Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Renal Cans review

Ingredients, as declared: Poultry by-products, rice, pork by-products, maize flour, sunflower oil refined, minerals, rice flour, powdercellulose, fish oil, dried beet pulp, fructo-oligosaccharides, marigold meal. Protein sources: poultry by-products (15.6%), pork by-products (13%).

Poultry by-products lead at 15.6% and pork by-products are printed at 13%, the two figures the label gives for its protein sources. By-products are the parts of the carcass left once the prime cuts have gone, organ meat included. The poultry entry names a category, never a bird. Rice sits between the two meats on the list, with maize flour, refined sunflower oil and rice flour behind.

Protein is declared at 5.4%. That looks startling until the moisture is discounted, and on a dry matter basis it comes to 15.9%. A renal diet is defined by keeping protein down. The figure is a design decision, not a thin recipe. Fat moves the other way, reading 9.0% in the tin and 26.5% of the dry matter.

Moisture is declared at 66.0%, which is low for a tinned food and makes for a denser loaf, with energy coming out at 168 kcal per 100g. The carbohydrate estimate takes 49.7% of the dry matter, which is what happens when rice and maize flour do the work the protein is not being asked to do.

Ash is declared at 1.7%, converting to 5.0% of dry matter, and calcium reads 0.5%. Phosphorus is the figure owners of a kidney patient are usually told to watch and the tin does not print it, so that one has to come from your vet or the maker's technical literature. The label runs its cellulose entry into a single word, and cellulose here is purified plant fibre, with dried beet pulp behind it.

The added panel is a short one. Vitamin D3 is at 430 IU per kilo, iron at 13 mg, iodine at 0.5 mg, copper at 4.1 mg, manganese at 3.9 mg and zinc at 39 mg. Clinoptilolite at 0.4 g is listed as a technological additive. No daily table comes printed with it. Worked from the energy figure, a 15kg dog would be near 501 grams a day, though the portion on a food fed for a diagnosis is the vet's call.

It comes in 410g cans.