Jinx vs. Sundays for Dogs: Which Food Is Better | Sundays
Finding the right dog food for your furry friend is important. Considering Jinx? This guide takes a closer look at Jinx compared to Sundays.
Taking care of a puppy or dog can be a lot of fun, but it can also come with a lot of responsibility. There are many decisions you have to make as a dog parent. Your decisions will impact your pup’s health, wellness, and overall nutrition. That’s why it’s essential to know your options and be prepared to navigate the different dog food options.
There are many popular dog food brands, like the Purina Pro Plan, Hill’s Science, and Fromm, that may be housing ingredients you may prefer not to see.
Jinx dog food is another popular option. Is Jinx dog food really a healthy option for your dog? How does it compare to Sundays Food for Dogs? Let’s find out below.
What Should You Look For in Dog Food, Anyway?
What should you look for when comparing two different dog foods? The key is in evaluating the ingredients, the processing methods, and the standards by which they were made.
Real Ingredients
The first thing you should do when considering a new dog food is take a look at the ingredient list. If you see familiar foods, easy-to-pronounce names, and ingredients you recognize, this is a green flag! If you see unfamiliar ingredients that are hard to pronounce, you may want to dig a bit deeper before committing to giving your dog that recipe.
Processing Methods
It’s also important to consider the method with which a dog food is processed. Some dog foods are processed using extreme heat, pressure, and chemicals, which can kill nutrients. Other dog foods use minimal processing methods, which are ideal for your furry BFF to get all the good stuff.
Balanced Formula
Some formulas focus on protein without adding any extra nutrients, vitamins, or minerals. Other formulas include fillers, which act as empty calories with little to no nutritional content. Still, other formulas lack grains, vegetables, fruits, and simply aren’t balanced formulas.
Many dog food brands try to exclude a certain food group from our dog’s diet. However, it’s important to look for a balance of foods.
Look for a variety and balance of meat, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Jinx Dog Food
Jinx dog food offers a range of different foods with different meats like chicken, salmon, grains, and grain-free options. If you’re considering buying Jinx dog food for your pup, there are a few things you should know before buying.
Hot Extrustion
The first red flag when it comes to Jinx dog food is the way it’s processed. Processing methods matter, especially when we’re considering what we feed our pups. The more food is processed, the less nutritional value it holds. In fact, every time you heat up your own food in the microwave or oven, you break down a portion of the vitamins and nutrients in the food.
The same effect applies to heat extrusion with dog food. Heating up dog food at extreme temperatures and with extreme pressures is designed to kill bacteria. Unfortunately, this serves to kill the nutrients as well.
For this reason, it’s best to stay away from heavily processed foods and aim for foods that are minimally processed instead, like air-dried or even steamed foods.
Chicken Meal
If you take a look through the ingredient list of Jinx dog food, you’ll notice the second ingredient listed is known as “chicken meal.” It’s important to learn to recognize meat meals and understand what they are so you can avoid including them in your dog’s diet.
In short, meat meals are broad terms for feed-grade ingredients derived from an animal. In other words, chicken meal includes any other ingredients and byproducts from the chicken animal. This can include feathers, teeth, eyeballs, hair, beaks, talons, blood, and more. Essentially, meat meals include all the leftover ingredients from an animal and only a small amount of actual meat and tissue.
Meat meal is an example of feed-grade ingredients in dog food. Dog food is held to different standards than human food, and these standards are referred to as feed-grade. This can give your dog a range of nutritionless ingredients instead of the nutrition-packed ingredients they need to thrive.
Jinx foods also contain other meat meals, like turkey meal, kelp meal, and alfalfa meal.
The Grain-Free Red Flag
Jinx dog food also relies on their grain-free diet for their marketing strategy. They do have grain-inclusive options , but these are mostly made with brown rice. Their grain-free dog food options are also cause for concern. What’s the problem with grain-free? Let’s take a look.
Many dog food brands use a grain-free marketing point to advertise their food options. In turn, this can lead many dog parents to believe grains are bad for their pups. In reality, grains are packed with essential nutrients your dog needs for energy and sustenance.
While some grains, like gluten, can lead to irritation and allergy, this doesn’t mean dog foods need to exclude all grains entirely. Grains like oats and quinoa are rich in antioxidants, fiber, and other vitamins and minerals that are excellent for wellness.
Synthetic Ingredients
Synthetic ingredients are always a red flag, no matter what food you’re considering. The ingredients you give your furry friends should be real, not artificial and synthetic.
What synthetic ingredients are included in Jinx dog food? There are a shocking 23 of them, from taurine to synthetically-derived vitamin supplements.
It’s important that you’re feeding your pup real, authentic ingredients in their dog food. This will provide them with the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals they need to thrive. Be sure to evaluate the ingredients to see whether they’re synthetic or not.
Anti-Nutrients
In addition to looking at ingredients and nutrients, it’s also important to look at anti-nutrients.
Anti-nutrients are foods that can interfere with the body’s absorption of nutrients. These foods include legumes, large amounts of leafy green vegetables, and beans.
The main concern with anti-nutrients is the long-term effect they can have on health, though more research is needed to understand their effects. Jinx dog food contains both chickpeas and lentils which can interfere with your dog’s body and its ability to absorb nutrients.
4 Sketchy Ingredients
In addition to feed-grade ingredients, meat meals, anti-nutrients, synthetic ingredients, and extreme processing methods, there are four more less-than-ideal ingredients in Jinx.
These sketchy ingredients include the following:
- Natural flavor
- Tomato pomace
- Chicken meal
- Chicken fat, preserved with mixed tocopherols
Sundays for Dogs
Sundays for Dogs is clean dog food that offers healthier kibble for your pup. How does Sundays for Dogs compare to Jinx? Let’s take a closer look at what you should know below.
Sundays is Gently Processed & Air-Dried
First, Sundays for Dogs is minimally-processed, compared to Jinx’s hot extrusion processingn. How do we minimally process our foods? The key is in gentle air-drying! We gently air-dry all of our dry food in smaller batches to retain as many nutrients in each bite as possible.
Sundays Uses Human-Grade Ingredients
Here at Sundays, you can say goodbye to feed-grade ingredients like meat meals and hello to human-grade. In short, human grade dog food is dog food made up to human grade standards. There are many aspects of regular feed-grade dog food that simply doesn’t cut it for human food standards. Why should it be enough for our dogs?
Human grade is an excellent label to look for on the dog food bag, especially when paired with all-natural ingredients.
No Anti-Nutrients or Sketchy Ingredients
In addition to including human grade, all-natural, minimally processed ingredients, Sundays is completely free of sketchy ingredients and anti-nutrients.
Each of our ingredients is hand-selected to provide as much nutritional value to your pup as possible. Every bite counts.
Here’s a look at some of the ingredients you’ll find on the back of a Sundays box:
- USDA beef, beef liver, beef bone
- Pumpkin
- Millet
- Wild Salmon Oil
- Kale
- Flaxseed
- Zucchini
- Parsley
- Turmeric
- Ginger
- Blueberries
- Carrots
- Apples
- Tomatoes
- Shiitake Mushrooms
- Spinach
- Cherries
- Strawberries
With ingredients you know and love, there’s no better way to share the love with your furry best friend.
Supporting Health & Wagging Tails
Your dog is part of the family, so taking care of their health and wellness is important. While exercise, proper sleep, and cognitive stimulation are important facets of health, a big way you can do this is to support a nutritious diet.
Just like us, our dogs need a wide variety of nutrients from a range of fruits, vegetables, meats, and whole grains. There are also some foods our dogs should avoid as they can present the risk for allergies or even toxicity.
But, don’t worry. Our helpful tools and resources can help you become an even better dog parent! Learn more here about your dog’s nutrition, health, and how you can support them.
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