[John M]

What are people’s thoughts on having a meat meal in the food? I have heard it is not healthy to feed a “meal” to a dog but most have it I’m assuming due to cost.

[Patricia A]

My thoughts are that your dog is getting very poor nutrition with “meal” listed as the ingredient on kibble. Kibble is already not the best diet for a dog. I supplement with a high quality kibble in VERY small portions but always with REAL food and freeze dried. Kibble was made for the convenience of feeding NOT for the best diet for an animal.
Article from DFA on meat meal.
/choosing-dog-food/dog-food-meat-content/

[John M]

Thanks so much Pat! Do you have a recommendation on a brand of real or freeze dried? It gets so confusing with all the brands out there.

[Patricia A]

John I have Chihuahuas. Freeze Dried is kind of expensive to feed even with them being small. So I supplement with the kibble and give less of the freeze dried to make up their calorie/nutritional needs. Also as I posted they get home cooked as a topper to a little kibble. This being boiled white meat chicken, boiled salmon, string beans(low salt), carrots, watermelon, sweet potatoes, lean steak, boiled 1/8 of hard boiled egg in morning. This is easily done since it’s just what we’re having for dinner that day.
So there are many freeze dried brands. I stick to Primal and Stella Chewy’s. Bixbi Rawbbles freeze dried are given for treats and Open Farm freeze dried. I hear Dogs for the Earth is a very good brand also and Vital Essentials(believe this one follows a prey model with no added vitamins. Just what’s in the food for nutrition. )
I got them VERY, VERY, VERY slowly used to Primal in different proteins/flavors. I use the lower fat ones which I believe is the ones DFA rated as 5*’s. So Rabbit, Turkey/Salmon, Duck.
Stella Chewy’s I feed their Venison Blend,.
I just mix it up everyday. Never had a problem with their digestion and all blood work great. They LOVE the food.
I use Open Farm grain free and switch between with Stella Chewy’s raw coated chicken kibble. Just a little again to stretch the freeze dried .
If you have a larger breed dog it would be more cost saving to get the same in the raw. Most go through HPP process to get rid of salmonella/bacteria. True raw advocates don’t like this step but it’s fine with me. https://primalpetfoods.com/pages/canine-balanced-bases https://www.stellaandchewys.com/dog-food/

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Patricia A.

[Tyler F]

Hello everybody. I believe that dogs should have a balanced diet, just like humans. Therefore, I consider it a bad idea to completely exclude meat from the diet.

[Chipy]

Good question, John. It’s best to avoid meat meals but they are the primary ingredients in most dry dog food so the healthiest option is to switch to fresh foods like home-cooked or premade raw diets that are more nutritious for our pups.

Meat meals are made from taking slaughterhouse and fish processing factory remnants that are not edible for humans, and cooking them, processing them under high heat, and dehydrating them into a dry powdery substance that goes into kibble.

Like most other low-grade and highly processed ingredients in kibble and canned diets, meat meals contain little to no nutritional value to the dog being fed.

I use Dr. D’s recipe maker and natural whole-food based supplements to create healthy meals for my pup. It helps me build balanced recipes with the ingredients I have available and I love it; https://recipemaker.peterdobias.com

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