Homemade Diets for Pets: Risks, Benefits, and General Guidelines

The preparation of homemade pet foods has gained a lot of traction in recent years and is increasingly becoming more popular with pet parents. This trend is fueled by many different reasons, ranging from medical necessity to personal preference. In this article, we'll highlight the driving factors behind homemade pet diets and weigh the benefits against the challenges.

For many pet owners, this sounds straight forward, and they make up their own recipes, feed their pets their own human meals, or get some recipes for free on the internet. Homemade pet foods are much more complicated than providing protein and vegetables. 

For many pet owners, preparing homemade meals for their pet is a very pleasing idea. Selecting the ingredients, preparing and then feeding the meal makes pet owners feel more connected with their pets. In other instances, pet owners perceive homemade diets as healthier than commercial kibble diets for their pets, having seen and heard phrases like “unhealthy carbohydrates”, “grains”, “preservatives”, “by-products”, “not suitable for human consumption”, “not human grade”, and many more used as associated with commercial pet foods by various bloggers and tiktokers.

The decision to prepare homemade diets for pets can characteristically be categorized into two main motivations: necessity and preference (3).
Necessity often arises from specific health conditions or dietary requirements of our pets. Often, severely ill pets will lose their appetite, and will struggle to consume their normal kibble diets, causing them to waste away. In some cases, pets have multiple disease conditions, requiring a unique and personalized diet to address their needs. In some cases of acute gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea, a short-term feeding of a “bland” diet consisting of easily digestible ingredients may be indicated. Pets with chronic health conditions such as food allergies or multiple health problems may require long-term homemade diets to manage their conditions effectively. Certain pets are incredibly picky in their eating habits and will simply refuse to consume any food other than homemade diets.
On the other hand, some pet owners choose to cook for their pets out of personal preference. This is most often due to the need to mimic their own dietary habits and beliefs, or distrust in commercially prepared pet foods. Others may have philosophical, ethical, or religious beliefs that influence their ingredient choices, sourcing preferences, or food preparation methods (3).

While the process of making homemade pet food sounds simple and straight forward enough, the reality is that developing meal plans for pets is scientific and complex, taking into account the nutritional needs of cats and dogs at the varying life-stages from growth to senior, as well as health status, multiple disease conditions and physiological phase, meal plans for pets should be formulated with a dedicated board-certified veterinary nutritionist or highly qualified, registered companion animal nutritionist. If not, there is a strong risk you won’t be providing the necessary nutrition and can easily induce metabolic disorders.

In a study done at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine (1), 200 different recipes for home prepared dog foods were analysed. The recipes were selected from websites, veterinary textbooks, and pet care books. The findings highlighted that 95% of the recipes were deficient in at least one essential nutrient and 84% were lacking in multiple required nutrients. Whilst providing a nutritionally balanced diet from home is not impossible, these results show it is a complicated task with very little margin for error. Calorie control can also be difficult (2).

Benefits of Home prepared pet foods

Tailored, Specialized, Personalized Diets

The biggest advantage of homemade pet food is its tailored, customized approach to nutrition, allowing for the accommodation of an individual pet's unique dietary needs or the preferences of the pet parent. This level of control is particularly beneficial for pets with food sensitivities or allergies, as specific food ingredients, additives, or preservatives can be omitted or substituted.
Having the ability to customize foods for pets with multiple health problems is essential in managing many diseases, because various diseases can involve diverse and potentially conflicting nutritional needs. For instance, pets with kidney disease and pancreatitis might need a diet that limits both protein (or phosphorus derived from protein) and fat intake. However, these macronutrients are crucial for providing energy and enhancing palatability. Therefore, a carefully crafted, customized diet strategy is required to address these dietary restrictions effectively (3).

Sophisticated nutrition and formulation software is used to carefully select ingredients, including nutrient supplements, to ensure that the pet’s unique nutritional needs are met while maintaining the palatability of the diet.

Palatability

Many picky eaters, or critically ill pets, have a severely diminished appetite and do not want to consume kibble diets. Fresh homemade diets may be more palatable due to increased moisture content. Often, pets also prefer homemade diets as it contains a higher animal protein content than some commercial foods.

Variety of Fresh Ingredients and Whole Foods

Pet owners can select whole-food ingredients of high quality that they would eat themself. Pet parents have more control over where those ingredients are sourced, and how foods are prepared. A variety of fresh ingredients can be incorporated into your pet’s daily diet, making mealtime more interesting and inviting, providing pet’s with high quality ingredients full of bioavailable nutrients.

Minimally Processed Food

Ingredients in homemade pet foods can be prepared in several ways, including raw, steamed, baked, broiled, cooked, and so on, to suit your cooking preferences or your dog’s individual palate. Pet parents can choose cooking methods that are less invasive compared to processing methods used in commercial pet foods.

Difficulties and Risks of Home prepared pet foods

Nutritional Imbalance Risks

Probably the biggest risk of homemade pet foods is nutritional imbalance. Dogs and cats have very unique nutritional requirements compared to those of humans. Simply combining common human food ingredients will not provide adequate nutrition and could pose a risk of nutritional imbalances if not properly formulated by a knowledgeable person. Dogs, for instance, needs around 37 nutrients in his daily diet for healthy bodily function and cats, more than 40 nutrients. These nutrient requirements are highly dependent on many factors, such as physiological phase, health status, age, sex, and many more. Typically, multiple nutrient supplement products containing essential minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, amino acids and other essential nutrients are added to formulate a complete and balanced dog or cat diet.

Human-grade Food Ingredients

Feeding “Human-grade” ingredients to pets have become a very popular trend in recent years. This trend is encouraged by people completely opposed to commercial pet food, generally having very poor understanding of animal nutrition, formulation, manufacturing, quality control, regulations and more. Interestingly enough, despite the fact that there has been “human-grade” claims on some pet foods for a few years, this term has no definition in any animal feed regulations. According to The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), there is no legal definition for the term “human-grade.” In order to label a food as a “human-grade dog food,” all ingredients must be edible for humans, and the food itself must meet federal manufacturing and packaging regulations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines products fit for human consumption to be officially “edible.” Edible is a standard; human-grade is not.
For a product to be deemed edible for humans, all ingredients must be human edible, and the product must be manufactured, packed and held in accordance with federal regulations, Current Good Manufacturing Practice in Manufacturing, Packing, or Holding Human Food. If these conditions are met for a pet food, human-grade claims may be made. If these conditions are not met, then it is an unqualified claim and misbrands the product.

Many ingredients, including onions, garlic, raisins, grapes, chocolate, avocados, certain nuts and xylitol-sweetened foods, to name a few, are edible for humans but can be toxic to pets. Not only can certain “human-grade” ingredients can be dangerous to pets but can also trigger allergies and pets can develop food intolerances. Human-grade does not automatically equal nutritional safety for pets.

Monitoring for Harmful Effects and Dietary Sufficiency

Homemade diets do not undergo the same level of testing, monitoring, and quality control as commercially prepared diets. This increases the risk of nutritional deficiencies, imbalances, and other health issues if the diet is not properly formulated and if the pet is not monitored.

Commercially prepared pet diets are typically formulated by experts in pet nutrition and undergo rigorous testing to ensure safety and adequacy. This includes testing raw materials, semi-finished, and final products for impurities or toxins, and conducting feeding trials and/or laboratory analysis to confirm that the diets provide adequate levels of essential nutrients. Additionally, commercially prepared pet diets are widely fed to a larger population of pets, allowing for early detection and addressing of any issues (3).

Expertly Formulated Diets

Unlike what most people think, pet foods aren’t simply mixing together a few ingredients that look nice or feeding them some vegetables and some meat and think it’s a balanced meal for your pet. Some pet owners feel that their own meal everyday will be a suitable food for their pet.

Most pet food products on the market are designed to provide total nutrition for pets. These products will have the term ‘complete’ on the pet food packet. ‘Complete’ is a legal definition and the product must by law contain all the nutrients a pet needs in the right proportions. Balancing the right quantities of protein, fat, fibre and carbohydrates along with the specific vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and amino acids is complex but that is the day in day out responsibility of pet food manufacturers. You must be a qualified companion animal nutritionist or board-certified veterinary nutritionist to be able to formulate the correct, balanced homemade diet for your pet. Pet food labels that do not state they are ‘complete and balanced’ or ‘complete pet food’ may not meet adequate or safe nutrient standards of a properly formulated diet under government regulations. This includes both under- and over-feeding of essential nutrients.

Willingness to pay for homemade diet recipes

Often, the complexity of homemade pet food formulation isn’t fully understood or respected, and due to the large amount of freely available recipes on the internet, and the vast majority of opinions about pet food, pet owners aren’t willing to pay pet nutrition experts to formulate proper diets for their pets, they simply make up their own recipes, get recipes from human chefs, or get some for free on the internet. This is incredibly risky and a huge factor in the high number of pets seen with nutritionally related disorders.

 

While homemade pet diets offer many benefits, they also present challenges that pet parents need to carefully evaluate. Whether motivated by necessity or preference, it's essential to approach homemade diet feeding with thorough research, consultation with the properly trained nutrition professionals, and a dedication to balanced nutrition. Always carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages before making any decisions, and make sure to prioritize the health and well-being of your beloved companions. To ensure safety, it is highly advisable to seek guidance from a Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionist or highly qualified, registered companion animal nutritionist.

 

Sources:

1. University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine ‘Homemade dog food recipes can be a risky business, study finds’ (15 July 2013)
2. FEDIAF Fact Sheet. Are Homemade Diets a Viable Alternative to Prepared Pet Food? September 2017. https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/home-made-diets/
3. Okada, Y. 2024. Balancing Homemade Diets for Pets: Risks, Benefits, and Guidelines. https://www.vetspecialists.com/vet-blog-landing/animal-health-articles/2024/03/28/Balancing-Homemade-Diets-For-Pets