# Homemade vs Store Bought Food



## CristyTX (May 8, 2008)

in terms of health and cost, which is better? been thinking whether to start making my own dog food for my boys but not sure if it would be cheaper in the end but I'm guessing it would be better for them. any thoughts?


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## chrisn6104 (Jun 8, 2009)

What do you mean by homemade? 
If you're talking "raw" then it's pretty simple. If you're making cookies and such that's to much work for me. I hardly cook for myself. 

Here is what I am doing. 
I shop for meats (chicken beef pork fish etc) I buy anything under $1.50lbs. I try to stay as close to $1.00lbs as I can. I just bought a farm salmon for $1.45lbs was the whole fish gutted (cant find anything not gutted yet).

I have 3 dogs. Last night this is what they ate. 
3 yr 60lbs Pit: Whole 1.5lbs game hen, broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower.
10yr 45lbs Collie: .9lbs of chicken and same veggies slightly less
5yr 15lbs minpin: .5lbs of chicken same veggies. 
The chicken came from a whole chicken I cut up. which was $.98lbs. Nice thing about buying a whole chicken is they will eat the entire thing not just the meat. So a 5lbs chicken is 5lbs of food. 

I mix it up day to day different meats and veggies it's not always the same. 
I bought a 5lbs bag of ToTW for back up in case for some reason I don't have meat or it's inconvenient. It was $10.50. 
So my homemade meals are quick and easy to make and cheaper then kibble.

From what I've seen so far my dogs and have read, raw is more healthy. This does not necessarily mean they will live longer but I believe they will live a better quality of life.


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## lovemygreys (Jan 20, 2007)

it's more work and possibly more expense to feed homemade/raw vs commercial kibble. The expense depends on how you source the food.

I'd definitley choose raw over cooked food of any kind.


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## Junior (Jun 8, 2009)

I cook for my dogs and also give them raw veggies and fruits. I know it's more time consuming and probably more costly than feeding kibble. However, my Neo has always been a fussy eater but after surviving parvo I pretty much fed her anything she was willing to eat (not an easy task either for the first few months she only ate if she was hand fed) and so it began...

Honestly if I could find a kibble she wouldn't lift her nose to I'd at least serve it as a snack. 

You might want to try mixing homecooked with kibble as another option. I never understood canned food it's much more expensive than _real meat_.

I agree with Lovemygreys : The expense depends on how you source the food.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

Home prepared food is far superior to kibbles if done right. But if done carelessly it is worse than kibble! It takes lots of time and some equipment and much more money for storage.

Some kibble costs more than raw or home cooked food. Wellness is extremely expensive per calorie. I costed out Max's raw food at $1.10 a pound, well Wellness costs close to $2 a pound! It only has 840 calories a pound and Max's 10 ounce meals have 500-600 calories! My 38 pound raw fed dog gets 600 or so calories a day and cost $22 that month. The 44 pound cooked diet dog gets 800-900 calories a day and last I checked cost was about $30 a month. All that was grocery store shopping sales. I have only needed to get the $1 Costco chicken a couple times, usually find it on sale when needed. The large number of Mexican markets in my area are a huge help especially for the raw fed dog. Heart, kidney, liver, chicken feet, cheap pork cuts are found in those markets.

And picking on Wellness again, check the ingredients. The underlined items are found naturally in a well thought out cooked or raw diet but MUST be added back to kibble. And from personal experience sulfates aren't well tolerated or absorbed supplements. The processing the food goes through means a lot of nutrients are lost!
Deboned Turkey, Chicken Meal, Salmon Meal, Oatmeal, Ground Brown Rice, Ground Barley, Rye Flour, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols, a natural source of Vitamin E), Menhaden Fish Meal, Tomato Pomace, Natural Chicken Flavor, Pea Fiber, Tomatoes, Salmon Oil, Ground Flaxseed, Carrots, Spinach, Sweet Potatoes, Apples, Blueberries, Potassium Chloride, Minerals [Zinc Sulfate, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper Proteinate, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Proteinate, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite], Vitamins [Beta-Carotene, Vitamin E Supplement, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Vitamin A Supplement, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B-12 Supplement], Choline Chloride, Taurine, Mixed Tocopherols (a natural preservative), Chicory Root Extract, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Chondroitin Sulfate, Dried Lactobacillus plantarum, Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation products. 

Both my dogs are far better off with whole food. Both have cleaner ears for one even though the ears were never infected. The older dog was stinky on kibbles, much better now. The high fat content, 55% for raw and 30% for cooked, has really helped the dog's coats and shedding. The stinky older dog's anal sacs have been expressed 3 times in the past 2 years versus monthly on kibble. Raw fed dog's teeth are scary clean for a 9 year old dog. Both adore meal time and the older one is in renal failure which affects the appetite.

Read Dogaware.com. There is a list of articles that has been published in Whole Dog Journal that is a very nice primer on feeding dogs. There are articles on feeding dogs all different ways. The owner, Mary Straus, is a co author of a dog cook book available on Amazon. If you log on a lot of the book can be read online. Then there are lists of places to look for more information.


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## boon4376 (May 18, 2009)

CristyTX said:


> in terms of health and cost, which is better? been thinking whether to start making my own dog food for my boys but not sure if it would be cheaper in the end but I'm guessing it would be better for them. any thoughts?


Well if its homemade vs Orijen its pretty easy to go cheaper home made...

A lot of expensive store bought foods are over $1.50 per pound.. well the store bought ones i'd consider feeing my dog are, and at the grocery store you can easily find meats and other ingredients that are less than $1.00 per pound...

Just make sure you are measuring all of the calories in your home made ingredients correctly. I'd buy a food scale and use (but its pretty easy to tell from the packaging on most meats in the grocery store)
http://www.nutritiondata.com/
to sort out how much nutrients your dog food recipes are bringing to your pet.

If this article doesnt convince you to start adding raw food to supplement your pets diet, i don't know what will
http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/784/Patrick06.html


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