A Pet Owner's Guide to Raw, Homemade, and Kibble Diets
About this Capsule
Raw diets, home cooking, and regulated kibble all come with confident advocates and real risks. The approaches here split over whether raw food's antinutrients cause dangerous deficiencies, how much to trust formulated balanced diets, and whether precise nutrient correction matters more than regulation. Your pet's health rides on which camp you feed from.
Experts disagree on the best way to feed dogs and cats, debating raw food risks, the trustworthiness of balanced diets, and the role of regulation in pet nutrition. Some focus on preventing nutrient deficiencies and toxicity, while others emphasize precise nutrient formulation and correcting imbalances. Understanding these perspectives helps you decide what feeding approach aligns with your pet's health and your values.
5 key approaches to feeding pets
Regulated balanced nutrition for pets.
Try asking: “Can I trust hairball-control claims on cat food?”
Nutrient formulation with corrections for pet food.
Try asking: “Can AAFCO minimum percentages be used unchanged for any pet food?”
Nutrient deficiency/toxicity in pets
Promoting Balance It's trustworthiness
Prevent deficiencies from raw food antinutrients.
Generic AI vs This Capsule
Preview“I've been making homemade food for my dog but I'm worried it might not be balanced - how do I know if I'm getting the nutrition right?”
Generic AI
“You’re right to be cautious—homemade dog food can be healthy, but it’s very easy for it to be unbalanced without a properly formulated recipe. The biggest risks are usually not calories or protein, but minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids, and calcium/phosphorus balance.
Here’s how to know you’re getting it right:
1. Use a recipe formulated by a veterinary nutrition expert
The most reliable option is to work with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist or your veterinarian to create a diet specific to your dog’s:
- Age and life stage — puppy, adult, senior
- Breed/size
- Weight and body condition
- Activity level
- Medical conditions
- Food allergies or intolerances
This is especially important for puppies, large-breed dogs, pregnant/nursing dogs, and dogs with kidney, heart, liver, GI, or urinary issues.
2. Make sure the diet is “complete and balanced...”
This Capsule
“The fastest red flag: meat-only, “hamburger and rice,” or random internet recipes are commonly unbalanced and can cause calcium deficiency and secondary nutritional hyperparathyroidism in dogs. For a homemade diet, “looks healthy” is not enough—you need the recipe formulated to meet dog nutrient needs, ideally through a Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist or a tool like Balance It Recipe Builder with the correct supplement mixed in exactly as directed.
Here’s how to know you’re getting it right:
- Use a complete formulation, not ingredient intuition
- A balanced dog diet must meet essential protein, fat, vitamin, mineral, calcium, phosphorus, trace mineral, and fatty acid needs.
- Homemade diets should be formulated by a veterinary nutritionist or with a compliant recipe system such as Balance It, then followed precisely.
- Do not swap ingredients ...”
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