensory additives.

The tail of dried blueberry at 0.5%, apple, pomegranate, sweet orange and spinach is small by weight, and psyllium at 0.3% and turmeric at 0.2% tell you as much themselves. Real digestive work falls to beet pulp, to inulin and FOS, and to the yeast-derived MOS. Glucosamine and chondroitin close the list without printed doses. Read them as a helpful nudge for older joints, not a measured supplement. Calcium works out at 1.21% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level.

£6.67 a kilo, sold in 2,5kg and 12kg bags as the label writes them.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 213 grams a day here, on an assumption of roughly 840 kcal daily (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.42 a day. Portion to the shape of the dog instead of the printed table.