I make a large Cereal mix with various low or non-sugar people cereals (especially organic puffed cereals to keep their weight down, wheat, rice, millet), and a small Grain mix with various grains, seeds, coconut & ground flax from human bulk bins, and mix those 2 with Actrium holistic small breed adult dog food when I feed them (to keep the mix even every time without the small stuff settling to the bottom of the whole). And they get a varying variety of fresh food at suppertime. I also mix in some powdered capsule vitamins from time to time.
I did my research in the beginning to figure out what they need nutrition-wise and now I just go with it. I trust human food for them more than stuff I don't know what's in it. But human stuff is so suspect too, isn't it?
My kids do pretty well age-wise, nobody's hit 3 yrs (30 3/4 mos tops, most from 2 - 2 1/2 yrs) but I also can't afford testing and surgeries which would have expanded the time for a lot of them..
I would expect pet food manufacturers to have more researched knowledge of the optimum diet for pets than I do, but I don't TRUST them to implement that, cutting corners financially where the consumer can't see it is the 1st order of every business. I like to know they're getting food I would eat myself, not old grains Kellogg's refuses, or fruits & veggies I wouldn't choose in the market, or moldy corn.
So I don't know if the lab blocks would have lengthened the lives or bettered the health of my kids over what I fed them or not, I believe my more loving choices balance out their better knowledge but lesser concern for the health of my babies. Lab blocks would be easier, but I question their makeup.
And as important for me is their pleasure in eating! I don't want the government to decide that we're costing the medical system by being fat or eating junk and eradicate grocery stores and our choices, and provide us all with a standard brown mush day in & day out for the rest of our lives that is formulated for our optimum health. I'd rather die sooner than live longer on that. Especially if I was locked in a cage and eating was my biggest pleasure. I feel the quality of THEIR lives is more important to them than my desire for the length of their lives and my concerns about the my financial cost of their pleasures is to me. I just have to say that.