KIbble vs homemade

Kibble vs Homemade Dog Food

Both commercial dry and wet dog foods these days are less healthy than you might expect. 

However, even though we often hear about the many benefits a whole-food diet can provide, commercial dog foods can be a very convenient option that many pet owners rely on, sometimes exclusively. 

Let’s explore the pros and cons of giving your dog kibble, along with the pros and cons of homemade diets that feature whole foods. Finally, we’ll look into how dog food makers that sit conveniently on your countertop are letting pet parents create meals that have all the pros of kibble and whole foods, but none of the cons.

 

 

The Pros and Cons of Giving Your Dog Kibble

In the mid-20th century, kibble dog foods came out of necessity as they were cheap, convenient, and had long shelf lives. Before that, our dogs had been enjoying many of the same whole foods we eat since we first started domesticating them. 

Pros

  • Scientifically formulated for Industrial Size Batches:

    Major dog food brands invest millions each year in pet and food scientists who carefully design kibble to meet nutritional standards. However, these formulations are created for mass production in industrial-sized batches, which often requires compromises in quality to ensure consistency and long shelf life. While kibble is enriched with nutrients, the need to produce it on such a large scale can impact the freshness and bioavailability of those nutrients.

  • Specially formulated for the concept of feeding your dog the same meal everyday: Kibble is designed with the concept of feeding your dog the same meal every day, which means it must include a precise balance of nutrients to meet their daily nutritional needs. Commercial dry foods are carefully formulated to ensure dogs receive the right protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals to maintain overall health. This standardized approach is intended to provide consistent nutrition, regardless of a dog’s life stage or health requirements, ensuring that each meal delivers the essential nutrients they need to stay healthy.  
  • Shelf life: Unopened dry dog food has an incredibly long shelf life, with some kibble able to last 12-18 months after the manufacturing date. Though once opened, it’s good to use it within 1-2 months.   
  • Free feeding: While many dogs can’t help but gobble down all their food within minutes, others like grazing on their meals throughout the day. In most cases, vets recommend against free feeding due to weight and behavioral issues it can cause. But if required, kibble’s inability to quickly spoil makes it ideal for free feeding. 
  • Affordability vs. Quality: Some kibble options are more affordable, but this often comes at the cost of ingredient quality. While dry kibble remains popular for its convenience and low price, many low-cost options contain lower-quality ingredients. These budget-friendly kibbles may include fillers, by-products, and artificial additives, which can compromise your dog’s long-term health compared to higher-quality, nutrient-dense alternatives.

Cons

  • Poor manufacturing process: While the combination of ingredients used when manufacturing dog food can create complete and balanced meals, the harsh cooking processes that apply extremely high temperatures and pressure (extrusion) can result in significant nutrient loss. I.e., the nutritional label may no longer actually represent the nutritional content of the food. 
  • Low-quality ingredients: Low-quality ingredients that don’t qualify as human-grade often make their way into commercial foods, especially kibbles that often rely on meat by-products and grain meals.  
  • Flavor enhancers: Like us, it’s easy for our dogs to get tired eating the same meal day in and day out, and it doesn’t help that kibble is pretty boring compared to meats and other whole foods. To combat this, flavor enhancers that can be addictive are often added. However, even those who have tried kibble and dry treats before say they are incredibly bland. Due to the non-human grade ingredients these foods contain, we recommend you just take our word for it and don’t try them yourself.
  • Too many grains and carbs: While whole grains and carbohydrates are perfectly fine to give to our dogs, kibble goes overboard with them. Unlike us, our dogs don’t heavily rely on carbs for energy and too many carbs and grains can lead to gastrointestinal distress and increase the risk of obesity and diabetes. 
  • Artificial dyes: Food dyes add no nutritional value to your dog’s food. They are simply there to appeal to shoppers with a more colorful product. Even worse, studies show that some synthetic food dyes are carcinogenic, can cause cell damage, and make changes in brain chemistry. 

 

 

The Pros and Cons of Giving Your Dog Homemade Dog Food

Homemade dog food gives pet parents the opportunity to give their dogs whole foods that have made up our dogs’ diets for thousands of years. 

Pros

  • Customization: While there are a variety of specialty commercial foods out there, by design, they are always going to be one-size-fits-all. When creating your dog’s food yourself, you can tailor it to their exact needs, creating meals that are better suited to their breed, weight, age, health, and on, while choosing food ingredients that your dog loves. 
  • More appetizing: Homemade meals featuring whole foods look better, have a more fulfilling texture, taste better, and are more aromatic, i.e., they have all the things needed to entice picky eaters. Plus, they make mealtimes more exciting in general. 
  • Improved digestion: Fresh ingredients are often easier for dogs to digest than their highly processed version. They also tend to have more fiber for adding bulk to stools which can discourage diarrhea and constipation while aiding your dog’s delicate microbiome. 
  • Stronger bond: Many pet parents report building an even closer bond with their dogs when making their meals at home. Everything from the smell of their food cooking to more exciting meal times is a surefire way to build an unbreakable bond with your best furbuddy. 
  • Supports health: From incorporating ingredients that support heart health to eliminating low-quality by-products and hidden additives, it can be surprising to see how many places, homemade diets that feature whole foods, can support our dogs' overall health. 

Cons

  • Easy to mess up: Homemade diets are a fantastic idea for better supporting your dogs’ health, but the research is clear, the heavy majority of recipes available online are often missing adequate amounts of several nutrients. 
  • Lack of calcium: While homemade diets are often low in phosphorus and some other select minerals, calcium deficiencies are the most common, making supplementation of it a core aspect when feeding your dog meals that you make at home. 
  • Contamination risks: Uncooked meals, also known as the raw diet, can put both pet parents and their pets at risk of bacteria and parasites, and are generally not recommended by vets. 
  • Learning curve: Switching to homemade dog food can be challenging when trying to understand how much food and which ingredients your dog needs to thrive. Balancing portions and nutritional content can be overwhelming without guidance.
  • Too much time: Cooking homemade dog food can be a daunting task, taking hours when you factor in prep, cook, and clean-up time. Managing multiple pots, pans, and slow cookers can make it feel overwhelming.

 

ChefPaw: All The Pros, None Of The Cons 

Creating gently cooked meals that feature whole foods, ChefPaw takes all the pros of kibble, giving pet parents scientifically formulated and affordable meals that are convenient to give.

 

 

ChefPaw eliminates all the cons we saw with both kibble diets and the traditional homemade diet. It does this, thanks to its customizable pre-programmed recipes and nutrient analyzer that looks for any gaps in a meal's nutrition, making adjustments on the fly based on several factors unique to your dog. 

Reduce The Learning Curve

The ChefPaw app also reduces the learning curve of homemade feeding by providing 25+ suggested recipes, all formulated to give dogs the essential nutrients they need. Each recipe is balanced and tailored to your dog’s age, weight, and activity level, ensuring an easy and reliable feeding experience.

Save Time

ChefPaw saves time by cooking 6.4 lbs of dog food in just 40 minutes, using only one pot. This makes the clean-up process much simpler compared to managing multiple pots, pans, or slow cookers. ChefPaw transforms homemade dog food into a quick, efficient, and nutritious option for busy pet parents.

ChefPaw Supplements

As we saw, nutrient issues are a major concern with homemade meals. While this is understandable, as commercial foods implore a team of experts to avoid incomplete and unbalanced meals, it’s an issue that needs to be corrected. ChefPaw does that with the addition of two recommended supplements. 

Innovet’s Wild Alaskan Salmon Oil brings a delightful abundance of essential omega-3 fatty acids. Commercial foods are often enriched with omega-3s due to their reliance on ingredients high in omega-6s. 

 

 

The ChefPaw Dietary Supplement is packed with essential nutrients such as phosphorus; specifically, it contains 3 highly absorbable forms of calcium. Unlike many commercial kibble foods that apply heat after enriching their food, with ChefPaw, you can easily mix these supplements in after the cooking process. This greatly protects their delicate, heat-sensitive nature. 

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