The scores
Greenies Original Regular Dental Treats: C/58 — Average. VOHC Seal of Acceptance for plaque and tartar control offsets a wheat-flour-and-glycerin ingredient panel. The dental function is verified; the panel is not optimal.
Milk-Bone Original Biscuit Medium: D/38 — Below average. Wheat flour and wheat morsels first, BHA preservation, four artificial colors, poultry by-product meal at position eight. The dental claim on the package is not VOHC-verified.
How the ingredients compare
The leading ingredients are the structural difference between these two treats:
Greenies: Wheat Flour, Glycerin, Wheat Gluten, Gelatin, Powdered Cellulose, Water, Chicken Meal, Natural Poultry Flavor, Lecithin, Dried Apple Pomace (followed by mineral/vitamin premix and natural-source colors).
Milk-Bone: Wheat Flour, Wheat Morsels, Meat and Bone Meal, Milk, Beef Fat (preserved with Tocopherols), Salt, Natural Flavor, Poultry By-Product Meal, Dicalcium Phosphate, Brewers Dried Yeast, Malted Barley Flour, Sodium Metabisulfite, plus Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 2, DL-methionine, and BHA.
Both products lead with wheat flour, but the panels diverge sharply after that. Greenies stays inside a starch-and-protein-matrix system (wheat flour, glycerin, wheat gluten, gelatin, powdered cellulose) shaped specifically for the dental-mechanical action; the colors are natural-source (fruit juice, turmeric, chlorophyll). Milk-Bone runs a fundamentally different additive philosophy: BHA preservation, four synthetic colors (Red 40 / Yellow 5 / Yellow 6 / Blue 2), and dried meat by-products plus poultry by-product meal as the named animal sources. Both products carry the AAFCO “intermittent or supplemental feeding only” statement, which is the correct label for treats.
Where Greenies pulls ahead
VOHC verification: Greenies Original carries a Veterinary Oral Health Council Seal of Acceptance for mechanical plaque and tartar control. The seal requires manufacturer-submitted clinical-trial evidence reviewed against published efficacy thresholds. Milk-Bone’s “Helps Clean Teeth” package claim is a marketing statement, not VOHC-verified. For dogs with active periodontal disease or vet-flagged tartar, Greenies' verified efficacy is the substantive reason to pick it.
No BHA, no synthetic colors: Our rubric deducts −10 for BHA presence anywhere in the panel because cleaner natural-tocopherol preservation is widely available and used by competitors. Greenies uses natural preservation; Milk-Bone uses BHA. Synthetic colors compound the gap: each of Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 2 carries a −6 deduction (capped at −15), and Milk-Bone uses all four. Greenies' fruit-juice and turmeric colors are natural-source.
Size-tier matching for dental function: Greenies offers Teenie (2–7 lb), Petite (7–15 lb), Regular (15–25 lb), Large (25–50 lb), and Jumbo (over 100 lb) sizes. Size-tiering matters for dental chews because the mechanical-cleaning function depends on the chew being right-sized for the dog’s mouth. Milk-Bone has size-tier lineup (Small / Medium / Large / Jumbo) but no VOHC backing for the dental claim, so size-matching delivers minimal verified benefit. Shop Greenies on Amazon →
Where Milk-Bone holds its own
Lower price per treat: Milk-Bone's cost-per-biscuit runs roughly 60–70% lower than Greenies'. For owners feeding 1–2 daily biscuits as casual rewards (not dental therapy), the price gap is real even if the formulation is weaker.
Lower per-treat calorie load for medium biscuits: A Milk-Bone Medium runs about 20 kcal vs Greenies Original Regular at 91 kcal per chew. For a 50-lb dog with a 110-kcal-per-day treat budget, that is the difference between 5 Milk-Bones and 1 Greenies. The per-piece calorie delta favors Milk-Bone for high-frequency rewarding.
Universal availability: Milk-Bone is sold at virtually every grocery, drug, and big-box store in the U.S. since 1908; Greenies has narrower mainstream-grocery distribution. For travel, last-minute restocks, or owners without pet-specialty access, Milk-Bone is the more practical default. Shop Milk-Bone on Amazon →
The bottom line
Greenies wins on rubric score by a wide margin because it skips the synthetic preservation and synthetic-color stack that drags Milk-Bone into D-tier. The VOHC seal is the second reason to pick it — the only verified dental-efficacy claim of the two. Milk-Bone is cheaper and more universally available, but the formulation gap is real: BHA, four synthetic colors, and poultry by-product meal are not features cleaner formulations need. If you want a dental treat with verified efficacy, pick Greenies; if you want a casual cheap biscuit and ingredient quality is genuinely not a factor, Milk-Bone is the lower-cost option (with eyes-open about the panel).
Read our full reviews of Greenies Original Regular Dental Treats and Milk-Bone Original Biscuit Medium for the complete ingredient-by-ingredient breakdown.