Aunt Jeni’s Dog Food Review

Aunt Jeni’s raw dog foods are considered low risk. When it comes to ingredient quality, several of the foods score a perfect 10. However, the lamb recipe contains nearly twice as much fat. This particular protein contains nearly twice as much fat as protein, which is certainly undesirable since high fat diets can cause gut imbalance, especially saturated fats. Some of the foods also weigh in at over 15% carbohydrate, which will knock down the score a bit. With that said, the carbohydrate is from fruits and vegetables, not grains or legumes, which is definitely desirable.  

On the ingredient safety side, the foods scores well, although some points are lost for known high pesticide/herbicide foods which can appear in the top 5 ingredients. This includes apples and celery. Despite this, there are a couple of organic ingredients added, including kelp and alfalfa. 

Aunt Jeni’s claims they source most of their main ingredients from the US. Overall, this is what a raw food should be, with real food ingredients and free of a vitamin and mineral premix. With the exception of the Lamb recipe and perhaps the chicken, the foods are low in fat with a good amount of added fresh vegetation. With that said, there is no added fish oil and the omega-6:omega-3 ratio is not reported, so buyer beware: this food may or may not be inflammatory.   

The average score of Aunt Jeni’s Dry Dog Foods is listed below. Click on any food to view the individual food score. 

To date, Aunt Jeni’s has not been recalled. 

However, the FDA has caution consumers on two separate occasions that lots of the food were contaminated with Salmonella. On August 30 2019, the USDA found two samples tested positive for Salmonella and/or Listeria on inspection. The FDA issued a warning on lots of their turkey and chicken foods. 

On February 14 2020, the USDA collected a sample that tested positive for Salmonella and the FDA again issued a caution, this time for the turkey food. 

Aunt Jeni’s did not recall the food, claiming the FDA did not provide proof of the positive sample. 

Bacteria of all species can be common in raw (and cooked) foods and normally doesn’t present a problem for the dog eating it. Additionally, the rapid testing used by the USDA can pick up non-pathogenic bacteria species, and it’s debatable that zero bacteria in any pet food is desirable or beneficial.