Royal Canin Anallergenic review

Ingredients, as declared: Maize starch, feather hydrolysate with low molecular weight (source of L-amino acids and oligopeptides), copra oil, soya oil, minerals, vegetable fibres, chicory pulp, fructo-oligosaccharides, fish oil, mono - and diglycerides of palmitic and stearic acids esterified with citric acid, animal fat, marigold meal. Protein source: feather hydrolysate with low molecular weight (19.78%). Carbohydrate source: maize starch (46.3%).

Maize starch opens the list and is printed at 46.3% as the carbohydrate source. One protein source does all the work here: feather hydrolysate with low molecular weight, declared at 19.78%. The label calls it a source of L-amino acids and oligopeptides. Hydrolysis chops protein into very short fragments, and that is the entire idea behind this recipe: no meat cut, meal or named fish appears anywhere on the ingredient list.

The fats are a mix. Copra oil and soya oil sit high up, fish oil comes further down and animal fat is listed at the tail end without a species beside it. Those last two matter on a strict exclusion. Fish oil is fish-derived even though it carries no fish protein, and the unnamed animal fat cannot be traced to a species from the label alone.

Behind the fats the recipe is fibre and minerals. The bulk comes from vegetable fibres and chicory pulp. Fructo-oligosaccharides do the prebiotic work, and marigold meal closes the list. An emulsifier is spelled out in full as mono- and diglycerides of palmitic and stearic acids esterified with citric acid. It is a processing aid that holds the fats and starch together, not a nutritional inclusion.

Converted to dry matter, protein reads 19.6% and fat 17.9%, with crude fibre at 2.2%, crude ash at 6.7% and the carbohydrate estimate at 53.6%. Energy works out at 376 kcal per 100g. Protein sits well down for a dry food and starch well up. That follows from building the recipe around a single hydrolysed protein and maize. Read those figures as the shape of the diet, not as something missing.

The added panel is printed with doses throughout: vitamin A at 38500 IU and vitamin D3 at 800 IU. Iron follows at 41mg, iodine at 3.5mg, copper at 15mg, manganese at 55mg, zinc at 149mg and selenium at 0.34mg per kilogram. Clinoptilolite is declared separately at 9.8g as a technological additive, while the preservatives and antioxidants are named only by category. Feeding runs from 54 grams a day for a 2kg dog through 243 grams at 15kg to 854 grams at 80kg. On a diet like this the practitioner who prescribed it sets the amount, not the table.

It is bagged in 3kg and 8kg.