Username: Password:
Welcome! Please Sign In or Register

Life's Abundance

reviewed by PetsnPups

A complete holistic dry dog food. No corn, wheat, soy or animal by-products.

PetsnPups
08/22/2009

Life's Abundance 3

I signed up to be a distributor of Life's Abundance 2 yrs ago. I breed the Bernese Mountain Dog & Birman Cat. Prior I had tried many commercial brands trying to weigh out good quality with price although at the time I did not know how to read a label. About 5 yrs ago I found that on both Science Diet & Iams all of my Dogs & cats were throwing up daily, now I know why because commercial foods grind up euthanized pets & restaurant slop as an ingredient, I can prove this if you ask me to.

During the recalls I searched for foods I could trust & decided that it would be very beneficial to sell a product as well since there are so many major financial losses in breeding high quality dogs that I needed something to counter balance the losses. I was convinced the food was good so I let the company abuse me by forcing me to buy $300 in a product package of almost everything they sell, (this was a requirement) then I still had to buy my dog & cat food on top of that. Also in order to make this work I need the replicator website that I pay $10.98 per month for so here is my experience.

The cats did just fine on the transition & their coats did improve but I cheated because I also added a vitamin powder (granule) to the food because that specific supplement provided specific ingredients that flush out mercury from the vaccines. This is from a separate company altogether
http://www.nuvet.com/82216
Cats & kittens still eat it, still healthy, End of story.

The dogs were a very different story. The Food they were on was Royal Canin for large breed dogs which had an enzyme added into the food. The dogs feces were small & infrequent, cleanup was minimal. All major considerations when you have several dogs. I blended the two foods for transition into Life's Abundance & by the time they were fully on Life's Abundance the dogs were consuming 3X the amount food than before, feces was 3X larger & the clean up was 3X the amount going out for the trash, it was terrible & became a health hazard as I could not clean up messes fast enough.

I then transitioned them back into the Royal Canin for large breed dogs. I called the main reps on this matter as I was sure I had a solution & I wanted to share that large breed dogs require enzymes to assist with the break down of food and I wanted to see this improvement added, each of the reps never had these problems or at least never noticed these problems themselves so one rep became suspicious of me & thought I was a rep for Royal Canin, she actually accused me of that on our 3 way call. That was offensive because I was a distributor, I had specific problems & nobody took me seriously.

So then they referred me over to Dr Jane, I was very motivated & urged her to make these changes because I really wanted to sell the food but it was difficult to do so unless I was feeding it to my dogs & I won't feed it due to this one problem. I had searched for bulk enzyme powder so I can add it myself but could not find any. I then became concerned for the actual content of the food, a better quality food should consume less of, not more of. When dogs eat more food then it is a lesser quality. So I insisted on a factory walk through since their own video talks of these pet food secrets but I got an immediate "Oh no, you can't do that". I asked "why not?" then I was told they have "proprietary secrets". Well that's interesting because so do the commercial pet food companies have secrets by putting peoples dead pets in the food, It's actually the pet version of the Movie Soylent Green.

As I was persistent it was revealed to me that Trilogy (Life's Abundance) does not make the food. I might not have the email anymore telling me this but they go through a particular entity that makes the food then sells to anyone wanting to place their copyrighted label on it, I find that fascinating from an entrepreneurial point of view so when it is said that Dr Jane formulates the food may not be true at all & could be why nobody is interested in in my suggestion to actually reformulate the food because they may not have any control over that but is merely a business front & understandably so, every business has to look as professional as possible.
She could have at least pretended to take notes & say they would work on the problem but there seemed to be the air of unconcern.

I still don't care about the illusion, I just want the food to have enzymes added or create a food specifically for large breeds. Royal Canin was smart enough to do that & I wanted to push this trade practice along to the owners so I got in touch with the owner 3 months later & told him the same thing that I told Dr Jane. He then says, "I have never heard of this type of situation before" so I asked him "well did Dr Jane or the reps tell you about this when I called 3 months ago?"
He said "No". I said, "well there you go, your people are not telling you what is going on with your own business & that is why you are unaware".

When I listened to trilogy recorded phone conversations I found that there were other complaints about the dog food & since the reps supposedly have had no problems themselves & supposedly actually feed Life's Abundance to their pets always poo poo the complaints of dogs or cats throwing up on the food as being related to something else like lawn pesticides etc, & as I have seen I don't think they are documenting these complaints & I don't think anyone cares. The owner told me he does not make money on the food so after careful consideration I realized he makes a hefty sum off of the distributors who are forced to buy the product package but moreso the $10.98 per month from each distributor who uses the website.

If you charge $10.98 per month for replicator sites to say 100,000 distributors then income is $1,098,000 per month. That's very interesting assuming that Trilogy has 100,000 distributors, even if it were half that then I suppose someone could survive on half a million per month so why should he care if one pesky distributor is having problems with the food, I still feed it to my cats, he still gets my $10.95 month & most of my customers are very happy with the food, even their finicky cats like it, now I get a profit check from trilogy which fluctuates but last check was for $20 for the month so now my customers are paying my $10.95 per month so I am not so sore about that anymore, money talks. What will people do for money? I now wonder about the reps into this business up to their necks making a lot of money. What will they cover up to keep their income? I suppose just like any corporation they will cover up anything necessary to keep the company going. I just wanted one little thing of them that would increase their customer base but ya know, when you make a million bucks a month income why stress yourself out. If he took my suggestion based on that if he actually did have control over the factory he would double that to 2 mil but then that would put him in a much higher tax bracket & not be worth the trouble. All I wanted was a solution, that was 2 years ago & nobody has ever called to review the situation, I am still looking for an alternative to Royal Canin because I don't trust that there are not any ground up euthanized pets in my pet food.

So why don't I sell another dog food? My last search led me on a dead end as far as quality. One that is available for distributorship use Corn as their number one ingredient. That will kill my dogs by giving them intestinal torsion. Last check nothing compared ingredient wise with distributorship to Life's Abundance but then I really can't actually verify that since I can't hang out at the plant due to big secrets.

Join to vote! 0 Helpful / 0 Funny / 0 Agree / 2 Disagree
Showing 17 Comments
You must be logged in to comment. login now.
sheltervt commented 99 days ago.
(Edited 99 days ago)
When you start your post claiming that you know for a fact that dead pets are used in some pet foods, it's hard to take the rest of your post seriously. Dead pets being turned in to other pets food is a myth. This has been proven time and again by the FDA and various other entities to be untrue.

Life's Abundance is an average quality food, at best, and their MLM schemes and mail-order only purchasing/shipping fees make them undesirable.

Royal Canin is another brand that is average quality. No, there are no euthanized pets in it... but again, no American pet foods contain euthanized pets. Royal Canin Maxi Large Breed Adult DOES, however, contain corn, which can promote bloat and is nutritionally a poor ingredient.

PetsnPups commented 99 days ago.
There are many people who when they investigate & ask people in key places verify dead pets go back into the food. A woman who bought a puppy from me who's husband manufactures & sells dog food who just finished a legal battle with a major corporation over the corporation using his copyright name told me that the 3 Ds that end up in dog food is real, Diseased, Dead & Dying, along with euthanized pets. She also said the entire holistic thing is a farce. All meat must be cooked until crisp, all of the nutrients are baked out of it, then each item is a commodity that are brought over in ships unrefrigerated.
The items will rot in the moist holding bin so each item is heavily sprayed with chemical preservatives before it ever reaches the plant.

Once all ingredients are then added together at the factory it is still void of nutrients so then synthetic vitamins are added. All kibble is equivalent to is if you ate a cracker with vitamin powder sprinkled on it. The more I learn the more I think cooking meals for my dogs is a much better idea and they will live twice as long. The oldest living dog in the world is 21yrs old, the woman fed him lamb & rice. The oldest dog recorded, now dead was a beagle at 28 but I don't have details on that dog.

Just 4 days ago I ran across a hidden video from the vets office to the rendering plant. It's in the last half part of the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAZrpWzAzww
& if FDA says it's not true then someone is getting paid off, I don't know why people are naive enough think that corporate CEOs & government officials all walk around with little angel wings & halos over their heads, fact is it's dog eat dog, battle for power, payoffs, survival of the fittest. After all, if you saw me doing something illegal then what is your price to tell officials the opposite story, $100,000? $900,000?
The guy in the video exposed this & if I have to wait outside of a vets office & follow the trail which would be exactly like in the 70s movie Soylent Green then I will.
For those that don't know, the movie is based on future time where due to population levels every square inch of land is covered with cities and food shortages where the government distributes these little green chips. One day when a man checks into the hospital to be euthanized then his son finds out then actually jumps on top of the truck that takes his father from the hospital to see where they take him, it turns out to be a rendering plant where all of the people are processed back into food called Soylent Green, & if people actually think about it this will occur when food supplies cannot support the mass population anymore & it is happening now with pets & like I said if I have to then I will take my camera & catch something worthwhile. Meanwhile this is all I have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAZrpWzAzww

PetsnPups commented 99 days ago.
Now that you have seen the video lets analyze it. I don't think any part of it is fake. They are not allowed to go the the regular dump so they do get ground up into a mush, they do get cooked.
I got the below statement from this website:
http://equineprotectionnetwork.com/slaughter/render .htm
-----
Standards for giving rendered products to animals are much lower than giving rendered products to humans.

The products which come from the rendered body are as follows:

Bone and blood meal- feed or fertilizer (it is high in nitrogen and calcium).
Stearic acid - goes to car tires.
Cartilage, tendons, hooves - produce a gelatin, and is used in products such as Jell-O, camera film, and canned ham gel.

Feathers and hide (known as "dry matter") - make up a protein mass at the rendering factory. It is turned into pellets to for animal feed.
----

Lets focus on that last one. Those euthanized horses go back into pellet feed for animals, that's what caused the mad cow disease because cows are not supposed to eat meat. If horses & road kill are rendered back into feed then what makes you think the dogs & cats are separated out from the other animals? They aren't. To the manufacturer its all meat, its all protein & just mix it all together. The article does specifically say Pellet feed but in some parts of the country like Missouri they do not call it dog food, it's referred to as feed.
I am sure if I keep using all the right keywords I will find many similar articles that discuss where the rendered meat goes.

sheltervt commented 99 days ago.
ohhhhhh, so you heard it from the husband of a client who was involved in a legal battle against a pet food manufacturers, so it MUST be true. And because an author writes it, without any substantiation whatsoever, it must be true. And if a video is shot of heaps of dead dogs and cats, and then a meat like paste coming out of a chute, it MUST be that the dogs and cats are fed into the machine (though why wouldn't they show that?) and that the resulting paste is then turned into dog and cat food.

The reality is that YES, deceased dogs and cats do go to rendering plants. Yes, dogs and cats do get rendered... into fertilizer, not into pet food. The simple fact is, though the FDA routinely tests each food manufactured in America, no pet food has ever tested positive for any traces of dog or cat based protein, at least since the FDA started testing back in the late 80s early 90s. I've worked in the pet care industry for many, many years. I've also worked in the meat industry, and, briefly, in a rendering plant. I currently work in the pet nutrition industry. Me. Personally. Not a friend of a friend. Not my aunt's cousin's sister-in-law. Me. And deceased pets are not tansformed into pet food. And no one has any substantiated evidence to the contrary. It's a web of myths, suppositions, and outright lies.

PetsnPups commented 99 days ago.
Yeah, like FDA missed the entire melamine thing when it was common practice for many years within China to use this derivative of coal. There is absolutely no way FDA or the pet food companies was not aware of it's use only until it became a problem where apparently they increased above the "safe" levels.

Above I added a comment with a website that discusses what happens to rendered horses. All you have to do is search to find the answers and I assure you that the "official story" is always the lie, it's called damage control, it's the hired corporate employees job to lie and lie their ass off to protect the company. But that's fine, if you want to live in your Cinderella dream world go right ahead, the real world is not as we would like it to be but full of deception and corruption and I understand why people like to paint little pixies in their minds refusing to see the real world because few can handle the truth & reality of the world around them nor do they like to turn over that rock, open that door which reads private or look behind the curtain, instead most people prefer to simply be entertained by the floor show.

And just because you worked at a rendering plant does not mean you knew who all the clients that purchased that rendered material, nor would you know that if it's intent was fertilizer that it was not used in food nor do you know that FDA admitted the truth, those guys are paid off all the time by the drug industries to get unsafe drugs on the market.

sheltervt commented 99 days ago.
(Edited 99 days ago)
You are failing to realize one pertinent point, though... you are believing what you want to believe based on absolutely no substantiated fact and in contradiction to any actual factual information that may be presented.

I, on the other hand, am basing my beliefs on facts and firsthand experience... not what I heard from a puppybuyer's disgruntled husband or what I saw implied (but never actually demonstrated) in a video. I've been hands-on in the businesses. I've seen the byproduct vats, I've seen the meat byproduct meal being processed, I've seen the animal fat being skimmed off a boiling vat of roadkill and slaughterhouse waste. And not once did I see a dog or cat go into the mix. My personal experience is backed up by a Federal investigation that has determined that no dog or cat protein is found in any American made pet foods. And you think that I'm painting pixies in my mind? Lady, I've lived it, and it's horrible enough without imagining that it's worse... and that's precisely what you are doing, and what all the other people stating that dogs and cats are turned into pet food are doing. As if the realities of factory farming, corporate slaughterhouses, and meat rendering aren't horrible enough, you have a morbid need to think that it's even worse. You want to believe that Fido and Fluffy are used for pet food, so that is what you believe. I know better.

If you want to avoid any possibility of feeding dogs and cats to your dogs and cats, it's simple, really... don't feed foods that contain any "byproducts," "byproduct meal," "meat meal," "meat and bone meal," "animal digest," or unspecified "animal fat." That rules out any possibility of rendered mystery meat of any from being in your pet's food. Those ingredients are the least regulated, and the ones that contain roadkill, slaughterhouse waste, 4D meat, etc... but regardless of what you have been lead to believe (and seem to WANT to believe), even those horrible ingredients don't contain dog and cat protein.

PetsnPups commented 99 days ago.
OK, I went to the FDA sight.
http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/CVM/CVMF OIAElectronicReadingRoom/ucm129131.htm

You may know the story. This all apparently came about when phenobarbital showed up in pet foods & since people relate that to euthanized pets assumed that it was dead pets so scientists created a test to check for dog & cat DNA.

I want to focus on 2 things.
1. the fact phenobarbital was in the feed means some type of animals that were euthanized did end up in dog food. They admit that on the site

2. I don't trust this test that they just came up with, I want to bring in some scientists that nobody can pay off to check this work.

Continuing on then FDA has determined that the very low levels of phenobarbital found in the food is safe. With that in mind would you eat breakfast, Lunch and dinner with a little added "safe levels of phenobarbital"? Would you be in a rage if this were in your food?

Then to add a note:
If euthanized horses are used then there really is no difference if pets are recycled the same way, they are all animals but it is that DNA test that's got me wondering if it was purposely designed to not detect dog & cat DNA.

If there were a scrupulous businessman then imagine this. When you put your dog down you actually pay a steep disposal fee, I assume the vet keeps a very small portion of that, the rest goes to the rendering plant then a dog food buyer gets it cheap. If the dog food buyer were to actually use fresh killed lamb he would pay a fortune, he would lose all competitive leverage on the price of his product then losing a large customer base. If all such dog food companies banned together they would pull a few strings to make sure their businesses were not put under any strain due to the lid being blown off so they pay a few scientists a hefty bribe.

It is possible the plant you were at did not process vet killed dogs.
Or are you telling me they did but they were never mixed in with the other dead animals?

DogSmith commented 97 days ago.
Sounds like the lady with the Bernese has some dogs with some special dietary needs. Dr. Bicks will tell you that every dog has different nutritional needs, and yes, sometime dogs just don't tolerate certain foods well.

I've had my dogs on Solid Gold, Nutro Max Ultra, Blue Buffalo, Innova and Orijen. They all had a variety of side effects ranging from runny stools to constipation to horrible gas to worst of all - bloat.

Life's Abundance is the only one that they both tolerate well. Their stools are very regular, nicely segmented, compact and generally just very healthy. My 70-lb pointer went from two cups of orijen twice daily to 1.5 cups of LA twice a day, and he maintains his weight. My 40-lb cattle dog eats half a cup twice a day, with some kibble-stuff kongs periodically.

I also live in a rural area, and it is terribly hard to find high-quality kibble. I also never know how long kibble sold in stores has sat in a warehouse/tractor trailer/shelf. Since Life's Abundance ships to my door and contains a manufacture and use/by date, I know it's fresh.
Love LA. Is it the best on the market? Maybe, maybe not.

But it works beautifully for me, and my purchases benefit my local no-kill shelter. I really like that.

http://www.adoptme.org/LifesAbundance.aspx

PetsnPups commented 96 days ago.
There were a few things I wondered why I was experiencing this.

1. Possible lack of digestive enzymes in the food.
2. Possibly higher in fiber
3. Possibly they liked it better & ate more.
4. I free fed & did not regulate intake therefore if it tasted better they would eat more, if they ate more they would defecate more.

Nobody ever offered me any of these possibilities.
I am just now deciding to cook for my dogs.
By my rough calculations it appears I may actually be able cut my dog food bill in half then supplement. The more I talk to various people & one woman who's husband actually makes dog food informed me that it doesn't matter who makes the food that the meat is cooked at such a high heat it turns into a cracker like substance (kibble) the heat destroys all nutrients then they have to sprinkle a vitamin supplement on this crispy cracker.

This kibble in the 1800s was invented & intended only to be a snack for the dog much like you eat popcorn at a movie or munch on chips watching tv, it was never intended to be the main meal for breakfast lunch & dinner. It's like if we humans lived off of crackers & vitamin powder, we would be as sick as the dogs & of course those humans who do live on Doritos, popcorn, chips & Twinkies are sick & diseased.

When you place a meat loaf in the oven can you imagine if you left it in there for 24 hours? would you eat that? could you survive on that daily for decades? Once people realize that what you have sitting in a bag is meat. There is meat in that dog food bag sitting in your house at 85-90 degrees, why doesn't that meat go bad? for one it is over cooked to not even resemble a steak & it must have preservatives beyond vit E or it would rot in a few days.

The more I think about it the meats that actually resemble meat will be far superior to any kibble & the dogs will require even less than even the best kibble. Royal Canin is $51 for a 35# bag before taxes, I think Life's Abundance for Dogs is around $70 per 40# after taxes with shipping.

A person would not want to only feed pure meat but ground turkey on sale is $3 per 2 Lbs so if my math is correct then 35Lb of ground Turkey is $52.50 and that is the most expensive ingredient & yet it is only $1.50 more for that Royal Canin. Some healthy dog kibble use potatoes. Google Potato content. The potato is an incredible health food and inexpensive. On sale they are $3 per 10Lbs so the first part of my messing around with figures I wanted to see the cost of 35 Lbs containing only meat & potatoes 50/50 that only costs $28.50, I was surprised that it is cheaper to cook for your pets, but I still need to go to the store & price out carrots, oat meal, Brown rice etc but I have a feeling when I am done it will cost far less per 35lbs for fresh food than any kibble plus they will eat far less because it is more nutritious.

sheltervt commented 96 days ago.
PetsnPups, if you can home cook pet food and do it right, more power to you... but it's difficult, it's time consuming, and it can get quite expensive, even shopping sales for some of your meats and produce. Keep in mind that muscle meat is little more than protein, so you really need to look into organ meat for higher concentrations of vital nutrients... and in some areas, liver, kidneys, heart, tripe, etc are hard to come by. Also, figure in ground bone or a good calcium supplement. And omegas 3 and 6. And countless other supplemental nutrients... even moreso if you cannot find ready sources of good organs.

The reality is, nutrition is nutrition, whether it come in the form of kibble from a bag, doggy stew from your stovetop, or raw meat from the bone. Cooking kibble is not a bad thing, if done correctly, and cooking doesn't kill nearly as many nutrients as alternative diet zealots would lead you to believe. Also, although studies have been done on the matter, there has never been any superiority shown of any home prepared diet over superpremium commercial kibble... that fact alone has kept me researching top-of-the-line prepared commercial diets rather than slaving over a hot stove preparing my pet's food at home.

sheltervt commented 96 days ago.
DogSmith, your posts are nothing more than marketing propaganda. This site is not intended to peddle your average quality food in support of the Life's Abundance MLM scam.

PetsnPups commented 96 days ago.
I know you are right about the organ meat. A wild dog will eat the entire animal but lets look at Royal Canin & Life's Abundance ingredients. Both start with Chicken Meal

Wiki says:
Chicken meal is a commonly-used ingredient in pet foods. It is defined by the AAFCO as "the dry rendered product from a combination of clean flesh and skin with accompanying bone, derived from whole carcasses of chicken thereof, exclusive of feathers and skin". Chicken meal is never suitable for human consumption as it is rendered.

Another source says:
Chicken meal: a highly digestible source of protein, produced by cooking chicken at high temperatures, extracting the fat and drying the meat residue. It is a meat protein, providing essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals for muscle development and energy.

Chicken: a highly digestible source of protein providing essential amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals for muscle development, energy, and coat condition. Amino acids are more readily available in fresh chicken that has not been subjected to the high heat process associated with chicken meals.

Chicken fat: a high quality source of fat that provides essential fatty acids and energy. It is high in linoleic acid (omega-6), associated with healthy skin and coat.

What all does Life's abundance provide?
INGREDIENTS:
Chicken Meal,
Ground Brown Rice,
Oat Groats,
Chicken Fat
Dried Beet Pulp, (Not beets but the pulp like you get when you
juice out all the nutrients, this is a cheap filler
that might have beneficial fiber
Brewers Dried Yeast,
Flaxseed Meal,
Natural Flavors,
Dried Egg Product,
Catfish Meal,
Salt,
Dried Carrots,
Dried Celery,
Dried Beets,
Dried Parsley,
Dried Lettuce,
Dried Watercress,
Dried Blueberries,
Dried Broccoli,
Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product,
Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation Product,
Dried Bifidobacterium thermophilum Fermentation Product,
Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product,
Pomegranate Extract,
Ascorbic Acid,

If Life's abundance is complete then if I mix all these ingredients to make my own food at home & not expose it to all the baking then it should be superior, especially if I add a good pet supplement then this should be complete since this is your concern.

Also, there is a lot of varied ingredients in Life's Abundance. For every other item added it decreases the meat content. The label does not give percentages but just like in my example above if my goal is to make 35 pounds of product starting with meat then I add potato 50/50 so then each item I add after that decreases the quantity of the first two ingredients.

You said you don't want to cook for your pets, I understand when it is so easy to give kibble. In today's society we don't like to cook for ourselves or our children, they eat the most ridiculous chemical concoctions, now the youngest breast cancer patient is 15yrs old, people are dumb enough that they think it is simply something that happens for absolutely no reason at all yet disease begins in the colon, the colon is the sewage plant of the body & people eat things that can't process & that sewage plant gets clogged then over flows sewage back into the blood stream. It's the same as swimming at the inside bottom of a public toilets septic tank, it's why we get diseased.

You are looking for scientific documentation proving dogs live longer on fresh foods then on kibble. Who is going to fund this trillion dollar testing lasting 2 decades? Not the dog food companies unless they know it will come out to their advantage & even then it is known that scientific figures are altered like in the case of the drug companies just to get product on the market.

There is proof that feeding fresh meat makes dogs live longer. The longest living dog that is still alive is 21 yrs old & she only fed Lamb & Rice. A woman bought a puppy from me who's last Bernese Mountain Dog lived to 13yrs old when today's norm is 6 to 8 yrs. and they always die of cancer. She fed him broccoli everyday, some kibble & some fresh beef. Greens create an alkaline environment, alkalinity has been proven to actually kill cancer, when our colon or a dog's colon contains built up sewage that won't exit the system becomes acid. (This gets complicated because acids are important for digestion but the blood stream should be alkaline) When the body or colon is acid vs alkaline horrible things happen to red blood cells, white blood cells become lethargic & cannot dissolve cholesterol chunks nor can they gobble up bacteria, your insides become an environment like a rotten fish tank that has turned acid, the fish get diseased like humans do, then die like humans do as the funguses & bacterias take over & kill it's host.

By the way I am not knocking life's Abundance. I feed it to my cats & sell it to my cat customers but lately I am adding tuna to give them real meat that still resembles meat. My experience with the Dog food caused me to switch back, I would like to have it tested to see if what they say is in the food is truly the actual content & check for phenobarbital just to make sure. I don't trust anybody anymore, anyone pushing a trillion dollar industry will say anything to get people to buy their product so I am very cautious especially when the company refuses me access to see how the food all comes together or track the sources of the meat. At least if I buy all the product myself from the grocery store then I know it is human grade plus I know 100% it is as safe as it can be.

The life's Abundance video stresses that moving from commercial pet foods to theirs will save people a fortune on vet bills & the dog will live longer, I believe this and I maintain that he will live even longer with fresh home made foods. I will find out soon but I think when I am done it won't be anymore expensive than $70 per 40lb but if it is & they are superiorly healthy then I can save on frequent $100 vet visits or procedures, the dog will live longer saving me another $2400 purchase of a dog just to start the whole thing all over again.

And perhaps you are looking for stats on life expectancy from feeding top of the line to feeding sewage. I can show many examples of people living much better, healthier, longer lives while living in remote locations who eat specific foods with zero incident of heart disease & who's children moved off to eat western diets only to have the mother who has buried 3 of her 6 children who died as a result of poor western style eating habits. Animals are the same in that aspect.

DogSmith commented 96 days ago.
Look, this site is for opinion sheltervt, and you do not hold back yours, so please do not ask me to hold back mine.

The product is great. I like it. It benefits my shelter. The food is fresher than anything that sits on a shelf. It has the convenience of shipping to my door. It is made with a fast-cook process to retain the maximum amount of nutrients. It is made in a stand-alone facility so there is no concern about cross-contamination.

All of this is reason for me to like and recommend the food. If you do not like it, please don't use it. But please stop bashing, too.

And if you think that your precious TOTW, Orijen, Evo, etc. don't use MLM, you are nuts. In any free-market society, numberous levels of companies (from the ingredient suppliers to the manufacturers to the marketing companies to the high-end retail stores) make money off of products from the end-user. But in this case, my shelter makes the money (I pay out of my pocket for the web site and for the samples). And in this case, Trilogy is completely transparent about its marketing model.

So get a grip, and good grief, stop being so darned negative. I can't even get through your posts they are so full of anger! I sure wouldn't want a shelter technician with that kind of demeanor giving off those negative signals to my animals!

Sheesh!

DogSmith commented 96 days ago.
FYI: A 40-lb bag is $60.64. If you order two bags at once, the shipping per bag is $3.

The food also goes a lot longer way that most other kibble, since it has 480 kcal/cup (as opposed to 350 kcal/cup in most other dog foods). I reduced my dogs' volume of kibble by 20 percent, and they maintained their weight.

And yes, when I have leftover meats and veggies, that gets mixed in with some V8 or milk or yogurt or cottage cheese. I love supplementing their kibble with human food, but when we travel, it's nice to know that I don't HAVE to cook for them - that we can simply feed a high-quality kibble that their digestive systems are used to.

Also, many people knock beet pulp, and I believe wrongly so. The beet fiber is medium fermentable and an excellent source of nutrients for the intestinal wall which not only is important to the body's ability to absorb nutrients, but is the largest part of the immune system. It also creates a nice, digestible form of fiber that contributes to the nicely-segmented stool one usually sees as a result of feeding Life's Abundance.

And yes PetsNPups, I agree that if you were to feed most of the ingredients in Life's Abundance fresh, you would have a great food also. However, please know that dogs quite often cannot digest certain raw vegetables - they have to be cooked to some degree to break down certain enzymes to make them more digestible. For instance, if you feed raw corn to your dog, I can guarantee you it will come out EXACTLY the way it went in. Ditto for carrots, cauliflower, etc. So cooking is not necessarily bad. OVER cooking is.

And yes, I still supplement my cats' food with real meat. They love it and beg for it and it's great for them as a daily treat.

sheltervt commented 96 days ago.
PetsnPups, I wish you and your dog good luck on your nutritional journey, but implore you to do more research aside from the Life's Abundance propaganda and what you know of human digestion. It's a completely different system in dogs than what you see in humans, and the same rules do not apply.

And, for the record, supplementing cat's diets with tuna can lead to nutritional backlash known as hepatic lipidosis. Better to find a more digestible protein source to supplement your kitty's kibble.

PetsnPups commented 95 days ago.
To Dogsmith.
Trilogy charges tax so per order shipping is around $7.50 and all that brings the total order to around $70.00
What is incredible is that I have ordered multiple bags of dry & wet cat food, it came in 3 big boxes weighing a ton but still only cost $7.50 shipping. I am amazed UPS gives them this deal but what a savings for the consumer.

The first time I ordered from them was the first time anyone ever charged me tax for an online order. I was infuriated & contacted the company over that issue. Then I called my local IRS to see if it was now mandatory for internet businesses to charge or pay taxes at first she hesitated then hee'd & haw'ed saying yeah sort of then I said well either it is or it isn't then she said it was voluntary.
Then I asked so you would not go after an online business for not paying their taxes, she said no. Now this was a call into Colorado IRS but I assume it's internationally the same.

I hadn't actually studied beet pulp value so thanks for letting me know

Some feed raw. It is said uncooked bones are safe because they are pliable but dogs will still swallow whole pieces so after thanks giving I bought an otherwise $25 turkey for $5, for that price I bought 4 then gave them to the dogs frozen. They gnawed on them for 2 days, in cool weather they stayed frozen, this way they slowly knaw off small pieces of meat & small pieces of bone. None had a single loose stool.
I worry about bacteria then so I gave them yogurt.

I recently asked Safeway if they still had that pallet of $5 turkeys & they said they sent them back. WOW, so all I need to do is get me a free or cheap freezer on Craigslist then wait until after Thanksgiving then I will load that freezer up with $5 turkeys & my dogs will think they went to turkey heaven. I don't have to feed them raw, I cold cook them but I wanted them to get the raw bones while still pliable.

To Sheltvert, You are right.
I just looked that up, Tuna being bad for cats, especially if that is the only thing they eat.
So I assume mice are more suitable nutrient wise.
It's funny there are no canned cat foods labeled -Mouse flavor- or -Delicious Chunks of Rat-. LOL, New York would do well in business & reduce their Rat population at the same time.

PetsnPups commented 92 days ago.
It just hit me.
Life's Abundance dog food does not contain Lamb anymore. This was not announced to me.
The imported organic Lamb from New Zealand. That's apparently really expensive to import from so far away by land. Now the only meat on the label is Chicken Meal which can come from anywhere. It's a far less expensive meat than Lamb yet the higher price remains the same. It could be that to avoid price increases due to the deflation & eventual collapse of the US dollar they cheapened the product. I was close to trying the Life's Abundance for my dog's again but now I need to reconsider at this time. I have noticed something immediate though with my experimenting with raw & cooked food. I found a special on fresh chicken leg with hind quarters for 33cents per pound.

I have 2 dogs who's eyes frequently get blood shot. I now suspect an allergy to the corn glutton or other chemicals in the Royal Canin for large breed dogs. I held back the kibble & fed each one with a raw frozen chicken drum stick or rear quarter with bones, then I give a whole baked potato, then whole grain brown rice & cabbage. Their blood shot eyes cleared up & did appear to be more bright eyed & energetic. They are getting meat, potatoes & vegetables plus a NuVet supplement. I can't imagine how that could be unbalanced & I do plan on adding a kibble in between. It turns out the cost to feed with those ingredients with the special deals is far less than kibble. The most expensive is the Brown rice & I need to decide if I even need that since I include the potato.

Mineral Vitamin Content of a potato: a good supply of water and ions.
The potato is rich in potassium with its skin.
Also contains calcium, iron, and phosphorus, copper, manganese.
Large amounts of Vitamin C.
100 gm of potato will contain about 17 mg of Vitamin C. Vitamin A, B and P, vitamin B6, and dietary fiber and protein.

Starch content: Potato contains about 17% starch and it is one of the best natural sources of starch.

Turkey contains:
Protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Riboflavin, Folate, Pantothenic Acid, Choline, Betaine, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium, Zinc

Then add a green vegetable & supplement to round it out
Showing 17 Comments
About This Reviewer
By the Numbers