Dr. Marie replied:

It is often really difficult to know whether a food is a good one or not! You'll read all sorts of stuff online about things like the protein content, whether or not it is grain free, whether there is corn, etc. etc. etc.

Personally I find it extremely hard to read a food label and decide whether or not a food is a good one. What I go by is this,

"In dogs that are fed this food, do they have a nice coat and do they produce regular, solid stools?"

There are three foods that I commonly recommend, in no particular order: Royal Canin, Science Diet and Iams. I find that most dogs on these foods do really well.

I pay no attention to ingredients or protein levels as no one really knows what is optimal. There is no benefit to feeding a sweet potato and fish diet. This was likely created for dogs who have food allergies. If a dog has a food allergy then we need to find a novel protein source (i.e fish) and sometimes a novel carbohydrate source (i.e. sweet potato). But fish and sweet potato themselves are no better than other foods, so there's no point spending extra money on them!

I hope this helps!

Dr. Marie

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