Dr. Harvey'sVeg-To-Bowl Grain-Free Dog Food Pre-Mix, 5 Lb

My dog loves this food mixed with protein and oil. It seems to be a much healthier option than kibble.Easy to make.

The bag is the size of a dog food bag, and it expands when you add water, I mix up a cup of product then freeze into ice cube trays so I have small servings, that I can add to the dogs kibble. I just take a couple out in the morning and place in the fridge to defrost till supper time. Dogs like and the smell is not too bad kinda like stove top. Alot more healthy then adding the mixed frozen peas and carrots you can buy at the grocery store.

Our dog, unfortunately, was diagnosed with cancer and this dog food was recommended to us by her holistic vet as an alternative to her processed food. From the start, she loved it. She know gets so excited and starts to whine at us when she knows it meal time. It is very simple to make. We use our electric kettle for quickness. We make several servings at a time and it keeps well for a few days in the fridge. Our 9 year old, large breed dog has great energy, has kept a healthy weight, and still acts like a puppy given her diagnoses (which has been over a year). Needless to say, we may never go back to dry dog food again.

This food is great for picky dogs that like vegetables. I moisten it and add additional ground meat.if any is left over, I give it to my other dogs. I don't let it go for more than 12 hours in refrigerator.

This is a lengthy review that offers a comparison of three options, so if you want to skip that and just quickly read my opinion of Dr. Harvey's Veg-to-Bowl, you'll find it in the third paragraph which begins, "For starters,..."My two dogs (a huge German Shepherd and small, aging terrier) have been on a homemade mix of meat/fish/egg proteins and a grain-free vegetable base for the past four years. I've been using Honest Kitchen's Preference Base-Mix with good results during that time. However, when it was time to reorder, I decided to try a couple of other options that are highly rated: this Dr. Harvey's Veg-To-Bowl and Sojos Grain-Free Dog Food Mix.For starters, let me just get to the point about this particular product, Dr. Harvey's Veg-To-Bowl. I would have given it an enthusiastic 5-star rating if not for the fact that my German Shepherd didn't seem to digest it much at all and our little terrier only marginally better. How do I know this? The Veg-To-Bowl is gorgeous, brightly-colored chunks of high-quality vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, beets, peas, green beans, broccoli, etc.). Less lovely, though, when you're poo-scooping. Yep, every bright orange, red, green, and white vegetable chunk made its "exit" pretty much unscathed (and still brightly colored!). So now, after soaking the veggies as recommended, I have to run each batch through my food processor to make it digestible for my beasties. (This is why I'm lowering my rating to 3.5 stars since I have to go through this inconvenient step.) If I decide to reorder this otherwise high-quality Dr. Harvey product, I'll choose their Veg-To-Bowl Fine Ground Dehydrated Vegetable Pre-Mix next time in order to avoid extra time-consuming steps and assume that it would have a 5-star rating from me. My dogs did well on the Veg-to-Bowl (once I ground it). The bag contains a little booklet that gives full instructions on ratio of vegetables to protein for various sizes/ages/activity levels of dogs as well as amount of oil to add (I used a combination of salmon, coconut, and flax oils)._______________________________________Okay, the comparison:APPEARANCE------------------------- Dr. H's Veg-to-Bowl is by far the nicest looking with the previously mentioned brightly-colored, identifiable chunks of human-grade looking vegetables.- Honest Kitchen's Preference is, when hydrated, a fresh-looking green mush with a few chunks that are hard to identify.- Sojos is a white and beige-ish powder with tiny chunks of unidentifiable veggies which hydrates to a brown mooshy stuff that almost takes on a bit of a slick doughy consistency after it's been in the fridge a day (but it IS grain-free).TASTE------------------------Although I did taste a few of Dr. H's veggies (they're chewy), this category is according to my dogs' opinion of the taste. Besides observing their overall interest in their meals over many weeks, I also once set out bowls of each hydrated mix without any meat added in to gauge their reaction to each.- Sojos was the winner by far when it came to taste. While unappetizing in appearance to me, my dogs LOVED it! Unlike the fresh veggie smell of the other two brands when hydrated, Sojos actually smells a bit like the too-wet Thanksgiving dressing that my great aunt Jen used to make. And, in fairness, in a dog taste comparison of ONLY the base mix, Sojos is bound to win since it also contains eggs, oils, and flax seed meal and contains 14.3% protein over Dr. H's 2% and HK Preference's 6%. Fat content is considerably higher, also. In a taste test of only base mixes (minus meat), the considerably higher fat and protein of Sojos is bound to be more enticing to most dogs.- Dr. H's Veg-to-Bowl and HK's Preference were both received unenthusiastically. Both of my dogs are fully accepting of either vegetable base when mixed in with the appropriate amount of meat, fish, eggs, and cottage cheese; however, they had little interest in my vegetable "taste test."CONVENIENCE----------------------- HK's Preference is by far the easiest IMO. Hydration only takes a few minutes (they recommend at least 3) so I usually hydrated for each individual meal, so that the veggie mix was room temp rather than cold from the fridge.- Dr. H's Veg-to-Bowl takes at least 8-10 minutes to hydrate (but much longer since I needed to grind in food processor). I prepared enough for 2-3 days and kept in fridge.- Sojos recommends that you soak overnight (in fridge) for best digestion, but *at least* for 15 minutes. I prepared enough for 2-3 days in fridge.NUTRITION----------------------While considerably different in make-up, all three offer balanced canine nutrition once you've added the recommended quantity of protein and oil to them. I won't list all the nutrition facts (protein, fat, etc.) since the final nutrition (with proteins/oils added) is the important part and each product recommends varying amounts of additions to meet the nutrition requirements. So the fact that one base contains less protein only means that a higher amount of added protein will be recommended for that product. And less fat contained in the dehydrated base will just mean that you're instructed to add oil.Honest Kitchen's products are all human-grade; and, while Dr. Harvey's website doesn't seem to specifically say that it's human-grade, it looks like something I'd eat.I will say that, while my shepherd did fine on the Sojos, my little terrier did not. She's 15 years old and struggles with some aging issues. She'd been prone to yeast problems in the past before we switched them to a raw diet and we're careful with her food choices because of that. Yeast infections became a problem for her again while on the Sojos so we discontinued using it for both dogs and won't be buying again.COST----------This is a tough call since so many factors go into the final cost of producing a "meal" for your dog(s). In other words, it's not just the pound-for-pound cost of the dehydrated mix, but rather the amount of it required for your dog's size and ESPECIALLY the amount of meat proteins you must add to make it a complete, nutritious meal. The cost of the added proteins is usually the highest cost by far and may vary considerably based on type used and availability of low-cost options in your region.- Because of its higher protein/fat, Sojos required less meat in order to make a full meal. While this means that you may go through the Sojos a bit faster than you would the other two, you'll probably be buying less meat and other proteins. I found this to be the least expensive of the three for that reason.- As an example with HK's Preference mix, I hydrate 3/4 cup of dry base and add about 1.5 cups of chicken/fish/beef/eggs/cottage cheese for my large German Shepherd twice daily.- In my experience, we ended up with higher expense with Dr. H's Veg-to-Bowl because it required/recommended the highest protein additions. For our large shepherd this was nearly 3 pounds of meat and over 8 oz for our terrier daily.While I would consider buying the ground-up version of Dr. Harvey's Veg-to-Bowl in the future, the higher expense of meeting its meat ratio for our big pooch will likely mean that I stick with using Honest Kitchen's Preference mix from now on. We've had good results with it.Just a reminder -- as with any time you change out a dog's food, do it gradually to reduce stomach upset and gas.