#veterinary diets

[ms-cellanies]

Some cans of this dog food were actually a different Purina dog food that had been mislabeled. Here's what you need to know about this recall.

I posted this info yesterday from another source.  I’m reposting for anyone who may have missed this recall.

[drferox]

Dr. Ferox, why are perscription pet diets so horrendously expensive? There's no medicine in them and they usually just have a slight dietary modification (low protein, low magnesium, hydrolyzed protein, etc) so why aren't they the same price of the non-rx foods from the same brands?

Well, a couple of points to discuss here.

Firstly, I think you underestimate what prescription diets do. They’re not all ‘slight dietary modification’, some of them are highly specialized nutrition (eg liver, hypoallergenic) and even those that are less extreme, it’s not necessarily a matter of not adding one or two ingredients, but or removing molecules and elements until the diet meets very specific nutritional profiles.

These diets are food as medicine. They are all produced and fed for a specific therapeutic benefit. Some prevent disease. Some replace medicine, and some complement our other therapies in a way that prescription medications alone just can’t do.

For example without advocating for any particular brand, a feline thyroid diet may mean a cat doesn’t need to be on any thyroid medication at all. Diets to prevent urinary crystals are the best method we have to prevent recurrent urethral blockages. Our anallergenic diets are the best tool we have to rule in or out food allergies.

So these prescription diets are more than just ‘slight dietary modification’.

Their ingredients can also be expensive to use, but they’re all used for a purpose. Glucosamine and chondroitin are expensive to add to a diet, and the anallergenic range uses chicken feather hydrosolate (chicken feathers broken down to their amino acids) as a protein source. That diets competes with the human hypoallergenic infant formula industry so that product is also expensive. That example is also not something you could replicate with a home cooked diet.

Their ingredients are often more expensive than their non-prescription versions, and more research has gone into their developing and their licensing.

But how do their prices actually compare? Well, firstly most of these diets have a recommended retail price set by the manufacturer, most vet clinics don’t change that.

They would be a bit more affordable if you could buy them in larger bags, but the dry food is generally not too bad in terms of cost. The canned food lines are pricier.

I did some price comparisons for a few diets that we often stock, then compared their feeding cost per day for a 5kg cat and a 10kg dog. This is the fairest way to compare the cost of feeding one diet compared to the other.

So compare the costs of these diets from the same manufacturer for a 5kg cat from a similar sized bag:

Normal Adult: $1.16 per day

Dental diet: $1.49 per day

Hypoallergenic diet: $1.59 per day

Urinary health diet: $ $1.51 per day

Renal diet: $1.33 per day

So they are a bit more expensive than the ‘normal’ diet for the same brand, but they are providing a therapeutic benefit and I don’t think I would call that ‘horrendously’ more expensive.

And for the 10kg dog:

Normal adult: $2.68 per day

Dental diet: $3.25 per day

Hypoallergenic diet: $3.88 per day

Urinary health diet: $3.35 per day

Renal diet: $3.45 per day

Being able to buy these diets in bulk would make them more affordable.

So they are approximately 40% more expensive, but considering that these diets may prevent surgery, save a life extend a life, be used as a diagnostic test or otherwise improve an animal’s quality of life in such a way that requires minimal handling from the owner, many people conclude that they are worth it.

[vidadqgn-blog]

Purina HA Hypoallergenic Dog Food 16.5 lb

Purina Veterinary Diets HA (HypoAllergenic) Canine Formula is a low allergen, vegetarian dog food with optimized levels of hydrolized proteins, Purina HA Hypoallergenic Dog Food 16.5 lb MCT's, and other vital nutrients. Minimizes chance of allergic reaction in your pet.