Feed your dog what you want. but some of your reasoning isn't correct. Like what the dogs are getting is the left overs of what can't be fed to humans. These ingredients come in a powered form they are not the complete plant. But the other thing is that more plants that is needed to feed people and animals means less nature for wildlife. If you want to make sure your dog is eating good quality food the only way to insure that is to make your own dog food. What I see in the ingredients isn't any better than any other dog food. Just charging you more for sub-par ingredients.
"But the other thing is that more plants that is needed to feed people and animals means less nature for wildlife." Well, I would calculate it a little different: The most plants are used to for feeding animals that you want to feed to animals (pets) and humans.... so plant-eating does not really reduce nature for wildlife as less plants are used to feed all these cows and pigs and chickens that end up in dogs food.
Every time forest are cut down for farming and housing developments you see things like Coyotes, bears, and large cats coming into neighborhoods.
On average it takes about 8 kilograms of plants fed to cows to create 1 kilogram of beef. Rather than that 8 kilograms of food feeding many people, only 1 kilogram of beef feeds fewer people.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat
I am more worried about wildlife not cows https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/08/humans-have-destroyed-a-tenth-of-earths-wilderness-in-25-years-study
http://www.jpe.ox.ac.uk/papers/consistent-vegetarianism-and-the-suffering-of-wild-animals/
Looks like you are not getting the point @tecnogirl!
The argument in the link of the paper you are referring here is fundamentally flawed.
If you are really worried about wildlife, you should be worried about forests. Today a little less than half of arable land on this planet is being used to feed farmed animals. This means, more forest land is cleaned to make land available for cultivating crops to be fed to animals.
The leading causes of rainforest destruction are livestock and feed crops.
91% of amazon rainforest is being destructed for farming i.e. to say 1-2 acre of rainforest is cleaned every second right now. These causes a lot of wildlife destruction. As many as 137 species go extinct every day on an average.These are no small numbers. e.g. worldwide, cows drink 45 billion gallons of water and eat 135 billion pounds of food each day. And all this is just tip of the iceberg! There are several other associated problems which threatens our very existence on this planet. Look the problem as a whole and with the right perspective.
So if you want to protect forests & wildlife, the very first thing you need to accept is the benefits of wider adoption of plant-based living.
There is a balance in nature that humans are ruining and some of the forests that get cut down are used for planting more crops. It happen every day where I live. Look at what happened to Yellowstone national park. Wildlife that use to balance the park was removed ie the wolves and it damaged the environment. They introduced the wolves back and it has slowly started fixing the environment and wildlife that has moved else where has moved back.
My whole point was look at the label there is some good ingredients but all those chemical ingredients are no better than the cheaper dog food and not any healthier. If you want healthy food for your animals you have to make it yourself, because that bag of food is laced with chemicals not plants.
Yup, you're right. The balance in nature has been ruined.
But the problem of removing wolves from the park is an altogether different one. USDA predator killing of wolves can also be related to animal farming e.g. when wolves turned to beef-eating, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife had issued an order to kill all of the U.S.-British Columbia pack. The problem you cited of coyotes and bears coming into neighborhood too is responsible for more wildlife killings. This problem of shooting / hunting of animals by terming them vermins exist in my place too.
But I appreciate your concern of serving chemical laden food to dog as raised by you in your first comment. This is a problem with almost all processed and packaged food ...including the ones sold for humans. So it's always better if you can prepare your (and your pet's) food fresh in comparison. I hope @jerrybanfield will prefer the same if given the choice.
My answer was actually in response to your replies and links in your later comments. Perhaps I got you wrong. Thanks for reading it anyway!