The 3 Biggest Mistakes Pet Parents Make With Homemade Food
You've decided to fix nutritional homemade meals for your pet. Congratulations!
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Pet parents are becoming more aware of the importance of nutrition to the health and longevity of animal companions, and are showing increasing interest in homemade pet food
Homemade meals can provide huge health benefits for dogs, but it’s important to realize that preparing your pet’s food isn’t the easiest task in the world, and mistakes are easy to make
If you’re considering making homemade dog food, it’s important to fully understand why the diet you prepare absolutely must meet minimum nutritional requirements
Common mistakes to avoid include feeding only meat and veggies, overlooking the need for dietary fiber, and not meeting minimum nutrient requirements with specific supplements or key ingredients
There are two broad categories of supplements for pets: required supplements to balance homemade meals, and optional supplements for health and wellness that support a specific health goal, such as joint, allergy, longevity or detoxification support
More and more pet parents are recognizing that the right diet is foundational to their dog's health and quality of life, and many are also interested in making homemade food for their animal companions. I wholeheartedly encourage this, while at the same time cautioning that while switching to homemade food has tremendous benefits for most dogs, it's not always the easiest approach to feeding a fresh diet, and it's relatively easy to make mistakes.
Homemade meals don't have to be an all or nothing approach. It's completely fine to swap out one or two home prepared meals a week; every bite of fresh food that replaces ultraprocessed calories means your animal is consuming more phytonutrients and bioactive compounds from nature's healthiest source: real food.
Potential Benefits and Drawbacks of Homemade Diets for Dogs
My friend and fellow co-founder of the Companion Animal Nutrition and Wellness Institute (CANWI), board certified veterinary nutritionist Dr. Donna Raditic, provides the following short list of pros and cons of homemade raw diets.
Potential benefits
You know exactly what your dog is eating (which isn't possible with commercially prepared pet food — especially the ultraprocessed diets)
The ingredients in homemade diets have higher digestibility, with the result that most of the nutrients in the food are absorbed rather than excreted in feces (so there's less poop to scoop)
Some animals with chronic gastrointestinal (GI) issues or multiple chronic diseases improve on homemade diets
It's easy to create novel protein/novel carbohydrate homemade diets for pets with food intolerances or allergies
Preparing a homemade diet can provide you with a sense of satisfaction that you're doing the right thing for your dog
Potential drawbacks
Homemade diets can be unbalanced and even harmful if formulated incorrectly
They can be more expensive than commercially available pet food (especially if you choose organic ingredients)
Deciding to make changes to a recipe without consulting an expert
There are no AAFCO feeding trials to help guide feeding decisions
The Importance of Nutritional Adequacy
Many homemade and prey-model diets and some commercially available raw diets are nutritionally unbalanced/incomplete. This can cause dogs to become deficient in the correct amounts of important minerals and vitamins, antioxidants, or the right fatty acid balance for skeletal, organ and immune health.
A considerable amount of research has gone into determining what nutrients dogs need to survive, and there is ample evidence showing what happens when they are deprived of calcium, iodine, selenium, magnesium, zinc, thiamine, manganese, vitamins D, E, potassium, and a whole range of critical nutrients necessary for cell growth, repair and maintenance.
There should be four primary components in a homemade diet for dogs: meat, including organs; pureed vegetables and fruit; vitamin and mineral supplements (unless you're using specific foods, like zinc-filled oysters for meeting certain nutrient requirements); and beneficial additions like probiotics and digestive enzymes (these aren't required to balance the diet, but can be beneficial for vitality).
A healthy dog's diet should contain about 75% to 85% meat/organs/bones (or a bone replacement supplement) and 15% to 25% veggies/fruits (this mimics the gastrointestinal contents of prey, providing fiber and antioxidants as well). This "80/10/10" base is an excellent starting point for recipes but is far from being balanced and is not appropriate to feed long term without addressing the significant micronutrient deficiencies present.
Fresh, whole food provides most of the nutrients that dogs need, and a micronutrient vitamin/mineral mix takes care of deficiencies that may exist. If you opt not to use supplements, you must add in whole food sources of these nutrients, which requires additional money, creativity, and math.
If you're preparing a homemade diet for your pet for more than 2 of his 14 meals a week, I can't emphasize enough the importance of ensuring it's nutritionally balanced. Making your dog's food from scratch requires you to ensure you're meeting macro and micronutrient requirements.
Do not guess! Follow nutritionally balanced recipes (which must come with a complete nutritional analysis) or use a recipe generator like Animal Diet Formulator, Recipe Creator or BalanceIT.
Mistakes to Avoid
Feeding only meat — Many well-meaning pet guardians are confusing balanced, species-specific nutrition with feeding hunks of muscle meat, ground beef and veggies or a blend of meat, veggies, and rice to their dog. Although fresh meat is a good starting point for homemade diets, it doesn't represent a balanced diet.
Feeding a basic "80/10/10" diet is also nutritionally unbalanced and will cause significant issues over time, even if you provide rotation between 3-4 types of meats and organs.
An exclusive diet of ground up carcasses,1 for example, may still lack the minimum requirements for several vital nutrients and falls grossly short of almost all nutrients to meet even AAFCO's minimum nutrient requirements (which isn't saying much).
Many homemade raw feeders create diets that are predominantly chicken-based because chicken is cheap. Chicken meat must be balanced with foods rich in omega-3s to control inflammation. Ground up whole chicken fryers have an omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio of 20:1. I recommend making sure foods don't cross the 5:1 ratio, and the goal would be to strive fora 3:1 ratio for most recipes fed long-term.
When these fats are unbalanced in your dog's diet, skin and coat health is compromised, and many animals end up with chronic inflammation that manifests in many unhealthy ways.
Forgetting fiber — Domesticated dogs voluntarily graze on grasses and plant matter for a variety of reasons, including meeting their body's requirements for enzymes, fiber, antioxidants, and phytonutrients. Providing adequate amounts of low glycemic, fibrous vegetables also delivers the prebiotic fibers necessary to nourish your pet's microbiome and contribute to overall gut and colon health.
Some fruits, for example, blueberries, are rich sources of antioxidants, so it's important not to overlook them when planning your dog's nutritionally balanced fresh food diet. You can puree fruits, along with appropriate low glycemic veggies, and add them into the recipe; you can also offer them whole in small pieces as treats or snacks if your dog has no problem digesting them.
A good rule of thumb is to keep produce content less than 25% of diets for dogs and 15% for cats.
Skipping supplements — There are only two options for assuring nutritional adequacy in homemade diets: feeding a more expensive, whole food recipe that contains a significant number of diversified ingredients necessary to meet nutrient requirements or using supplements.
There are two categories of supplements: required supplements to meet minimum nutritional requirements, and optional supplements to address specific health concerns. The supplements discussed here are the required supplements that prevent nutritional deficiencies; they are not optional.
Our soils are nutritionally depleted; therefore, our foods are nutritionally deficient. If we take on the task of preparing homemade meals for our pets, we have a responsibility to make sure the food provides the basic required nutrients necessary for normal cellular repair and maintenance.
If you don't see ample amounts of a variety of whole foods listed in the recipes (or amounts of these supplements to add) then the diet is probably nutritionally inadequate. Feeding an unbalanced meal now and then, or two meals a week, is fine.
Feeding unbalanced meals day after day is what causes problems over time. Recipes provided by nutritionists or knowledgeable fresh food advocates provide a nutritional breakdown that shows you the amounts of nutrients found in the recipes.
The "bonus" or optional supplements that help support general wellness or a specific health goal depend on a variety of factors, including breed and disease susceptibility, age, weight, activity level, sterilization status, chronic health conditions, and more.
Many pets benefit from additional supplements to support specific organ systems, such as joint support for seniors, seasonal allergy supplements, or detox supplements during pesticide application months. These extras don't balance meals, they support the body in other ways.
If you're interested in providing additional supplemental support (beyond the supplements needed to balance your homemade diet) and have no idea where to start, work with your veterinarian or wellness coach to determine what supplements would be beneficial, in addition to those added to the food to balance the diet, how much to give, and how often.
Additional Tips From Dr. Raditic
Homemade pet diet recipes should include information on how to prepare the food in batches that can be frozen to save time and money
If you don't want to or can't afford to feed 100% homemade, feed fruit as treats or add veggies to meals — keep a list of fresh food options on hand that can be safely added to commercial pet food
Pets should have routine physical examinations with full blood and urine testing every 6 months
Grind and blend the food, if possible, so your dog doesn't pick out individual ingredients
Use cooked gram weights instead of cups as a unit of measurement, because a "cup" can vary greatly depending on how finely you cut ingredients; cooked gram weights (you'll need a scale) is the most accurate way to measure food amounts
Avoid Maillard reactions by poaching ingredients, not roasting or grilling, to avoid damaging protein structures, which may affect the absorption of essential amino acids and/or increase the antigen load in the diet
Prepare food for several weeks or a few months to save time; package in individual portions and freeze
Healthypets Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your own veterinarian or doctor. Dr. Karen Becker cannot answer specific questions about your pet's medical issues or make medical recommendations for your pet without first establishing a veterinarian-client-patient relationship. Your pet's medical protocol should be given by your holistic veterinarian.