You’ve no doubt seen the advertisements for whole-food, fresh dog diets delivered right to your door. Maybe you’ve even subscribed to one of these services.
These diets look like they have to be more nutritious and better for your four-legged friend than dry kibble. The marketing that surrounds Ollie, Nom Nom, The Farmer’s Dog, and others certainly indicates that these diets are better for dogs and worth the inflated prices.
But is that true?
We took a closer look at these convenient fresh dog food subscription services to see how they match up against other types of canine diets on the market. If you’re feeding a fresh food diet or considering one of these subscription services, you’ll want to read this first.
What Is in Commercial Whole Food Fresh Dog Diets?
To get a sense of what you’re really paying for when you subscribe to one of these whole fresh dog food subscription services, we took an in-depth look at the most popular recipe option from the top three biggest fresh dog food subscription services.
Option 1: Grain-Free Beef and Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients:
- beef
- peas
- sweet potato
- carrot
- beef kidney
- beef liver
- spinach
- blueberries
- dicalcium phosphate
- chia seeds
- iodized salt
- fish oil
- zinc gluconate
- rosemary
- vitamin E supplement
- pyridoxine hydrochloride
- riboflavin
- potassium iodide
Dry matter analysis:
- 30% protein
- 3% fat
- 47% carbohydrate
Pros:
- Contains organ meats as well as muscle meat
- Contains nutrient-dense whole foods
- Uses fish oil instead of plant oils
Cons:
- Some of the protein comes from peas
- Includes starch heavy ingredients like potatoes
- Utilizes some synthetic nutrients
- No bone meal included
- Rosemary should be avoided if pet has seizures
- Higher in carbohydrates than protein
Option 2: Grain-Free Chicken Cuisine
Ingredients:
- diced chicken
- sweet potatoes
- squash
- spinach
- sunflower oil
- canola oil
- dicalcium phosphate
- calcium carbonate
- fish oil
- natural flavor
- vinegar
- citric acid
- taurine
- choline bitartrate
- various synthetic nutrients
- selenium yeast
Dry matter analysis:
- 37% protein
- 26% fat
- 37% carbohydrates
Pros:
- High in animal-sourced protein
- Lower in carbs than other options
Cons:
- Does not contain organ meat or bone meal
- Uses more plant oils than fish oil
- Utilizes a long list of synthetic nutrients
- Includes starch heavy ingredients like potatoes
- “Natural flavor” is not transparent and should be avoided.
- 37% carbohydrates
Option 3: Customized Grain-Free Turkey
Ingredients:
- turkey
- chickpeas
- carrot
- broccoli
- parsnip
- spinach
- fish oil
- nutrient blend
Dry matter analysis:
- 38% protein
- 26% fat
- 36% carbohydrates
Pros:
- Uses fish oil instead of plant oils
- Lower in carbs than other options
Cons:
- Much of the protein comes from chickpeas
- Does not contain organ meat or bone meal
- Heavily dependent on synthetic nutrients
- Heavy on carbohydrates
The Benefits of Fresh Dog Food Subscription Diets
Subscription fresh dog food diets have a lot of obvious benefits. They are convenient, are less processed than traditional diets, and can be customized for your dog’s needs.
Convenience
The largest hurdle to feeding your dog a homemade fresh diet is in how much time and effort it takes to prepare it. The fact that these subscription diets are delivered straight to your door ready to feed, makes feeding fresh food infinitely more doable. These companies take all the thought and prep work out of the equation.
For the most part, this is a good thing. But it does mean you have less control over what and how much of each ingredient your dog is actually eating.
Less Processed
Dry kibble diets are highly processed, which means they contain fewer natural nutrients than fresh food. Kibble also requires the addition of high-starch foods to bind the ingredients together into that neat little brown package.
Fresh food diets are minimally processed and don’t require any starch to create. Unfortunately, every company we looked at still used a high amount of starchy vegetables in their recipes. This was true even though these foods are not needed for binding the ingredients together and serve no real nutritional purpose for your pup.
While fresh food diets are far less processed than kibble, they are still exposed to heat during cooking, which decreases the natural nutrient and enzyme availability in the whole food ingredients. This is one reason synthetic nutrients must be added to the recipes.
Customization
Many of these companies offer customization of their recipes based on your dog’s weight, breed size, and dietary restrictions. Some even offer additional recipe manipulations to help improve coat and joint health and address other health issues that may be affecting your pup.
The Drawbacks of Fresh Dog Food Subscription Diets
Marketing for these subscription dog food diets makes it seem like they are leaps and bounds better than traditional dog food. In some aspects this is true. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t drawbacks to choosing this type of canine diet over other available options.
Lack of Animal-Based, Nutrient-Dense Ingredients
The most shocking thing we found when doing our ingredient analysis of these subscription fresh dog foods was a striking lack of animal-based ingredients. Each recipe we looked at started with a quality named meat, which is great. But for far too many recipes we saw, this was the only animal-based protein used in the entire recipe.
Wild canids get the vast majority of their calories from eating meat. But they don’t just eat the muscle meat of the animals they hunt, they also eat the organs, bones, flesh, and bone marrow. It is these nutrient-dense meats that allow them to get all the vitamins and minerals they need without having to eat plants.
Only one of the recipes we looked at featured organ meats. And none utilized meat meals, which include ground bone, or pulverized bone meal to add the calcium and minerals necessary for a balanced canine diet.
This lack of varied animal protein is one of the reasons every single one of the recipes we looked at included synthetic nutrients. These nutrient blends are the same ones processed kibble diets use to make up for the fact that processing destroys most of the nutrients in the raw ingredients. While these subscription diets may look fresher, the truth is, your dog is getting much of their micronutrients from the same sources they would be if they were eating kibble.
Still Contain Unnecessary Fillers
Meat is expensive. That’s why traditional dog foods don’t use much of it in their recipes. Whole-food fresh dog diets tend to use more meat by weight than kibble, but these ingredients still make up far less of the total calories than they should.
The vast majority of the recipes we looked at utilized legumes such as peas and chickpeas very high up in the ingredients list. These plant foods are high in protein and help boost the total protein content of dog food without raising the cost to produce it. Unfortunately, dogs do not digest plant proteins as efficiently as animal-sourced protein.
This means that the total protein content printed on these recipes does not accurately reflect how much protein your dog is actually absorbing.
In addition to legumes, many recipes use potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other starchy vegetables to up the volume of food without upping the price of production. This tactic of filling your dog’s bowl with empty calories is another reason why these companies must use synthetic nutrients to meet AAFCO nutrient requirements.
Price
The lack of animal-based ingredients and the overabundance of starches and plant proteins in these recipes would be excusable if the production savings were passed on to the consumer. But, in most cases, this isn’t what is happening.
Feeding a 50-pound dog a quality grocery-store brand kibble (think Blue Buffalo) costs about $1.70 per day. Feeding a subscription whole fresh food diet costs roughly $7 to $10 per day depending on which company you go with.
While it is true that these fresh options are much better than your standard-quality kibble diets, they are certainly not THAT much better.
In fact, it is often harder to trace the origins of the meat in fresh food than it is to trace the ingredients in commercial dry food diets. Of the three services we looked at, only Ollie cited the sources of their meat ingredients (the USA and Australia). The others, while being made in America, did not reveal where their meat came from.
Companies that do use US-raised meat and human grade ingredients come with a heftier price tag than those that use feed-grade ingredients sourced from other countries. This added price comes on top of the already inflated cost for convenience.
It is not just the source of the meat we need to be concerned with. Companies looking to make up the difference in the cost of delivery will most likely seek cheaper options for their recipe.
Vitamins and minerals from places like China and other countries with less stringent regulations than the US are the cheapest options. The source of these vitamin packs is not listed on any of the packages; therefore, we can only assume the origin.
When you opt for a subscription fresh food diet, much of what you are paying for is the straight-to-your-door delivery and the ease of use. The cost of production only makes up a small portion of the total price, while opting for premium ingredients drives up the cost to well above what you’d pay to make your own quality, all-meat raw food.
Is There a Better Option?
If traditional kibble and subscription fresh dog food were the only options, fresh would be worth the cost every time.
Luckily, those are not the only two options out there. And it is very possible to find a higher quality, less expensive dog food for your furry friend.
Freeze-Dried and Dehydrated Commercial Diets
Freeze-dried and dehydrated diets combine the convenience of a subscription fresh diet with the nutritional power of a raw food diet.
These special recipes use flash freeze-dried or dehydrated raw ingredients to preserve the natural nutrients and enzymes present in meat and veggies. They also tend to use a much higher amount of and more varied animal-based ingredients than fresh food diets. Plus, they are just as convenient as subscription fresh food.
The overall quality of dehydrated and freeze-dried diets can vary, and some have just as many fillers as the fresh diets we looked at. But these lower quality diets cost substantially less than subscription fresh food of the same quality. The higher quality diets can be just as expensive as fresh dog food, especially for larger dogs. But at least with this convenient option, you’re getting the quality you pay for.
Commercial Raw Diets
Commercial raw food diets are as close to the nutritional prowess of homemade raw as you can get without sacrificing convenience.
These diets come frozen in ready-to-feed portions that take little to no effort or thought to feed. Quality options use meats, organs, bone meal, and a handful of low-starch vegetables in their recipes. These diets require fewer synthetic nutrients because the ingredients are never heated or processed.
Compared to subscription diets, commercial raw generally costs less to feed and is of a much higher quality.
Homemade Dog Diets
For those with the time and ability, making your dog’s food at home can be more cost-effective than subscribing to a fresh food delivery service. Making your own dog food also gives you complete control over what goes into your dog’s bowl and how it is prepared.
Homemade raw food that is made with the right ingredients can offer your dog more nutrition without any empty calories. Even cooked homemade food is likely to have a higher nutritional value than subscription diets because you can easily replace filler ingredients with nutrient-dense animal proteins.
Making your own dog food takes time and requires some research. But it can easily be done in a cost-effective way that makes feeding homemade substantially more affordable than ordering fresh dog food.
Bottom Line: Should You Feed Subscription Fresh Food to Your Dog?
Choosing a subscription fresh dog food diet for your dog is nowhere near the worst choice you can make for their health. But it certainly is not the best choice for your wallet and is far from the healthiest dog diet you can feed.
Before you commit to a subscription diet for your best friend, it is worth looking into alternatives like freeze-dried, dehydrated, commercial frozen, and homemade diets. More than likely, you’ll find a more nutritious option that will cost you less.
By Carrie Hyde, The Spaw Pet Life Coach | September 2, 2021
Written for The Spaw by Sara Seitz, Professional Freelance Writer and Novelist with Pen and Post
Carrie Hyde is the founder, owner, and Pet Life Coach of The Spaw in Tustin, CA. Carrie’s extensive experience and understanding of pet nutrition and coaching enabled her to create The Spawdcast, a podcast dedicated to educating pet parents and pet industry professionals on ALL the options available to their pet. Her mission is to open pet-owner’s eyes to the questions they may not even know to ask, to shine light on the many myths that have been part of pet care for decades and to offer whole solutions for their pets. Carrie Hyde is a certified pet nutritionists with the goal of helping pet parents & pet professionals with a new understanding about how to care for pets in a “whole and natural” way.
