What to know before buying freeze-dried dog food

The short answer

Freeze-dried dog food can be a full meal or a small addition, depending on the label, and many products are raw underneath the crunchy texture. Before you buy, check four things: whether it's a complete food, how to prepare it, how many calories each piece holds, and how you'll handle raw food at home. Freeze-drying doesn't make a food complete, and it doesn't kill every germ.^1,2

Two complete raw recipes with different portions

Primal Freeze-Dried Raw Nuggets Turkey & Sardine and Stella & Chewy's Stella's Super Beef Freeze-Dried Raw Dinner Patties are both sold as complete meals. Primal lists 36 calories per nugget and suggests about a tablespoon of liquid per nugget to rehydrate, though it says they can be served dry too. Stella & Chewy's lists 56 calories per patty with its own preparation instructions.^3,4

• Primal Turkey & Sardine nuggets: 36 calories per nugget, so about 10 nuggets for 360 calories. Rehydrate with about 10 tablespoons of liquid.
• Stella's Super Beef patties: 56 calories per patty, so about 6½ patties for 360 calories. Follow the package's rehydration directions.

Swap in your dog's own daily calories to get their portion, remembering to count any other food. To compare prices, work out the cost per 1,000 calories from the regular package price and its total calories.

Raw food still carries germs

The CDC doesn't recommend raw food for dogs or cats. Raw animal ingredients can carry germs such as Salmonella and Listeria, and freezing, freeze-drying, and dehydrating don't kill all of them. That goes for raw toppers as well as raw meals. If you do feed raw, follow the package directions, wash your hands and any surfaces the food touches, and keep it well away from where you prepare your own food.^2,5

Primal says to store the dry nuggets somewhere cool and dry, refrigerate any rehydrated leftovers, and use them within five days. Other products have their own directions.³

Freeze-dried food tends to come with reassuring language about being minimally processed. For formulas in PetRoot's catalog, Evidence Quality shows how much solid information actually sits behind the score. PetRoot scoring guide

Storage and safety directions differ from product to product, so keep the package handy.