There are important nutritional differences between the prey animals that ancestors of our dogs and cats would have eaten in the wild and the domesticated food animals used in a modern raw food diet. Domesticated food animals have less protein, more fat (often with an unhealthy balance), and fewer minerals and antioxidants.

What This Means for Your Pet

If you’re trying to mimic the ancestral diet, as most raw feeders are, this means that food made from commercial food animals, even whole animals, may not provide sufficient protein, minerals, antioxidants, and may also have poor fat balances. That’s why I think it’s important to mostly feed the lean parts of food animals, and to add nutrients to ensure a more natural and complete diet.

The formulas of Darwin’s meals are carefully adjusted to take these differences into account.

More Fat, Less Protein

There are few fat prey animals in the wild. On the other hand, modern food animals are intentionally fattened up, often with low-cost grains. After all, the more the animal weighs, the more money it’s worth. Even free-range and pastured animals, while better than feed-lot fed animals, are often fattened up and still have more storage fat than wild animals. This means domesticated animals provide more calories from fat and fewer from protein.

A Different Balance of Fats

Wild prey animals also have a different balance of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats than domesticated animals of the same species. The differences are due to the sometimes dramatically different diets, and the sedentary nature of food animals. For example, ruminant meats like beef, lamb and venison are very high in saturated fats, and low in polyunsaturated fats.

Fewer Minerals and Antioxidants

Prey animals have a higher mineral content than domesticated commercially-fed animals. This is primarily because domesticated animals are fed to lower mineral standards than the prey diet. Free-range meats also have a lower mineral content, partially due to their higher fat content. And domesticated animals are low in antioxidants as well; they eat what they are fed and rarely eat antioxidant-rich foods. On the other hand, wild animals appear to prefer antioxidant-rich foods, according to recent studies.

Darwin’s Formula Adjustments

Darwin’s adjusted their formulation for each meal to account for the differences between wild prey animals and domesticated food animals, which exist even in the high quality, free-range or human-quality animals they use. Each meal’s formula optimizes the nutritional balance for its specific meat source by adding small amounts of vital minerals and balances omega-3 and -6 fats by adding flax seed oil to the duck meal and hemp seed oil to ruminant meals.

(For more information and full details, see Steve’s new book, Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet (Dogwise Publishing, 2009), available at www.seespotlivelonger.com )