Iams is not the worst dog food ever made, but it isn't great either. Certainly not what you'd consider to be a premium food anyway. Here's a page that explains how to select a good quality dog food, and what you should be looking for:
www.boxerworld.com/feeding
As for the Iams ingredients - nowhere near the same thing as either Chicken Soup of Innova. Here's the Iams large breed puppy:
Chicken,
Corn Meal, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum,
Chicken By-Product Meal , Ground Whole Grain Barley, Fish Meal (source of fish oil),
Dried Beet Pulp (sugar removed), Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of vitamin E, and Citric Acid),
Natural Chicken Flavor, Dried Egg Product,
Brewers Dried Yeast, Potassium Chloride,
Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Choline Chloride, DL-Methionine, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Vitamin E Supplement, Ascorbic Acid, Manganese Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Vitamin A Acetate, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Rosemary Extract, Thiamine Mononitrate (source of vitamine B1), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin, Riboflavin Supplement (source of vitamin B2), Inositol, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Folic Acid, Cobalt Carbonat.
The "offensive" ingredients are in italics. What's wrong with them is as follows:
corn meal - corn is difficult for dogs to digest, making it a nutritionally-useless filler. Since this is the number two ingredient in Iams, and the "first" ingredient is chicken inclusive of it's water content (which probably actually means that once the water is removed, the chicken is no longer number one
) you know you're feeding a food without a great deal of nutritional adequacy. Dogs are primarily carnivores and should get their nutrition primarily from meat sources, not from cheap grains. Corn is also just about the most common allergen for dogs.
chicken by-product meal - by-products are those parts that are either useless for any other purpose (heads, feet etc) or else are too low quality to be used elsewhere.
beet pulp - another common allergen.
natural chicken flavor - artificial flavour
brewers dried yeast - by product of the alcohol industry and a common allergen
salt - as bad for dogs as it is for people
No dog food is perfect, of course, but Iams has got a *lot* of nasty ingredients and they're high up the ingredient list too - meaning they make up a high proportion of the food.
Here, conversely is the ingredient list for Chicken Soup:
Chicken, turkey, chicken meal, turkey meal, whole grain brown rice, whole grain white rice, oatmeal, potatoes, cracked pearled barley, millet, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), duck, salmon, egg product, flaxseed,
natural chicken flavor, kelp, carrots, peas, apples, dried skim milk, cranberry powder, rosemary extract, parsley flake, potassium chloride,
salt, choline chloride, dried chicory root, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin, vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
Now the only "offensive" ingredients in this food is the artificial flavour and salt. But both occur well down the ingredient list, meaning that it is a very small proportion of the food. Note also that the first four ingredients are meat sources, there are plenty of vegetables and no really nasty grains or other nutritionally-useless allergens. Definitely in a class well above the Iams
