The Uncomfortable Truth About Kibble and Ultra-Processed Pet Food

Are you worried about what goes into your pet’s food bowl? Overwhelmed by conflicting advice online about kibble, raw, and fresh diets?

In this episode, we unravel the truth behind ultra-processed pet food—cutting through the marketing buzzwords, viral social media claims, and heated arguments.

Discover what “ultra-processed” really means, whether kibble lives up to its bad reputation, and how you can confidently choose the best diet for your furry family member.

Tune in for evidence-based insights and practical tips that will help you make the healthiest, safest, and most realistic choices for your pet—without the guilt trip.

Don’t miss this honest, myth-busting conversation every pet owner needs to hear!

Then dive into more detail at https://ourpetshealth.com/info/ultraprocessed-kibble

Love the show? Sharing this episode or leaving a review helps others know it's worth a listen! - https://ourpetshealth.com/review

Transcript

[00:00:00] It feels natural to be uncomfortable with how far removed modern pet food has become from anything that looks like real food. We've got a bag of brown biscuits that can sit on a shelf for, for months, even years, ingredients lists that most people can't interpret, marketing claims everywhere. We've got massive corporations producing food for animals that depends entirely on someone getting a secret formula right.

And so when we're told that ultra-processed food is damaging our own health repeatedly, it makes complete sense for alarm bells to start ringing when you look at kibble. But it's at this point that any conversation breaks down and almost all nuance disappears from the discussion that comes from the questions we have, " What is the best food to feed our pets?"

I'm Dr. Alex. I've been a vet since 2006, and in this video, I want to discuss what ultra-processed means, what the alternatives are, and how you can make the best diet choice for your pet and your family.[00:01:00] 

What we feed our pets is one of the most basic ways that we care for them every single day. And because it's something that we have real control over, the conversation can very quickly get personal.

If someone suggests that the food you're feeding might be harming your pet, it doesn't feel like just an abstract nutriti- nutritional debate on YouTube. It can feel like an accusation, or you can feel a sense of failure, like you've let your pet down in the care that you're providing them. So it's not surprising that people get defensive, or they get anxious, or they feel the need to vocally justify their choice at every opportunity, and social media makes this all much worse.

Very quickly, a nuanced discussion collapses into two opposing camps. Kibble is poison and raw is dangerous. Vets have been bought out and only care about money. Raw feeders are reckless and irresponsible. And once it gets there, there's almost no room left for an actual conversation, and the chance of [00:02:00] getting someone with an opposing view to stop and think is slim at best

Everyone becomes entrenched in their view and just continues to sling mud at the other side. Something like vets are only in it for the money. They get massive kickbacks from big kibble or they know nothing about nutrition. I'm sure you've seen those arguments.

Now, if you fall into one of those camps and you're not interested about hearing anything else, then, you know, I'm not here for you. I'm interested in the evidence and in giving you the tools to make a genuinely informed decision for your own pet, for your own family. So let's start with the ultra-processed food concern as this is the one that is currently filling my social feed because it hasn't come out of nowhere.

In humans, there's clear research linking higher intake of ultra-processed foods with poorer and worse health outcomes. So when people hear that and then look at a bag of kibble, shelf-stable, heavily manufactured, nothing like whole food, clearly ultra-processed, [00:03:00] the question about its safety and health makes complete sense.

But here's the nuance. Ultra-processed is a very broad category. It's not by itself a verdict on the quality of nutrition. It tells us something about how a food has been made. It doesn't automatically tell us whether that food is nutritionally poor, unsafe, or going to damage health. Because when you picture ultra-processed foods, if you're anything like me, you're probably thinking about potato chips, soft drinks, sweets or candy, processed meats.

But the same classification also includes whole grain breads, fortified cereals, and medical nutritional products. These foods are not the same. They don't carry the same risk, and they shouldn't be treated as if they do.

Journal study that's worth knowing about. It followed over 100,000 health professionals for more than 30 years. Now, it did absolutely find that people eating the highest amounts of ultra-processed [00:04:00] food

had a higher all-cause mortality than those eating the least. But there were two important findings that I imagine, like me, you'll be surprised about. The first is that the actual increase in mortality was relatively modest, around four to nine percent depending on the cause of death.

And then two, when the researchers looked more closely, the increased risk came from specific types of ultra-processed food.

And the paper itself states that dietary quality has a predominant influence on long-term health, whereas the additional effect of food processing is likely to be limited. In other words, it's the actual nutritional composition that matters, not the level of processing that took place.

And the problem with many ultra-processed human foods is that they're calorie dense. They're high in sugar and salt. They're low in fiber and micronutrients. They're very easy to overeat, and they tend to [00:05:00] displace better options. And it's that combination that drives the negative health outcomes, not the fact of processing itself.

And this is where the comparison with kibble starts to break down because a lot of the problematic ultra-processed human foods is nutritionally optional. They're snacks, sweet drinks, convenience food that adds calories while replacing better choices. A properly formulated complete pet food is doing something entirely different.

It's designed to provide every essential nutrient for that species and life stage consistently every single day. Now, that doesn't mean that every kibble is excellent. It doesn't mean that every brand is equal, but it does mean that feeding your dog a complete kibble is, is not the same thing as feeding them potato chips every day.

It just isn't, just because both are technically ultra-processed. So the usual argument goes, "Ultra-processed foods are linked with poorer health in humans. Kibble is ultra-processed, therefore [00:06:00] kibble must be bad." But that conclusion doesn't really follow the evidence. It skips over the fact that a complete pet food is being used in a fundamentally different way than a pack of biscuits or a bag of potato chips is in a human diet.

So let's actually talk about the different ways of feeding, because every approach has its strengths and every approach has real failure points. And because we're already talking about it, let's start with kibble.

The strengths are generally obvious. It's convenient, it's easy to store, it's generally affordable, it's consistent meal to meal, and when properly formulated, that's important, it can provide complete nutrition for a specific species, life stage, and health status. For a lot of owners, these things that are so easy to dismiss actually matter enormously. Not everyone has the time, money, freezer space, or bandwidth to prepare a carefully balanced diet from scratch and get it right every single time. If someone is feeding a properly formulated complete kibble because that's what they can [00:07:00] afford and manage consistently, they are not failing their pet.

Not even close. But kibble does have potential failure points. To say otherwise would not be accurate. And the biggest one is overfeeding. So kibble is absolutely calorie dense. Feeding guides are starting points, not fixed rules, and are often greater than actually needed. Free feeding makes calories easy to underestimate.

And add in treats, dental chews, and training rewards on top, and weight can creep up in a way that genuinely matters for long-term health.

And in fact, excess weight is one of the most important diet-related problems that I see in practice all the time. It is, though, a feeding management issue choice only issue.

And then the other issue is quality, because not every kibble is formulated to the same standard. There are real differences between a poorly formulated food with weak quality control and one developed by properly qualified nutritional specialists that's tested appropriately [00:08:00] and produced with robust and rigorous safety systems.

Because not all countries have robust pet food controls in place. Production errors can happen, and recalls can also happen.

So then, just as it's a mistake to treat all ultra-processed foods as equivalent, it's also a mistake to treat all kibble as equivalent. Next, we've got raw and home prepared diets. I know they're not exactly the same thing, but I'm going to talk about them together just for the sake of brevity. I don't think it's fair or accurate to say that these diets are automatically bad.

If someone has the time, the resources, the proper nutritional guidance, and we'll talk more about that in a bit, good hygiene practices, and the consistency to do this well, then there's no good evidence that simply being raw or home prepared makes a diet harmful. Some owners value having more control over ingredients.

They have time, the time to be more hands-on, and owners who do this well report that most pets genuinely do well on them, and that's not something that we can just dismiss out of hand. There's also [00:09:00] evidence to support the belief that certain types of feeding practices are better for oral hygiene, which is really important for whole body health and well-being, along with weight.

It's another one of my key steps to keeping your pet as healthy as possible.

But the potential failure points of these diets are also significant. Nutritional balance has to be the first one. Raw and home prepared diets don't automatically become complete just because they contain meat, organs, vegetables, and s- and certain supplements. If the proportions are wrong, the diet can be deficient or excessive or unbalanced, and this isn't just a theoretical risk.

Studies have repeatedly shown nutritional imbalances in home prepared diets particularly where recipes aren't being formulated by someone with proper veterinary nutrition training or when owners gradually drift away from the original recipe. You know, this is a real risk. I saw my first case of rickets in a kitten just a few months ago, and all because it was being fed on an inappropriate home [00:10:00] prepared diet.

Food safety is the next issue. Raw diets can carry bacteria, not just for the animal eating it, but risks for the people in the household. That matters more though when there are young children, there are elderly people, pregnant people, or anyone immunocompromised in the home. There's also a concern about antimicrobial resistant bacteria being shed in feces and contaminating the wider environment.

And unlike direct infection risk, this one isn't just solved by good hygiene. It's a broader public health concern that exists regardless of how careful any individual manages their pet's waste. For healthy adults with good hygiene practices though, the direct infection risk is probably much less of a concern.

And then bones carry their own specific risks depending on what's being fed and how, dental fractures, constipation, obstruction, intestinal injury. You know, these aren't everyday occurrences, but I do absolutely see them in [00:11:00] practice, and when they happen, they can be painful, expensive, and life-threatening.

And I guess my point with all this isn't that raw or home-prepared diets are automatically reckless, it's that the margin for error is potentially much smaller, and the consequences of getting it wrong can be very serious.

And then my final category is fresh commercial diets. So these often get positioned as the, the obvious middle ground. They look more like real food, but they likely have greater quality control. They feel less industrial, and they're marketed very well. But fresh isn't a nutritional verdict either. A fresh food still needs to be complete and balanced, properly formulated, stored safely, and fed in the right amount.

Going back to the ultra-processed argument, looking more like something you would eat doesn't automatically make it better for a dog or cat.

So these pros and cons are all well and good, but how can you actually make the best diet choice for your pet and your family? How can you tell [00:12:00] that a diet is both safe and healthy?

The good news is you don't need to become a veterinary nutritionist, but these six questions are far better than making a decision based on whether a food looks natural, whether it comes in a bag, whether it sounds good online, or is accompanied by lots of meaningless marketing buzzwords or social media hype.

To make the best choice for your pet and family, you need to answer these six key questions. The first is, is it complete and balanced?

This has to be the baseline. A diet needs to provide all essential nutrients in the right amounts and ratios. Start by looking for nutritional adequacy statements on packaging. In many countries, that's going to mean the, the AAFCO, AAFCO statement or a local equivalent, confirming that the food is complete and balanced for a specific life stage.

But even this balance can be achieved in different ways

Because a diet may be formulated [00:13:00] on a computer to meet a specific nutrient profile. It may be physically tested after production. It may go through feeding trials, and those are not all the same. So computer formulation absolutely can be useful, but it relies heavily on knowing the actual nutrient profile and behavior of the ingredients being used, which is pretty complex.

Testing the finished product gives more information, and feeding trials then add another layer because they test the diet in real animals over a period of time, although they do also have some significant limitations

So which one has the diet you're looking at gone through? Question number two is who formulated the diet? And this can actually be surprisingly hard to find either on the bag or on websites, wherever you're looking. So here you should contact the company and ask.

You also need to know, though, that nutritionist, animal nutritionist, dog nutritionist, anything nutritionist is not a protected term. [00:14:00] What you want is someone ideally with a PhD in small animal nutrition or a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. A master's in small animal nutrition backed by a relevant degree is really a minimum.

Pet nutritionist on its own tells you almost nothing. And for a diet that's being fed long-term as the primary source of nutrition, if a company or individual won't go further than pet nutritionist, then that's not good enough.

The same principle also applies to home-prepared diets. The recipe should be formulated by someone appropriately qualified, and then it needs to be followed accurately because even seemingly small deviations can matter an awful lot.

Question number three, is this diet appropriate for this individual pet for your specific pet? A diet can be complete and balanced and still be wrong for a particular animal. A healthy, active young dog doesn't have the same needs as an [00:15:00] overweight senior dog with arthritis. A growing Maine Coon kitten is entirely different from an adult moggy cat.

A pet with a history of pancreatitis, with kidney disease, with urinary problems, with allergies or gut disease may need something highly specific So the question isn't just, "Is this a good food?" It should be, "Is this good food for this particular individual animal?"

Question four is a big one, and it's more about actual feeding practice, and that is, " Is this diet being fed in the right amount? The healthiest diet in the world causes problems if fed in the wrong quantity, too little, more commonly, too much. This applies to every feeding approach equally. Weigh the food, watch your pet's body condition, adjust as they age, as their activity levels change, depending on their neuter status and their health changes, and treat the feeding guide as a starting point, not as a fixed rule to be followed at all costs.

Question [00:16:00] five: " Is it safe for this particular household? Is it safe for your family?" Not just safe in theory. Is it safe in the home where it's actually being fed? And this means thinking about storage, thinking about hygiene, considering the other people in the house, and whether the risks of that specific diet can realistically be managed in that environment.

And then that brings us to question number six: " What is the animal in front of you telling you? Not what the marketing says should happen, not what someone on- online claims will happen if you feed this to your pet. What is your actual pet telling you? Are they maintaining a healthy body condition? Are their stools normal?

Is their coat healthy and glossy? Are they full of energy? Are they comfortable, bright, and well in themselves? For pets with medical conditions, are those conditions being properly monitored, and is that monitoring showing that they're well controlled?

Now, these questions won't give you a perfect answer. No one-size-fits-all [00:17:00] framework does, but they'll get you much closer to the truth than any label, any marketing claim, or any argument on social media. And the uncomfortable truth, when you look at it honestly, is that several things can be true at the same time.

Some kibbles are excellent, others are genuinely poor. Raw diets can be done well or done very badly. "Natural" tells you nothing about nutritional quality, and "ultra-processed" is not the end of an argument.

The only question that actually matters is whether the diet your pet is eating is safe, is reliable, and consistently meets their needs. That question is harder to answer than just pointing at a label, but it's the right one to ask