Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Product Review: Vitakraft Sunseed AnimaLovens Cookies with Cranberry-Orange Flavor

It's time for yet another suspected bad product review, where we investigate a product we suspect of being good before we have the humans buy it for us. (So far, all our suspicions have been correct, and the humans haven't actually gone back and bought any.) This time, we're reviewing Sunseed AnimaLovens Cookies with Cranberry-Orange Flavor. Anyone care to place a bet on whether we'll finally send the humans back to the store this time?

I bet a carrot slice this won't be the one.
As usual with suspected bad products, we're going to have to take a look at the ingredients:
A lot of these look familiar from previous suspected bad product reviews.
Here we go again:

  • Ground Corn - Although guinea pigs can eat corn, the diet expert at guineapigcages.com and Guinea Lynx states that, regarding "Corn products (including corn bran, corn germ, corn gluten, ground corn, etc.) There is no legal definition of 'corn' alone in animal feed, so it may be any combination of products. Corn is not a normal feed for cavies, may contribute to allergies, and can be high in fat and certain sugars/starch depending on the product. Additionally, some corn is contaminated with deadly aflatoxin which can cause liver failure and death.)"
  • Sugar - Guinea pigs should not have excess sugar. If you feed us the right amount of fruits and veggies, we'll get the right amount of natural sugars. We don't need added sugars in our treats.
  • Vegetable oil - GuineaLynx forum says that nuts, seeds and oils are "too high in fat and protein, not a natural food source, often present in animal feeds in seed byproducts that have little to no nutrient value."
  • Calcium carbonate - This is an ingredient we have a tough time deciding if it's okay or not. On the one hand, Oxbow uses it in some of their products, and Oxbow uses an advisory board of veterinarians and scientists to develop their products. On the other hand, some people on guineapigcages.com have expressed concern about Oxbow's use of calcium carbonate in their pellets.
Honestly, we've seen worse treat products out there, but this still isn't good. We're still giving this one 1/5 stars. (If you took the bet, you owe us a carrot!)

1 comment:

  1. Some of us may remember when reports came out of the University of Rochester that suggested people might want to try brushing with cranberries. Apparently, the UofR team, tested cranberries effect on a synthetic enamel-like material and found that the tiny, tart fruit had rather big abilities to repel cavity-causing bacteria. Cranberry product

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