04/10/2025
🥗 What is the BEST thing to feed my dog/cat?
🍔 Short answer:
“Dry is not a lie but wetter is better and fresh is best.” A diet individually tailored not only to your pet’s needs but to your lifestyle and budget will always be the best!
🍕 Long answer:
A dog or cat can live a good life eating the same kibble every day, but they’re probably not thriving or without a few health issues.
Nutrition is the basis for health, and better nutrition means better health. (Hey, you can eat pizza and Reese’s every day but you’re probably not thriving, either. Or are you? 🤨)
“But I feed Brand XYZ! It’s the best because my dog is a wolf and my cat is a jaguar and all those commercials say that by-products are bad!”
🛑 Not so fast. 🛑
1. Some companies are better at advertising than others. That doesn’t make what they say explicitly true or their diet any better or worse than another commercially prepared diet.
2. That really expensive food eye-level in the first aisle of the pet food store is nearly equivalent to the really cheap food on the bottom of the last aisle. The main difference? Advertising. (Read: 💰💰💰)
3. All commercially prepared diets should meet AAFCO standards - containing the minimum requirements for “complete and balanced nutrition” for a certain life stage. Always look for this and don’t rely on the name of the food. The bag could say “senior” but if the AAFCO statement is for “All life stages” this could actually hurt an older pet over time.
4. Besides finding the AAFCO statement and maybe some feeding guidelines, that bag or can tells you exactly *nothing* about the real quality of the food. You need a nutrient profile for this! (The better companies will have one available on their website.)
5. If your pets were wild beasts, wanna guess what they’d eat first? By-products! 🐺🦁
6. By-products are not what *they* want you to think they are. 👣🪽🪵
7. With some generalization: Kibble is the most processed. Wet food is better (mostly for the moisture content) but still fairly processed. When you get into some of those advertised “fresh food” options, some rank higher than others.
8. Not all commercial raw food companies are created equal, either. Some pets will do better on raw. Some will do worse. Food gets “cooked” regardless. To eat raw, your pet needs to have the energy to “cook” it after they eat it. Raw comes with its own challenges. 🦠
9. Home-cooking for your pets is a great option *if:* you’re following a nutritionally balanced recipe, you’ve got the time to make it, and it fits your budget.
10. Cooking for your pets isn’t necessarily cheaper than some of the commercially available options, and feeding an un-balanced diet long term (cooked or raw) is far more harmful than that balanced kibble.
So we say: “Dry is not a lie but wetter is better and fresh is best!” 🌭🥙🍦
