The decision to feed a fresh diet is the first step in advocating for your dog's health. But there is an alarming amount of information on the internet, much conflicting. The benefits of fresh food, commonly used raw feeding models, the components of a fresh raw diet, and how to create nutritionally balanced meals over time are all covered in this article to help you get started without feeling completely overwhelmed.

Benefits of Feeding Fresh Real Food to Dogs

As dogs eat kibble or any ultra-processed, high-carbohydrate diet, their bodies must overwork to compensate for food unsuitable for their species. This can result in excessive inflammation, which leads to disease throughout the body. 

The benefits of feeding your dog a fresh diet are numerous. They can help you prevent six of the most common causes of non-routine veterinary visits: poor oral health, skin and ear disorders, obesity, joint pain, allergies, and metabolic diseases like diabetes. 

The health benefits start in the mouth. By two years old, 75-85% of dogs have a periodontal disease caused by plaque accumulation. Plaque is caused by collecting saliva, food particles, especially carbohydrates and sugars, in large quantities in kibble, and bacteria on the teeth and at the gum line. 

Switching your dog to a fresh food diet with raw, meaty bones is the first step in establishing good oral health in your dog. Raw dog foods contain enzymes that help protect animals' teeth and gums. These enzymes prevent tooth decay or other oral diseases, especially without sugars and starches.

Fresh food components are less likely to stick to teeth than ultra-processed kibble and canned food. Including raw meaty bones in your dog's food provides an abrasive action within the mouth and on the teeth that will scrape away plaque without harming the tooth enamel. 

The next body part that is impacted by fresh food is your dog's skin and hair coat. Dry, scaly, and flaky skin and chronic ear infections are all clinical signs of deficiencies in omega-3, an essential fatty acid, zinc, copper, and vitamin A. Poor quality or insufficient protein in the diet can also cause poor skin conditions. 

Kibble is known to have excessive levels of omega-6 fatty acid, which has inflammatory properties, especially when not balanced with omega-3. When feeding a fresh diet that contains small oily fish, you can balance the omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and reduce the inflammation in the skin. 

Canine obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide! In the past 15 years, the number of overweight or obese dogs has risen from 42% to 56%. The higher percentage increase is in the obese category. The buildup of excess body fat is the cause of the extra weight. 

Joint disease and obesity are strongly linked, and both are tied to the excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods and carbohydrates. Many orthopedic conditions can be accelerated by obesity, including degenerative joint disease, hip dysplasia, osteoarthritis, chronic lameness, humeral condylar fractures, cranial cruciate ligament rupture, and intervertebral disc disease. 

All of these problems are exacerbated by the fact that joint pain causes less movement, which leads to additional weight gain. A raw diet, with a minimal carbohydrate content of 5-10% from plant sources, utilizes fats as the primary energy source, reducing the need for excess insulin production. This approach, coupled with intermittent fasting, encourages the body to use fats for energy, increases leptin production to decrease appetite, and contrasts with carbohydrate-based diets where proper leptin synthesis may be hindered, leading to unsatisfied hunger feelings.

The key to treating dog allergies is providing whole food that supports the immune system. A balanced and species-appropriate diet will support your dog's immune system and reduce inflammation and itchiness. An appropriate diet would include high-quality proteins, healthy fats, natural antifungal foods, prebiotics, probiotics, organ meats, and fiber from low-glycemic fruits and vegetables or fur. The Real Ancestral 6X  DietTM contains the ideal ingredients to support your dog's immune system, skin, and gut microbiome. 

Kibble has been linked to the increase in diabetes in dogs. Diabetes occurs when your dog's body has difficulty regulating its blood sugar (glucose) levels. Glucose is a form of sugar that provides energy for the body's cells—the carbohydrates in kibble cause a rapid spike in blood glucose. 

Dietary fat is a concentrated source of calories. Including uncooked high-quality animal fats in your dog's diet can help provide energy without causing rapid spikes in blood sugar levels. Fats can also help your dog feel full after a meal, which is particularly important for overweight or obese dogs with type 2 diabetes. A diet with healthy fats may help control appetite and prevent overeating.

Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods diet (BARF)

Dr. Ian Billinghurst first introduced the BARF diet in the late 1980s when he published his book, "Give Your Dog A Bone." As a veterinarian, Dr. Billinghurst saw dogs with recurrent or chronic illnesses that he could only attribute to the lack of a species-appropriate diet. 

Most dogs were fed commercial dog food that contained more than 40% carbohydrates at the time, despite dogs having zero requirements for it. He proposed that feeding a dog a biologically appropriate diet consisting of raw meaty bones, muscle meat, secreting organs, and fruits and vegetables would prevent chronic disease and heal those already present. 

Within the same time frame, another veterinarian, Dr. Tom Lonsdale, observed a decline in the health of his patients, especially their oral health. As he began to research why dogs were declining at earlier ages, he went back to the roots of the wolf consuming raw carcasses, including the bones. To inform dog owners of the dangers of the ultra-processed food that they had been feeding, he published his first book, "Raw Meaty Bones Promotes Health."

Initially, the BARF diet comprised 40-60% raw meaty bones, muscle meat, and some organs. However, the diet has evolved, and it now contains:

The ingredients for the BARF diet can be sourced from one species or several. Bones from poultry can be added to meat and organs from mammals. Variety aids in the balancing of the diet over time. 

Other ingredients commonly added are goat milk products like kefir, yogurt, and cottage cheese. Fermented vegetables are also an excellent addition to the diet.

PMR recognizes that dogs and wolves evolved from a common ancestor. To meet the biological needs of our domesticated dogs, we should feed them similarly to how a wolf eats its prey. Prey constitutes a complete and balanced meal. The PMR diet mimics this feeding style. 

The entire animal is fed with fur or feathers, blood, and all organs in a PMR diet. Ideally, whole wild prey is utilized, but domestic prey animals can also be used. Common domesticated animals that are fed include whole rabbits, ducks, chickens, and quail. 

PMR is often called the 80/10/10 diet, referring to the percentage of each component within a whole animal. This equates to meat being 80% of the diet, secreting organs as 10% (5% liver and 5% other), and 10% bone.

Regularly sourcing whole prey can be challenging, and many dog parents are uncomfortable with feeding an entire animal to their dog. So, the Franken Prey model has evolved. 

Most raw feeders who choose the PMR diet utilize the Franken Prey method, piecing the meal together from a mixture of animal parts. The recommended guidelines for a PMR diet include the following:

PMR diets generally do not include plant or dairy products.

The ancestral diet is similar to the BARF diet, except for adding fur or feathers rather than just fruit and vegetables as fiber sources. The ancestral diet also emphasizes the importance of protein variety, recommending using five to nine different forms of protein per month. 

Most BARF ratio diets include basic proteins (beef, chicken, turkey, and pork). In contrast, the ancestral diet includes proteins from lamb, duck, and other available species for variety and the addition of seafood to compensate for imbalances in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids that the diet of factory-farmed livestock can cause.

The Real Ancestral 6X  DietTM consists of:

All diet models can be tailored to meet your dog's needs. You can create hybrid diets, using the percentages from one and other components from another.

If your dog shows signs of itchy skin or chronic inflammation, add seafood to the BARF or PMR diets or increase it in the Real Ancestral 6X  DietTM to provide additional omega-3 fatty acids. For the aging dog having trouble with mobility, you can vary the type of RMBs to include extra glucosamine and chondroitin in your dog's meals.

The guidelines put forth by the NRC and AAFCO are based on research with kibble-fed dogs. Commercial dog food manufacturers must add synthetic vitamins and minerals to obtain the recommended vitamins and minerals. The bioavailability of those nutrients is vastly different from that of whole food counterparts. As science continues to reveal synthetic nutrients' long-term negative impact, it becomes clearer that fresh whole foods are the best options for our dogs. 

Many dog owners are intimidated by creating their dogs' meals and use diet formulating software. However, there are many drawbacks to this approach. There are limited options for input into the formulator, and the actual nutrient profile for the ingredients you have versus the ones in the databases will never be equal. Because creating that perfectly balanced recipe is challenging, many openers will feed the same recipe rather than using various ingredients.

Nutritional balancing over time is an approach to ensuring a balanced diet for dogs that involves offering a variety of ingredients and recipes over time rather than relying on detailed nutritional analysis and spreadsheets for every meal. This method considers that individual meals or recipes may not be perfectly balanced. Still, by providing a variety of ingredients over time, the overall nutritional needs can be met.

High-Quality Ingredients To Use For All Models

Feeding the highest quality of meat that is within your budget and can be sourced in your area is best for your dog. Dogs have relatively small detoxification organs, such as their liver and kidneys. The meat and organs from organically pasture-raised animals have fewer toxins and high levels of nutrients. 

Grass-fed and grain-fed beef exhibit notable differences in nutrient composition, stemming from the distinct diets of the animals. Grass-fed beef stands out with lower monounsaturated fat, up to five times more omega-3, and approximately twice the conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) compared to grain-fed beef. While grain-fed beef may have higher omega-6 fatty acids, an imbalance with omega-3s could contribute to inflammation. Regarding fat content, grass-fed beef tends to be leaner and features a distinct fatty acid profile, while grain-fed beef may have more intramuscular fat, enhancing tenderness and flavor.

Grass-fed beef boasts higher levels of essential nutrients such as B vitamins (B6, B12), vitamins E and D, and minerals like magnesium, zinc, selenium, and calcium. Grass-fed liver, mainly, is rich in the soluble form of vitamin A (retinol), which is crucial for vision, skin health, inflammation reduction, tissue repair, immunity, and cancer prevention. Additionally, grass-fed beef is associated with lower exposure to synthetic hormones and antibiotics, commonly found in conventional grain-fed cattle farming, and contains increased antioxidant levels like glutathione and superoxide dismutase due to the animals' dietary differences.

Muscle meats from organically pasture-raised animals comprise 63-65% of your dog's meal, high-quality protein sources to support your dog's overall health and immune function. Feed a variety of protein sources, with the majority being red meats. Appropriate meat sources include

Red meat: Beef, bison, lamb, pork, goat, elk, wild rabbit, venison, elk, ostrich, and wild birds

The decision to feed a fresh diet is the first step in advocating for your dog's health. But there is an alarming amount of information on the internet, much conflicting. The benefits of fresh food, commonly used <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/raw-feeding">raw feeding</a> models, the components of a fresh raw diet, and how to create nutritionally balanced meals over time are all covered in this article to help you get started without feeling completely overwhelmed.

Why You Should Feed Your Dog Fresh Food

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