Stella & Chewy's Freeze-Dried DOG FOOD Review

With an average score of 8.7/10, Stella & Chewy’s Freeze-Dried is considered a low risk dog food, and is the company’s second highest scoring brand. There are 26 recipes that average 41% protein and 8.9% carbohydrate as calculated.  The line includes several recipes that can be fed as meal mixers or as a complete meal. However, foods (Savory Salmon & Cod Meal Mixer, and Healthy Heart Support) have been excluded from this review as they are for supplemental feeding only and are not complete foods. The remaining foods in the line includes 4 recipes for special health issues (Immune, Skin & Coat, Digestive, Hip & Joint), and those are significantly higher in carbs. 

These are freeze-dried recipes that are minimally processed with minimal loss of nutrients. They have a low level of carbohydrates obtained from fruits and vegetables rather than grains and starches. However, as noted above, six recipes have carbohydrate levels higher than we like to see in a freeze-dried food. Many of the recipes in this line are also higher in fat then we’d like to see. Fat is a valuable macronutrient, but it’s relatively devoid of vitamins and minerals and high fat diets can lead to unwanted changes in the gut flora. 

Like all of Stella & Chewy’s recipes in all lines, there are added vitamins and minerals. This often indicates a lower quality food that’s lacking naturally occurring nutrients from whole food sources. A few recipes also use sunflower oil, which is a highly processed and highly inflammatory oil. Seed oils are an inexpensive alternative to higher quality animal fats and oils. 

This line doesn’t lose any points for ingredient safety. One reason is because it’s a freeze-dried food and has minimal processing. The other reason is because fruits and vegetables in all Stella & Chewy’s lines are organic. Organic ingredients are non-GMO and have minimal risk of pesticide/herbicide residues than conventionally grown crops.

It’s worth noting that these recipes contain sodium selenite as a source of selenium. Dogs need selenium, and it’s usually added in very small amounts. However some research suggests that sodium selenite may be associated with potential toxicity, so selenium yeast is the preferred form of this mineral.  

The company uses unsubstantiated marketing terms, such as cage-free or humanely-raised. These are purely marketing terms that have no legal meaning under pet food regulatory standards. And in fact, all chickens raised in the US are cage free as per USDA standards.

Fish used in Stella & Chewy’s recipes is wild-caught, which is more nutritious than farmed fish, and with a better fatty acid profile. 

The label does not provide the omega-6:omega-3 ratio, which is a concern since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory ratio of 30:1.