Blog The raw details on Carnos Complete and Balanced raw meals for dogs – A Q&A with a certified canine nutritionist.
The raw details on Carnos Complete and Balanced raw meals for dogs – A Q&A with a certified canine nutritionist.
When we created our Complete and Balanced raw meals for dogs, we developed them with the everyday raw feeder in mind. We wanted to offer an industry-leading, high-quality complete raw meal for dogs that was ready-to-serve straight from the fridge with no extra prep needed—an easy option for dog owners who feed a raw diet. We partnered with a certified canine nutritionist to craft each recipe to be complete and balanced to not only meet but exceed AAFCO and NRC standards. We did these things because we believe that dogs deserve an adapted diet that meets their biological needs, and that dog owners deserve to be able to have access to high quality nutrition for their pets without breaking the bank.
In this article, we’re sharing a conversation with our certified canine nutritionist who answers some questions about our Complete and Balanced raw meal line. Read on for more!
Q. If dogs are carnivores, why do they need to eat fruits and vegetables and why are they incorporated into your Complete & Balanced meals?
A. Dogs are Facultative Carnivores, which means they are natural scavengers. While the bulk of their dietary nutrients should come from animal-based sources, they also have the ability to digest and benefit from many different types of foods. Fruits and vegetables are a natural source of fiber, antioxidants, and phytonutrients that are all beneficial to include in a dog’s diet. In fact, wild canines are known to naturally consume berries, grasses, plants, nuts, and seeds.
Q. Does your Complete and Balanced blend contain legumes?
A. Our Complete & Balanced meals do not contain what you may think of as “traditional” legumes like soybeans or peas. That said, our Complete and Balanced raw meal blends do contain green beans. While green beans are technically legumes in a botanical sense, they are very different nutritionally and are more of a fibrous vegetable. They are not a starchy “pulse” such as peas, soybeans, beans etc.
Q. Can you provide a percentage breakdown of the ingredients in your Complete & Balanced raw meals?
A. The exact percentage breakdown of ingredients in our Complete and Balanced blends is proprietary and not something we share externally. It’s important to know that each ingredient in each recipe is carefully selected, formulated, and customized to each specific protein rather than following general percentage guidelines. Common raw feeding percentage guidelines are great for DIY raw feeders who incorporate a lot of protein and ingredient variety. These guidelines paint with broad brush strokes to ensure that your nutritional bases are covered, while our Complete & Balanced raw meal blends are specifically formulated to each protein (like painting with a fine and precise brush) so that protein rotation is still encouraged but not required.
If you are a DIY raw feeder and do want to follow common raw feeding percentage guidelines to build your dog’s diet yourself at home, we also offer everything from DIY Raw Parts to to raw food blends that serve as the perfect base for meals that align with Prey Model Raw (PMR) or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food (BARF) feeding models. Check out our Truly Raw Bases and our Variety Blends to learn more about which product line could work best for you and your dog’s raw diet.
Q. Why did you choose to incorporate synthetic supplements in your Complete & Balanced raw meals instead of using only whole foods to meet these nutritional needs?
A. Whenever possible, we use whole food ingredients such as kelp, cod liver oil, flaxseeds, etc. to fill common nutritional gaps in raw diets for dogs. We also have chosen to formulate our Complete & Balanced raw meals as single-protein meals to provide the most options to pet parents who may have dogs with food allergies or intolerances. In order to meet AAFCO and NRC nutritional requirements in single-protein blends, some synthetic nutrients are required; it is not possible to appropriately formulate AAFCO balanced single-protein blends without them. Some pet food products on the market that claim to do this may either be relying on AAFCO feeding trials (which are not sufficient to determine meal balance), or may be using high amounts of certain ingredients in order to meet specific nutrient requirements, which then results in overdosing others. While foods like these may claim to be balanced, we do not consider these methods to be well-balanced or ideal for proper canine nutrition.
Furthermore, a raw dog food diet that meets nutritional guidelines using exclusively whole foods would require mixing proteins and adding seafood to fill nutritional gaps. In addition to excluding pets with food allergies, this method is more expensive for producers and can thus result in final products that are cost prohibitive for customers. Therefore, we have chosen to create single-protein blends.
Q. Where are your supplements sourced from?
A. Synthetic nutrients have often been wrongly vilified in the raw feeding community, and there is plenty of misinformation about them that fuels pet owner fear and skepticism. Manufactured nutritional supplements–both for humans and animals—vary widely in quality and bioavailability. Take zinc, for example: zinc oxide(used in sunscreen) has very poor dietary bioavailability, while zinc picolinate is easily absorbed by the body and often used in human dietary supplements. Not all zinc supplements are created equal (or used for the same function), and this sentiment applies across the board for manufactured supplements. When it comes to those used in pet food, most dry pet foods—and some commercial raw foods—use lower quality or animal feed-grade forms of manufactured supplements, and that is why supplements are often avoided by conscientious pet owners.
We are seeking to raise the bar of both quality and formulation when it comes to using manufactured supplements in raw pet food. In all of our Complete and Balanced raw meals, we utilize human-grade supplements that are easily absorbed, highly bioavailable, and carefully formulated to complement each protein they are paired with. We do not use generic mineral packs that can overdose certain nutrients depending on what other ingredients they are paired with, which is common practice in the pet food industry.
Mineral packs and lower quality supplements are common because they are much less expensive for producers to use in their formulation. We have chosen to tighten our margins to allow for the additional cost of using premium quality human-grade supplements while keeping our food as affordable as possible.
Q. How can I be sure that my dog is getting everything they need from a nutrition standpoint by feeding your Complete & Balanced raw meals?
A. Our Complete and Balanced blends are mindfully formulated with human-grade ingredients to AAFCO and NRC nutritional guidelines for All Life Stages. This means they provide all known essential nutrients for puppies, adult dogs, and pregnant dogs. Unless your dog has a medical condition that requires a custom diet, these blends will have everything they need to thrive.
Q. Is there anything that I will need to add to my dog’s diet that is not included in your Complete & Balanced meals?
A. Unless your dog has a medical condition or specific dietary needs that require therapeutic supplements or herbs, the Complete and Balanced blends do not need anything added. It is not recommended to add pet multi-vitamin/mineral supplements to our Complete & Balanced raw meals as that can overdose nutrients that we already include in the formulation.
Q. Is the nutritional analysis for each of your Complete & Balanced meal recipes available to customers?
A. Yes, each product’s full nutritional analysis is publicly available on the product page for each item on our website.
Q. Is there bone in your Complete & Balanced meals?
A. The chicken, duck, turkey, and pork Complete & Balanced meal recipes all contain ground bone from the product’s respective protein source. The Complete & Balanced beef recipe utilizes human-grade calcium and phosphorus supplements in lieu of beef bone. This is because beef bone is very dense and very hard on the grinding equipment that we use to produce our food.
Q. Do I need to feed my dog a variety of proteins or is it okay to stick to just one?
A. While variety is the spice of life, each of our Complete & Balanced raw meal blends are designed to be individually balanced and will provide all essential nutrients for your dog on their own. If your dog can only have one protein due to food allergies, rest assured that they are still receiving a balanced diet with Carnos Complete & Balanced raw meals.
