Sadly enough, your average vet isn't very educated in nutrition beyond what they are told by commercial pet food companies, who influence them starting out in vet school already. Vets are highly trained medical professionals, but just like you wouldn't ask a human general practitioner about specifics in nutrition or raising children, veterinarians generally aren't the best source of information about nutrition and training. Add to that the fact that many of them recommend foods they sell themselves, for a tidy profit.
I've run into this myself at my own vet's and discussed nutrition with her, finding out she wasn't even informed about
any alternatives to Hill's prescription foods. That's all she knows, so she doesn't recommend anything else. If I didn't know better, one of my cats would have been eating prescription food made from poor quality ingredients for 9 months now, and continue to do so for the rest of his life.
No matter how many people want to ridicule those of us who have done their research and now know better as "militant", fact is that there are alternatives out there that are not made from poor quality ingredients and with the use of various chemical substances. If you look at the ingredients in these foods and do a little research on what they truly are, it becomes very obvious.
The Beneful "Prepared Meals" are made from poor quality ingredients but are marketed with successful ad campaigns. Cute commercials win over crappy ingredients.
Just as an example, let's look at the "Simmered Chicken Medley":
Water sufficient for processing, chicken, wheat gluten, liver, green beans, meat by-products, corn starch-modified, carrots, wild rice, white rice, natural & artificial flavors, salt, dicalcium phosphate, soy flour, potassium chloride, tricalcium phosphate, added color, zinc sulfate, choline chloride, Vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, copper sulfate, manganese sulfate, Vitamin A supplement, niacin, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, Vitamin D-3 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, potassium iodide, folic acid, sodium selenite, biotin
Note that they don't even list the type of animal the "liver" and "meat byproducts" come from? Beef? Pork? Horse? Goat? There's also a higher amount of wheat gluten and corn starch than rice or veggies. What are the artificial flavors, and why would a food made from good quality ingredients need them at all? Chicken, veggies and rice all boiled together are flavorful enough.
Just to compare, here's the ingredient list of a quality product:
Water (sufficient for processing), Chicken, Carrots, Celery, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Chicken Liver, Green Beans, Green Peas, Pasta, Turkey, Rolled Oats, Barley, Soy Sauce, Dried Kelp, Garlic Powder, Calcium Lactate, Ascorbic Acid, Zinc Gluconate, Di-Calcium Phosphate
Eukanuba and Iams were good quality foods 15 years ago, but things changed drastically when Procter & Gamble bought up the company and turned to lesser quality ingredients to increase their profit margin and turned the Iams line into grocery store quality. Sad, but this is not the only brand this has happened to.
Here's an excellent site about feeding dogs with kidney disease, listing many excellent options.
http://dogaware.com.hosting.domaindirect.com/kidney.html
I'll also be happy to answer any questions in that regard, please do feel free to PM me.
