Raw food vs Kibble, the debate that never should have started. 

For arguably millions of years dogs have eaten Raw flesh and edible bones from the prey that they would have caught or scavenged. Consuming a small amount of vegetation from the contents of those prey species. They evolved through the years to scavenge by the sides of humans and eventually became the amazing companions that we know today. 

So through these thousands of years of canine evolution where was all the kibble? What tree did the dry food grow on? Or was it a root vegetable that had to be sniffed out like a truffle? 

The truth is that dry food (referred to as ‘kibble’ throughout) is a relatively new “staple” of a dog’s diet. Kibble only became readily available to dog owners in the 1950s, before that people were feeding their dogs, butchers waste (hence the term “fit as a butcher’s dog”), dead stock from local farms, and scraps from the dining table. 

With the progression of society these methods of feeding became rather inconvenient. Driving to a local farm or abattoir to pick up dead stock or waste product doesn’t sound too appealing, I know! 

Introducing the answer to all your prayers…KIBBLE! Or was this just the pantomimic villain masquerading as the hero of the play. 

Suddenly you were able to store your food on a shelf, the food seemingly never went off, and it was easy to purchase from your local supermarket or pet shop. Sounds great I know, almost too good to be true. And that is because it was! 

Kibble is made up of bulking agents to increase profit margins, additives to ensure the food doesn’t go off, so much so that flies won’t even land on it. The food is cooked underpressure at an extreme temperature which destroys the little nutritional value that the ingredients contain. Some dry foods have as little as 4% meat product in them. This is untraceable meat product often imported from abroad, from countries that don’t have the same animal welfare standards as the UK. 

It’s not uncommon to see a Chicken on the packaging and when you read the ingredients the meat is labelled ‘Poultry’. This is because waste products can be used from a number of different birds from a poultry processing facility, hyper-processed and cooked into a kibble mix and then be put in fancy packaging and served up as “the answer to all your prayers”. 

Since its introduction to the masses, kibble has dominated the dog food market. Kibble companies making extraordinary profit margins on this sub standard food product allowed them even larger marketing budgets to force this down the throats of the UK dog population. 

What’s that? Is that kibble being unmasked as the villain after all this time? And by who? The real hero, and the one that has been there since the beginning of time. Raw Dog Food. 

It seems so simple when you lay it all out. 

Hyper processed dry food, full of produce not naturally eaten by dogs and instead grains and other carbohydrates. Or a diet made up of fresh meat, edible bones and appropriate organ meat to give dogs all the necessary nutrients they need. 

It’s like being offered dry porridge for the rest of your life or a juicy steak one day, lamb chops the following and roast chicken the next. 

I know which one I would choose. 

What about you? 

Christopher East 

Co-Founder of RUDE Dog Food