Would you feed your pet T.V. dinners every day?

The history pet food and how it informs healthy choices

Raw, freeze-dried, fresh, kibble. When you go to the store or favorite pet product website, you’re faced with a plethora of food options for your four-legged companion. But as many of us remember, it wasn’t always this way.

In fact, the evolution of pet food goes back centuries — and has led to more modern-day options than pet lovers of yore could ever imagine.

How did the types of pet food become so diverse, and what can its history teach us about making healthy choices today?

Before ‘pet food’ even existed

Before they were domesticated, the ancestors of dogs and cats had to fend for themselves. Both would hunt a variety of animals, and some dogs would also occasionally eat plants and the tops of vegetables. Since they were hunting their own food, they were eating it raw.

There’s evidence of a raw food recipe that cats and dogs ate which dates back to 2000 BCE. But as time went on and pets were incorporated into humans’ lives and families, pet owners fed their dogs and cats leftovers and whatever food they could spare from their kitchens, like bones, cabbage, potatoes and bread.

Biscuits and cans

The first food made specifically for dogs was a biscuit in the 1870s, as it was simple to store for long periods to time. The inventor, James Spratt, was inspired to create the biscuit after he saw dogs eating leftover scraps from ships in England.

Dog food as we know it was created a bit later in the 19th century when canning food was on the rise. It became widely available although it wasn’t, and still isn’t, the healthiest product for pets. Much wasn’t known about nutrition for pets at the time, so pet owners didn’t think twice about what they were feeding their four-legged companion.

Kibble: the pet version of T.V. dinners

The first kibble was created just after Lassie became America’s favorite on-screen pet. It was produced in 1954, when the extrusion process was developed. Imagine ingredients like meat, vegetables, and fillers in a giant pressure cooker to cook through until a gruel can be pelleted, then sprayed with fats.

Early formulations of kibble for both cats and dogs are comparable to T.V. dinners for humans, which were also first produced in the 1950s. Processed food was all the rage back then, but now we know its convenience comes with dangers: humans eating too much processed food may suffer from weight gain, high blood pressure and heart disease. This may hold true for dogs and cats who eat highly processed kibble or canned food, despite claims from kibble manufacturers that, by adding certain healthy items, their product is more nutritious.

The difference is that those healthy ingredients are introduced to heat and pressure to make them shelf-stable, removing much of the original nutritional value, and creating further distance from the animals’ ancestral diets. Because of processing, kibble lacks the vital nutrients and healthy bacteria that pets need to be happy and healthy.

Emergence of alternatives to kibble and canned foods

As humans have become more focused on health and nutrition — and savvy about the dangers of processed foods — they have also taken a more thoughtful approach to what they feed their pets. For humans, fresh veggies are healthier than veggie chips, right? It’s the same with your dog or cat’s food; minimally processed foods are better for overall wellness.

This increased awareness has accelerated the acceptance of fresh, natural alternatives to kibble, such as raw, freeze-dried and home prepared pet food.

Raw vs. fresh– why the difference matters

We often see today’s pet foods labeled as fresh and raw — and it can be hard to understand what makes them different.

Fresh pet food is made up of cooked fresh vegetables and meat, along with some stabilizers to keep it fresh longer in the fridge. The process of cooking these ingredients degrades some vital nutrients and elements that are good for pets’ digestive health. Like other kibble alternatives, fresh pet food isn’t made with meat meals, which are highly processed dry ingredients that are a byproduct of meat processing.

Raw is made with minimal-to-no processing and doesn’t have synthetic fillers or grains. Fresh meat and vegetables come together to create a balanced meal. A pet can safely eat this because their digestive system is designed for whole foods with nutrients in their natural form. That is why, as a holistic vet, I recommend raw diets based on AAFCO standards.

Much like human nutrition, pet food has made incredible strides and will continue to evolve as researchers innovate and learn more about the health needs of pets. Over a century after the emergence of a dog biscuit, the first truly raw, pre-packaged home-delivery brand, Darwin’s Natural Pet Products, was created in 2004, modeling the ancestral diets of cats and dogs.

Based on what we know now, a true raw diet is the healthiest thing to feed most cats and dogs due to the lack of processing and abundance of nutrients, creating more opportunities for pets to live happier and healthier lives.