Taste Test: The Honest Kitchen Force

While in AZ for Christmas holiday I picked up some trail boxes of The Honest Kitchen.  One of them was Force, a chicken based formula. I was a bit hesitant to try it due to the chicken but I wanted to know if Conker would react badly to just a small three-day trial.

Force comes in a green box

Ingredients:
Dehydrated free-range chicken, organic flaxseed, potatoes, celery, sweet potatoes, apples, alfalfa, organic kelp, honey, zucchini, green beans, cabbage, bananas, papayas, basil, garlic, rosemary, tricalcium phosphate, choline chloride, zinc amino acid chelate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, potassium iodide, potassium chloride, iron amino acid chelate, copper amino acid chelate.

Guaranteed Analysis: 
Protein, 21% min
Fat, 15% min
Fiber, 6.5% max
Moisture, 8.5% max
446 Calories per cup

Force is one of several grain-free formulas. I am not into the exclusively grain-free thing, and most grain-free foods use potatoes instead which is something I'm not quite fond of.  However, I don't think that there's much more potatoes in Force than Keen (one of the kinds I feed Conker) for that to be of much affect.
One thing I find a bit strange is the flaxseed and it's placement on the ingredient hierarchy. Flax seems to be an "it" thing right now, and dog food is no exception.

Dry Force in a ZiwiPeak measuring cup

I gave Conker roughly 1/2 cup Force with some extra raw items during the trial. He really liked it but I cannot say if he likes it more than one formula or another.

Force costs $42.50 for a 4 pound box and $78 for a 10 pound box on The Honest Kitchen's website. That's a bit steep for me, considering Conker does fine on Keen and Verve.

Re-hydrated Force

I did not notice any immediate ill effects (due to chicken) from feeding this to Conker. This might be because it's dehydrated and not "cooked" (dehydrated meats are still, in my book, cooked, just less so than conventional kibbles) so it might not effect Conker like cooked chicken does.
Anyways, I don't think that three days is long enough to have that set in stone, and one of these days I'll get around to getting a larger box to give a real trial.

Closeup of re-hydrated Force