🎃 The Scary Truth About Kibble 👻

There are ghosts, goblins and monsters everywhere this time of year, but one of the scariest things in your house might be hiding in plain sight...

Your pet's food bowl. 👻

Okay, before you clutch your pearls and toss the kibble bag into the cauldron, hear me out. I'm not here to tell you that feeding kibble makes you a bad pet parent. In fact, we sell kibble! There are some really great quality dry foods out there and we stock the ones we trust.

But when kibble is the ONLY thing in your pet's bowl, day after day, meal after meal, that's where things start getting a little spooky.

So, in honour of Halloween, we're resurrecting one of my favourite topics from the House of Paws crypt and taking another look at The Scary Truth About Kibble.

And this one's got a few skeletons hiding in the cupboard. 💀

🎙️ If you'd prefer to listen to this blog, you can find it here anywhere you love listening to podcasts! Look for S1 E45: "The Scary Truth About Kibble ".

🧪 What Lurks Inside the Kibble Bag?

To understand kibble, we first need to understand how it's made.

Most kibble is produced through a process called extrusion. The ingredients are ground, mixed together, exposed to heat and pressure, pushed through an extruder to create those familiar little shapes and then dried.

It's incredibly convenient. It's shelf stable. It's affordable to feed. But it's also a highly processed way of turning food into food.

Heat and processing can alter or destroy some of the naturally occurring nutrients found in the original ingredients. That's one reason you'll often see vitamins and minerals added to a kibble formula. Many foods also have fats or flavour coatings applied after cooking.

Now, this doesn't automatically make every kibble terrible. The quality of the original ingredients, how the food is formulated, how it's processed and what is added back into it all matter.

But here's the part I want you to think about.

Imagine eating the exact same highly processed, fortified food for breakfast and dinner every single day for your entire life because someone told you it contained everything your body could possibly need.

Now THAT sounds a little scary. 😳

And we're starting to learn more about the difference processing can make. Newer research comparing minimally processed food with extruded kibble has found measurable differences in digestion, blood sugar response and even the gut microbiome. That doesn't mean one study proves kibble causes disease, but it DOES give us another reason to stop pretending that how food is processed doesn't matter.

💧 The Moisture Mystery

Here's another trick hiding inside the kibble bag.

It's dry. Like, REALLY dry.

Most kibble contains around 10% moisture or less, while the foods dogs and cats evolved eating contained significantly more moisture. A prey based diet would naturally be around 70% moisture.

Our dogs and cats need moisture in their diet, yet we've somehow normalized feeding them extremely dry food and expecting them to make up the difference at the water bowl. Imagine you were forced to eat cereal for a lifetime with no milk! Yep! Dry, ultra-processed cereal for every meal.

This is especially important for our cats. Cats evolved with a relatively low thirst drive because historically, much of their water came directly from their food. This is exactly why we will always tell you that if your kitty is eating a quality dry diet, 50% of the diet should be a quality wet option. Wet food, rehydrated freeze dried or even raw food.

Pets eating nothing but dry food, especially kitties are in a chronic state of dehydration. This is why so many kitties end up with CKD, diabetes or crystals. Their diets do not have enough moisture.

When pets aren't getting enough moisture through their diet, it can affect the urinary tract, kidneys, digestion, bowel movements, skin and overall hydration. Simply putting a giant bowl of water beside a bowl of kibble doesn't make food moisture irrelevant.

This is why you hear us talk about hydration ALL THE TIME at House of Paws.

And adding moisture to the bowl might be one of the easiest nutritional upgrades you can make.

No witchcraft required. 🧙

🧟 The Ingredient Label Horror Show

Here's where things can get really frightening.

Not all kibble is created equal.

There is an enormous difference between a thoughtfully formulated dry food made with quality, identifiable ingredients and some of the ultra processed foods lining grocery store and big box shelves.

So rather than being distracted by the beautiful chicken breast, blueberries and rolling green fields pictured on the front of the bag, turn it around.

The ingredient panel tells us much more about what's actually inside. Look to answer these questions:

🧟 What are the first several ingredients?

🧟 Are the animal proteins clearly identified?

🧟 Is the formula heavily reliant on starches?

🧟 Are there artificial colours or sweeteners?

🧟 Is the ingredient list dominated by things that make you wonder how we got from “feed the dog” to a chemistry experiment?

And remember, pet food companies are REALLY good at marketing.

A bag can say “with real chicken” on the front and still contain only a tiny amount of actual chicken compared with everything else in the formula.

Don't let the costume fool you. If you want to truly assess your bag of kibble the same way we do, you can always use our free Kibble Assessment Tool on our website. You'll always find it at the bottom of every page and you will always know exactly what grade your kibble really is!

Halloween isn't the only time things aren't always what they appear to be. 🎭

👹 But There's Another Monster Hiding in the Closet...

Feeding the exact same thing forever.

This is something we've always been passionate about since our doors opened!

Over the years big pet food manufacturers have convinced pet parents "once you find a food that “works,” you should NEVER change it."

Same brand.

Same recipe.

Same protein.

Every. Single. Day.

Forever.

This could not be further from the truth. The manufacturers that perpetuate this myth are doing so to keep you as a customer for life. Not your pet's life, YOUR life! They figure if you feed your first dog their food, you'll feed every dog their food. The message is purely selfish marketing to line their pockets. It was NEVER about the health of your dog.

And when we look at nutrition from a whole food perspective, diversity is incredibly valuable. Different proteins provide different amino acid profiles. Different whole foods provide different vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and fatty acids. Different fibres feed different populations of bacteria in the gut. And if your furry family member was in charge of their own grocery getting....they would not be eating the same thing every day. Mother Nature intended for them to have a diverse diet and we should be replicating that as best as possible.

This is why we're big fans of a rotational diet! Rotate your proteins, your food types, your brands and your supplements. When we eat something different everyday, we CAN eat something different every day. Tummy troubles happen when we eat the same thing every day for extended periods of time and our digestive system becomes complacent.

Rotate proteins. Rotate fresh foods. Add different toppers. Incorporate different food formats. Include a variety of brands. Give that microbiome something other than the nutritional equivalent of Groundhog Day.

You don't eat the exact same meal twice a day for 15 years.

Your pet was not designed to either.

👻 Don't Be Spooked...Be Empowered

Now, before you toss the kibble bag into a bonfire, this isn't an all or nothing conversation.

You don't have to feed raw. You don't have to completely change your pet's diet tomorrow. And you definitely don't have to feel guilty about what you've been feeding.

What I DO want you to understand is that there is an enormous amount of space between “I feed kibble” and “I completely changed my pet's diet.”

Start by adding something fresh.

There is lots of research on the relationship between diet and disease in dogs, including differences between heat processed kibble diets and non heat processed foods. More recent research continues to find measurable differences in dogs fed fresh or minimally processed diets compared with extruded kibble.

The point isn't that you need to throw everything away tomorrow. The point is that fresh food matters.

So let's make this ridiculously easy.

👻 Trick or TREAT the Bowl! 🎃

🎃 Pupkin Spice Latte

This one's coming back from the dead because it's too good to bury. 😂

Mix some unsweetened pumpkin (organic is best) with fermented goat milk or kefir and add it to your pet's meal. Pumpkin provides fibre that helps support the gut microbiome while fermented goat milk or kefir can provide beneficial bacteria and, of course, we're adding valuable moisture to the bowl.

It's basically a PSL for your pet, minus the whipped cream, sugar and questionable life choices.

🎃 Pro Tip: If your furry little monster occasionally throws up bile in the morning or has a gurgly tummy in the evening, serve your Pupkin Spice Latte as a bedtime drink (about an hour before bedtime potty time) and you can soothe the tummy over night to avoid gurgles and bile.

🧛 Monster Mash

Take your pet's regular meal and add a little fresh food.

That could be an egg, sardine, fresh meat, raw food, gently cooked food or freeze dried raw. You don't have to completely replace the meal to start introducing fresh nutrition. When adding fresh options, be sure to replace some of your kibble, not just throw it on top. We don't want to overfeed the furry monsters. Up to 20% of your bowl can be replaced with fresh foods....

Then mash it together and congratulations, you've officially monster-fied dinner.

🧙 Witches' Brew

If you're feeding dry food, let's get some moisture into that bowl.

Add bone broth, fermented goat milk, kefir or another pet appropriate functional liquid. Even adding water to kibble increases the moisture your pet consumes with their meal. We recommend bone broth or milk for the benefits and added flavour, but we can also increase the moisture with a quality wet food, rehydrated freeze dried or even some raw food!

Your pet doesn't care that it isn't actually bubbling inside a giant black cauldron.

But we do! We never apply any heat to any type of pet food, it's only our broths you might like to warm up in the cauldron! 😂

🦇 The 10% Cauldron Challenge

Here's my challenge for you this spooky season. 👻

Look at your pet's bowl tonight and ask yourself:

“How could I make 10% of this bowl fresher?”

👻 Maybe it's a sardine.

👻 Maybe it's an egg.

👻 Maybe it's some blueberries, broccoli or pumpkin.

👻 Maybe it's a spoonful of raw or gently cooked food.

👻 Maybe you add fermented goat milk.

👻 Maybe you rotate in a different protein.

It doesn't have to be complicated and it doesn't have to be perfect.

We've been told for decades that pet nutrition needs to come out of one bag and that adding “people food” will somehow ruin a perfectly balanced diet.

Yet everything we've been taught about our OWN nutrition tells us to eat a variety of fresh, whole foods and less processed foods. It is the same for our pets! But if we all knew that and all followed that, Big Pet Food companies wouldn't make their fortunes off us, so they continually perpetuate the scary lies of only they know how to feed our pets. 🙄

We like variety and don't eat the same thing every day, why wouldn't we want some of that same goodness in our pets' bowls?

💀 The REAL Scary Truth About Kibble

The scary truth isn't that kibble exists.

It's that we've been taught a bowl of identical brown pellets, fed twice a day, 365 days a year, is where the nutrition conversation should end.

It doesn't have to and it never should have!

If kibble works for your budget, your lifestyle and your pet, choose the best quality food you can. Then think beyond the bag.

Add moisture. Add fresh food. Rotate proteins. Introduce different whole foods. Support the gut. Give your pet's body nutrients from actual food whenever you can.

You don't have to completely overhaul the bowl to start making it better.

So this Halloween, forget the ghosts hiding under your bed.

Take a peek inside your pet's bowl instead. 👻

And if you have absolutely NO idea where to start, come see us. Bring us the name of the food you're currently feeding and we'll help you find some frightfully simple ways to level up the bowl.

No tricks. Just better treats. 🎃🐾