Raw Dog Food vs Kibble: Which Diet Is Better?

Understanding the Basics of Each Diet

Raw dog food is a diet consisting of unprocessed, uncooked ingredients like meat, offal, and raw bones. It can also include other uncooked items such as fruits, vegetables, and raw eggs. Raw dog food is available as both homemade recipes and commercially prepared, pre-packaged meals.

Kibble is a type of dry dog food typically made from a balance of meat and vegetables, and often grains, that are cooked, shaped into pellets, and dried. This process creates a convenient, shelf-stable product with a long shelf life. It is also known as dry dog food.

Nutritional Benefits and Risks – What You Need to Know About Raw and Kibble Diets

Whether you are intending to feed your dog a raw or dry diet it is the quality and combination of the ingredients which matter the most.

A diet without grains or fillers means there is plenty of room for carefully chosen ingredients like novel meats, fruits and vegetables that provide your dog with essential nutrients.

Meat is full of nutrient-rich proteins, essential for muscle development and overall growth.  Animal fats and oils support healthy skin and the nervous system. Vegetables provide sources of fibre for healthy stools and fruits are full of antioxidants.

You should also investigate whether your chosen diet is ‘complete’. A complete dog food is a nutritionally balanced product that provides all the protein, fat, fibre, vitamins and minerals a dog needs to stay healthy. Whether you choose raw food or kibble, if the food is not labelled as complete it does not meet the regulatory standards set out by the European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF) to fulfil a dog’s nutritional requirements.

Carnilove complete dog foods have up to 80% animal ingredients and smaller amounts of vegetables, forest fruits and herbs. Carnilove grain-free and potato-free dog foods are made up of quality novel animal proteins like duck, pheasant, wild boar and reindeer. Each providing their own nutritional benefits.

Cost, Convenience, and Food Safety

For both raw and kibble diets there are a vast range of price points from fairly cheap to more expensive. A key quality to consider in both is whether you are getting value for money. Does the recipe include a high percentage of meat? And does it use quality animal ingredients?

A diet high in meat content using quality proteins and highly digestible ingredients is more nutrient dense, which means you may feed less and the bag will last longer saving you money in the long-term.

To calculate the ‘daily cost’ simply divide the size of the bag (in grams) by the daily feeding amount, for example:

A 12kg bag of Carnilove Duck & Pheasant Dog Food has an SRP of £62.95. The feeding amount per day for a 15kg dog is 160g.

To work out how many days the bag will last:
12000g (12kg bag size) ÷ 160g daily feed = 75 days

You can then use this figure to work out the ‘daily cost’:
£62.95 cost per bag ÷ 75 days = 84p daily cost to feed per day

Instead of comparing the cost per bag, try our ‘daily cost’ calculation to see how they really compare.

Another consideration is convenience and food safety. A dry kibble can normally be purchased at your local pet store or ordered online. Delivery or transport to your home is easy and does not require specialist refrigeration or restrictive timings. It is ‘shelf stable’ so does not require freezer space at home and can be stored easily.

Raw food can be frozen or refrigerated and there are huge range of options from homemade using individually purchased meats and other ingredients which need to be prepared and fed in combination to meet the dog’s nutritional requirement to pre-prepared frozen meals which can be delivered to your door. Generally, most households that feed raw will keep this food in the freezer and defrost a daily portion to be served to the dog.

Finding the Best Option for Your Dog

We recommend paying careful attention to the ingredients list:

• Look for real, named meat and animal ingredients. Carnilove dog food is made with nutrient rich ingredients, a minimum of 60% animal ingredients like fresh turkey.
• Avoid unnecessary fillers like soy, potato, grains and wheat.
• Quality oils and fats like salmon oil and chicken fat provide beneficial nutrients to help maintain healthy skin, coat and brain function.
• Carnilove is made without any added chemicals, preservatives or colourants.
• Look for a diet that offers a variety of animal proteins

Product Recommendation:

Carnilove True Fresh Turkey dry dog food is a complete food for adult dogs of all breeds. Enriched with spirulina, blueberries and thyme.

Key features:

• Made exclusively with Fresh Meat – NO Meat Meals
• 60% Fresh Turkey
• Grain and potato free

60% Fresh Turkey from farms and local sources from animals approved for human consumption. It is extruded using twin thermal technology, this production allows a higher proportion of fresh ingredients and the natural nutritional properties of the meat are preserved.