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Diamond Naturals Adult Dog Lamb Meal & Rice Formula package official product image via Amazon

Diamond Naturals · brand facts & recall history →

Diamond Naturals Adult Dog Lamb Meal & Rice Formula

Dry food · adult dogs

A formulated-to-meet, lamb-first dry food that's cheaper per calorie than 98% of the dry foods we've priced and denser than 65% (you feed fewer cups) — $0.67 a day for your 40-lb adult dog.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-10-19

$43.99 · 40 lb $0.67/day as of 2026-10-19 Check price →
Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2½ cupsper day $0.67per day 65 daysbag lasts passes 2 fit checks ↓

Joint, kidney, dental or heart concerns? Labels can't honestly answer those — that's vet territory. Why we don't checkmark them →

The evidence

The Verified Label

Every food on this site gets this exact panel — same fields, same order, sourced from the official label — so brands finally become comparable. Dots show where this food sits among all 494 dry foods we've verified.

Verified LabelThe standardized pet-food panel
VPFD № DIAMON
verified 2026-10-19

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Kibble is ~10% water, canned food ~78%, so as-fed numbers are on two different scales. As-fed values shown small. How the conversion works →
Protein 25.6%label: 23% min lower than 85% of dry foods
Fat 15.6%label: 14% min typical — the median dry food is 16.7%
Fiber 4.4%label: 4% max lower than 69% of dry foods
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈45.6%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ω-3 0.4% Not yet verifiedcalcium/phosphorus no ratio to anchor

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 403 kcal/cup3550 kcal/kg typical — the median dry food is 388 (median 388) — you feed fewer cups
Daily serving2½ cups
Cost per day$0.67
40-lb bag lasts65 days

Cost per 1,000 kcal: $0.68 — cheaper than 98% of the 360 dry foods we've priced (median $1.93). Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.

Standards & ingredients

AAFCO statement
what this means
Two claims exist: formulated to meet a profile, or fed to real dogs in an AAFCO trial. Which is stronger, and how rare it is →
Formulated to meet · maintenance
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Lamb meal · white rice · cracked pearled barley · grain sorghum · egg product
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)None
BHA / BHT preservativesNone on label
Carrageenan (thickener)None
Ethoxyquin
why unknown
A preservative added by a fish-meal supplier need not appear on the finished label, so no label can prove its absence. Why we show gaps →
None — no fish meal in this recipe

Safety

FDA recalls — Diamond Naturals, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 9 of 15 standard fields
Green = verified favorable · amber = gap in the record · red = verified unfavorable · gray = not disclosed / neutral fact.
Source: official label source (official)· price: Amazon, 2026-10-19 · anchors: 494 verified dry dog foods (360 priced) · how to read this label

The fit

For your dog, specifically

Checked for a 40-lb adult with a sensitive stomach — the same published criteria our finder uses. Change your dog above and these update.

✓
Validated for adult dogsAAFCO statement covers adult maintenance.
✓
Passes our sensitive-stomach checksNamed animal protein first, and no unnamed by-products in the ingredient list.
·
Contains chickenNot selected as a concern for your dog — shown here for reference.

The source material

The full ingredient list

Every flag above is computed from this list. Why order is by pre-cooking weight, and how splitting bends it →

Lamb meal, white rice, cracked pearled barley, grain sorghum, egg product, dried yeast, rice bran, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), oatmeal, dried plain beet pulp, natural flavor, flaxseed, potassium chloride, salt, DL-Methionine, choline chloride, taurine, dried chicory root, kale, chia seed, pumpkin, blueberries, oranges, quinoa, dried kelp, coconut, spinach, carrots, papaya, yucca schidigera extract, L-Carnitine, dried Lactobacillus plantarum fermentation product, dried Bacillus subtilis fermentation product, dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product, dried Enterococcus faecium fermentation product, dried Bifidobacterium animalis fermentation product, vitamin E supplement, beta carotene, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, vitamin A supplement, biotin, niacin, calcium pantothenate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride, vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, vitamin D3 supplement, folic acid

8 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and none of them is contested in the veterinary literature.

  • Named Meat/Poultry Meal (e.g., Chicken Meal, Lamb Meal) · ingredient 1Well supportedA rendered, water- and fat-reduced concentrate from a named species (AAFCO, e.g., 'chicken meal'). Because most moisture is removed it is a dense protein source (poultry meals commonly around 57-69% crude protein) and it names the species for allergy avoidance.
  • Mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E) · ingredient 8Well supportedA blend of vitamin E forms (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, delta-tocopherol) used as a natural-source antioxidant to slow fat rancidity, commonly chosen as an alternative to synthetic preservatives. EFSA concluded that tocopherol-rich extracts are safe for all animal species and the consumer and are efficacious antioxidants in feed.
  • Beet Pulp · ingredient 10Well supportedThe fibrous material left after sugar is extracted from sugar beets, included as a moderately fermentable fiber source (commonly around 5 to 7.5% of the diet). Controlled feeding studies show it supports firm, good-quality stools and short-chain fatty acid production without impairing overall nutrient digestibility, so the 'cheap filler' characterization is not supported by the evidence.
  • Flaxseed (ALA omega-3) · ingredient 12NeutralA plant source of the short-chain omega-3 ALA. Dogs convert ALA to the long-chain omega-3s inefficiently: a controlled feeding study (Dunbar 2010) found flaxseed raised serum EPA but produced no measurable DHA.
  • Taurine (supplemental) · ingredient 17NeutralA sulfur amino acid that dogs can normally synthesize from methionine and cysteine, so it is not classically essential for them. However, some breeds (e.g., golden retrievers) and some diets are linked to low taurine status and dilated cardiomyopathy: an observational study (Ontiveros 2020) associated non-traditional, largely grain-free diets with taurine deficiency and DCM-consistent echocardiographic changes in golden retrievers, though causation and mechanism remain under investigation.
  • Prebiotics (chicory root / inulin, FOS) · ingredient 18NeutralFermentable fibers (chicory-derived inulin and fructooligosaccharides) that feed colonic bacteria and are readily fermented to short-chain fatty acids in dogs. Feeding studies show they shift fecal microbiota composition and are well tolerated at typical inclusion levels, but clear health benefits beyond compositional change are not yet established.

The maker

Who makes this — and how they back it up

The five questions the WSAVA nutrition guidelines tell you to ask a pet-food company. Every answer is sourced or marked as an undisclosed gap — never guessed. This is the "is it made competently?" axis that star-rating sites skip.

Owns its manufacturing Owns its plants

Diamond Pet Foods owns and operates its own U.S. plants (Meta MO; Lathrop CA 1999; Gaston SC 2003; Ripon CA 2012; Dumas AR 2016; Frontenac KS 2021), where Diamond Naturals is produced.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Undisclosed

The source refers to disciplines/experts (veterinary medicine, companion animal nutrition) but does NOT name any specific board-certified veterinary nutritionist (ACVN/ECVCN Diplomate) or PhD nutritionist on staff.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 25 labels we’ve verified for this brand, and no company-wide claim was found either. Most pet foods are only "formulated to meet" AAFCO profiles (a paper calculation) rather than fed to real animals in trials — this is common, not necessarily a red flag.

Publishes quality-control testing Yes — sourced

covers: ingredient toxin testing; same page: 1,538 microbiological tests/week, test-and-hold of finished product by a certified lab, oxidative stability tests. Diamond Pet Foods page covering its own brands.

source →
Peer-reviewed research None found

PubMed lists no animal or pet paper with Diamond Pet Foods in an author address. Not proof no research exists — only that none is indexed under that company name.

source →
Parent company Schell & Kampeter, Inc. (Diamond Pet Foods) ↗ Headquarters / plant Meta, Missouri, USA ↗ FDA recalls on record 1 on record

Full company scorecard, sources, and every SKU we've verified for this brand: Diamond Naturals brand page →