The Farmer’s Dog Dog Food Reviews

The Farmer’s Dog food is a subscription cooked food that’s customized for your dog. While the company started out making the food themselves, they’ve grown to the level where the food is now made in USDA kitchens around the country. 

The foods are shipped frozen, direct to consumers, and freshly cooked just before shipping. You can specify the delivery schedule you want for your dog.

The recipes are formulated “by board-certified veterinary nutritionists” based on your dog’s breed, age, activity level, ideal weight, and sensitivities.

IS THE FARMER’S DOG A GOOD DOG FOOD? 

The Farmer’s Dog has an overall rating of 6.8 making it a moderate risk dog food. The company offers “gently cooked” foods that are considered moderately processed compared to canned and kibble. Minimal or no processing is preferred since heating foods causes losses in some active enzymes, amino acids and phytonutrients. 

There are four protein choices – Chicken, Beef, Turkey and Pork, with average protein of 38% and fat of 27% – quite a high level of fat. The carbohydrate content varies for each recipe, with Turkey especially high at 35%. This is disappointing for a company whose marketing is highly critical of kibble. Larger amounts of starch or carbohydrate can increase insulin levels and cause unwanted changes to the gut microbiome.

All four recipes lose ingredient quality points for excessive vitamins and minerals, which indicates a lower quality food that lacks naturally occurring nutrients in the ingredients. Vitamin and mineral excesses, especially vitamin D and copper can often result from added vitamin premixes, so it’s preferable that most or all vitamins and minerals come from real foods.   

The Beef, Turkey and Pork recipes all lose ingredient safety points for having high pesticide or herbicide foods in the top 5 ingredients. These include lentils, chickpeas and potatoes, depending on the recipe. These chemicals pose a significant health risk, and crops like legumes that are known to be spray-dried with glyphosate are especially high in herbicide residues. The same foods are also typically genetically modified, unless they’re certified organic. There are limited safety studies on the long term risks of GMO foods, and they lack nutrients compared to non GMO foods. 

The Farmer’s Dog recipes all lose ingredient safety points for including a non-specific animal ingredient, which is fish oil. The company doesn’t specify if the fish oil is farmed or wild caught. Wild caught fish is more nutritious with a better fatty acid profile than farmed fish. 

Finally, the company doesn’t provide the omega-6:omega-3 ratio, which is unfortunate since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory limit of 30:1.