Corn and Hill's

[April Cliber]

I'm new to this group so please forgive me if this has already been covered.....

I was leaving my vet's office today and was chatting with the receptionist. She mentioned that they had a food meeting on Wednesday with a vet who specializes in nutrition and also a Hill's rep. That of course pique my interest. I asked her to ask them why they stuff their food with corn? Within about 10 minutes the whole staff and Dr. was involved in the conversation. (I was the last appointment of the day, so was the only client there.) I don't fully understand all of it, but this is the gist of what Hill's claims.

Although corn is a filler it does have nutritional value, is a good energy source and does not cause a dog to poop more. They say corn is not difficult to digest when prepared properly and it doesn't create a greater risk of food allergies. Corn is a good source of essential fatty acids, antioxidants, carbohydrates and high quality protein. Once cooked, corn becomes highly digestible, like most grains.

They say, the word “by-product” should not leave a bad taste in your mouth. The truth is by-products are not only useful in a wide variety of foods, they’re also essential. When processing soybeans, the by-product Vitamin E is produced. A by-product is simply “something produced in the making of something else and they point out that Vitamin E, Jell-O, beef bouillon, and lamb meal are all by products.


They say looking at the ingredients on a bag can be very deceiving. We know they are listed on the label in order of total volume, with the first few ingredients making up the main content of the food. However, what Hills says is that they are listed by weight, and wet food (such a chicken) will weigh more than corn or grain. Therefore most dog foods have equal amounts of fillers or vegetables and meat. It's just that the meat weighs more because it is a wet food. If it was weighed after it was dried (the way corn and veggies are) it would amount to less than they claim. Sorry this isn't worded well, I'm not understanding it all that well still... This is just what I remember them saying.

I was told I could come to the meeting on Wednesday. What questions would you ask? Do you believe what their saying has any truth or is just a sales gimmick? At this point, I'm thinking sales, but am open to learning. Please share your thoughts.

[April Cliber]

According to my vet's staff the cost of corn has skyrocketed, but so has everything else.... I have read (when my kids were little) that corn shouldn't be the only vegetable served to kids at dinner. It really has very little nutritional value. They need a green vegetable as well. Corn is not bad for kids, but many other choices are better. I think for most dogs some corn would be fine. The issue I have is that Hills is full of corn instead of a variety of vegetables. I'll say it before someone else does. I know my dogs aren't kids. :o) However, it doesn't change the fact that corn really has very little nutritional value whether it be for dogs or kids....

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

April, this is what I was referring to in my post a few spaces above about the relative nutritional values of the various foods. We were posting at the same time!

[April Cliber]

I know, I read your post right after I posted mine. :o)

[Adina P]

Serving only one of ANY food group is not a good idea for humans. Kids/adults need green veggies whether or not they eat corn too. They also need red veggies and various fruits, etc...etc....

Corn also has a lot of nutrients, but calorically and starch wise it fits better into the grains group. So for that reason I don't consider corn adequate as a vegetable food...because the reality is that kids need green beans, and tomatoes, and green lettuce, spinach, broccoli, squash, bell peppers, celery, carrots, beets...and so on for variety. I would say humans need FAR more veggies than dogs do but I can't say that for a fact as I don't know the canine nutrition research... Correlating human needs to dog needs only gets us so far...without data to support our speculations we are just guessing.

[April Cliber]

YES! In fact I have been introducing my litters to a variety of quality foods, (Chicken, fish, lamb) and from a couple different brands. (Canidae and Kirkland) The theory is that if they're introduced to small amounts of a variety of foods while their young that they'll be less likely to have gas, stomach upset and allergies when their older. Beth from IDOG spoke on this at the breeders conference in Texas. I have a base food that I feed, but a couple of times a week I add a little something new to it also. These are the first litters that I've tried this with, so well see...

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

Well said!

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

Speaking from a non-nutritionist educational perspective, when I first took my mother's Bijon after she died he was 7 years old and arthritic and had tear stained streaks in his fur that my mother for years and I started to clean with Crystal Eyes every couple of days. Magic was still alive then, but we were having some issues with Incontinence and smelly ears that sent us to the vet about once a month.

After we lost Magic to the dogfood recall, I started to educate myself about dogfood and was astounded by all I discovered (most of which can be found in The Food Groups discussions). Then when I got my first rescue, Ginger I was already homecooking but using Mixed Veggies in my food. Ginger started having some problems with smelly ears and itching and scratching. Back to the vet. He recommended I start eliminating foods for a couple of weeks and see if there was a difference. I tried eliminating beef for 2 weeks, no change. Then I eliminated corn and within the first week, itching stopped and smelly ears stopped, in Ginger. But the real difference was in Cody. His tear stained eyes started to clear up (he had this problem for 7 years), no smelly ears and no arthritis at all. He runs and plays just like the pups do. Now I haven't cleaned tear stains for 2 years.

I have not used corn at all for more than 2 years now and have NONE of the problems I used to. I am not saying that corn is the culprit in all troubles, but I have my own scientific evidence that it made a huge difference in all my dogs. I also don't believe dogs should eat the same things over and over day after day year after year any more than people would. One article should never be used as gospel any more than one person can know everything there is to know.