If you have researched raw feeding online you will have come across ratio diets. Typically “80:10:10” or similar. This refers to a seemingly magical way of balancing your dog’s food: 80% muscle meat, 10% offal, and 10% bone. As long as you vary the protein source, they will be grand. Sounds simple? Unfortunately, it is too simple!
Ratios can be a great starting point, but they do not address nutritional balance – which is the most common problem associated with raw feeding. Dog’s require balanced vitamins, minerals, fats, and a specific profile of amino acids to thrive. Problems associated with nutritional balance can take many months or years to reach a crisis point where they become obvious externally, so you may be fooled into thinking your dog’s illness isn’t caused by their diet because they have been happily eating the same thing for many months.
As an example, let’s examine a ratio diet for a 15kg middle-aged whippet. If you look at online DIY raw feeding guides you will see that they recommend a 15kg dog should be having two meals, each weighing 200g per day.
For an 80:10:10 diet, this means each meal would be 160g muscle, 20g offal, and 20g bone.
You have to look up and work out the bone content of any raw meaty bones you are feeding – for example 35g chicken foot is likely to be 15g meat and 20g bone; turkey, duck, venison neck and chicken wings are close to 50:50 bone and meat. As recommended by the raw feeding sites, you use a variety of at least five proteins.
You have a go at some recipes:
Recipe 1
Chicken foot (35g, 20g bone + 15g meat), 10g tripe, 10g beef liver, 50g beef mince, 50g chicken breast, 45g pork loin
Recipe 2
Turkey neck (40g, 20g meat + 20g bone), 10g lamb kidney, 10g lamb liver, 70g lamb mince, 70g turkey thigh meat
Recipe 3
Chicken wings (40g, 20g meat + 20g bone), 10g beef liver, 10g chicken liver, 50g chicken breast, 50g duck breast, 40g beef brisket
Full nutritional breakdown of each recipe below
When we look at the nutritional breakdown of these three recipes, we immediately see some problems:
All three recipes:
- Very high fat content (almost 50% on a dry matter basis). Although some dogs may tolerate this, others are likely to develop reflux, diarrhoea, or pancreatitis.
- Vitamin D3: all recipes are low in vitamin D3, which is vital for calcium and phosphorus balance.
- Vitamin E: all recipes are low in vitamin E. This is needed to help build cell membranes, protect the eyes and skin, and as an antioxidant.
- Zinc:copper ratios are incorrect: zinc and copper affect the absorption of each other, so their balance is very important. They play vital roles in immune health and brain health, gene expression, skin and coat health. Copper being too high can also lead to liver disease.
- Calcium and Ca:Phos – in all recipes the level of calcium is insufficient, and the calcium:phosphorus ratio is out of balance. This total calcium and the ratio are vitally important for correct growth and bone strength.
- Manganese is too low – this mineral is important in multiple enzymatic metabolic pathways. In particular low manganese can affect ligament strength
- Magnesium is too low – this is another important mineral for bone strength, and also for muscle function including heart muscle.
- Fibre is very low – fibre is important to maintain intestinal health, feeding the “good bacteria” and aiding intestinal motility.
In addition to this, recipes 1 and 2 are too low in calories. This is because using a particular weight of muscle meat based on your dog’s body weight doesn’t make sense as different foods have hugely different calorie densities. For example, 100g of lean beef mince is 270kcal, 100g of 30% fat beef mince is 330kcal, and 100g of chicken breast is 165kcal.
Of course, some people feed an 80:10:10 diet, and add various “toppers” and balancers which result in a nutritionally complete diet. These people are often highly experienced, and have been raw feeding for decades and learned through extensive trial and error. Unless you are extremely confident that what you are feeding is nutritionally balanced, a ratio recipe is a risky thing to feed. As you can see, it is not just absolute values that matter, but ratios between different nutrients are important, meaning all-purpose “balancers” are ineffective. Chemical-laden balancers also detract from the benefits of feeding a fresh food diet to your dogs and cats.
If you would like to make sure the recipe you are feeding is balanced, we can offer a nutritional audit which can help make some adjustments. Just contact us via email:
