Jiminy's Good Grub Peanut Butter & Cranberry Flavor Soft Training Dog Treats, 6-oz bag, 3 count

At first glance, these seem great! Peanut butter, cranberry and oats? Heck yeah! “Crafted without the use of corn, wheat or soy,” sounds good to me. But the more you look at and read the package with the bullet points and ingredients, it gets worse. I support “HAPPY PETS” and a “HEALTHY PLANET,” but my pets won’t be healthy feeding them “protein from grubs,” which is listed out on the back as “Dried Black Soldier Fly Larvae.” In other words, maggots. “Black soldier fly larvae are maggot-like creatures that are commonly found in manure, garbage, decaying organic material, and compost piles. They are the larvae of the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens.” Jiminy marketing is heavily focused on sustainability and reducing “your dog’s carbon pawprint.” Sustainability isn’t a bad thing but playing on trendy buzzwords and utilizing an agenda to push insect proteins as healthy alternatives for pet consumption isn’t really something I support. Both of my dogs have skin allergies, which I’ve been able to manage after a lot of trial and error. One of my dogs is EXTREMELY sensitive on which proteins he can have that don’t provoke his skin allergies to flare up. Vets don’t recommend different proteins when it comes to food and treats. My vet has specifically cautioned against mixing proteins, even in treats, so I will not be giving these treats to my dogs for reasons which are mentioned above. If these were just peanut butter, cranberry and oats, I’d give them to my dogs. Treats are not sources of nutrition and protein I rely on. Treats are that, treats. I don’t feel like it would be much of a treat for a pet to consume protein from “grubs” unless it’s a reptile.