The first ingredient in the food is chicken inclusive of water content. Once this is removed, as it must be to make a dry food product, the ingredient will weigh around 20% of its wet weight. It is thus very unlikely that this is the true first ingredient in the food, and it would be more accurately placed much further down the ingredient list. The main ingredients in the food are grains. These are wheat and barley. It is firmly believed that dog food should be based on meat rather than cereals. Wheat is believed to be the number one cause of allergies for dogs. Chicken meal is the first true meat ingredient in the food, but unfortunately does not occur until fourth on the ingredient list. There is a further meat meal ingredient (salmon) 7th on the ingredient list, but this is too far down to make a substantive contribution to the food. The inclusion of some amount of vegetable matter is appreciated. I would prefer to see the use of whole eggs rather than dried egg product in the food. The first 10 ingredients are sufficient to demonstrate that this food is very high in grain content compared to meat. The ingredients used are primarily decent quality and the grains are at least whole (not fragments). However, wheat is the major ingredient and is likely to cause problems for dogs prone to allegies.  Some  5 and 6 star rated foods are: Nature's Variety, Orijen, Solid Gold, Timberwolf, Artemis, California Natural, Canidae, Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul, Evangers, Fromms, Go Natural, Innova, Merrick, Natures logic, Wellness, Some of the 4 star rated food: Blue Buffalo, Dr's Foster & Smith, Natural Balance, Performatrin Ultra, Pinnacle, Premium Edge, Sensible Choice Some of the foods above are priced very reasonably (Canidae at my local store is only $32 for 40# bag) The above foods have more calories per cup of food than the cheaper grain based foods. Usually about 450 quality cal/cup versus 350 low nutritional cal/cup. Therfore less food is needed to maintain weight, this offsets the small added cost of the above 22 listed premium brands. Good luck on your choice.